Rock Finds

We have been away in Idaho for a couple of weeks and while I was there, like I do everywhere, I looked for rocks. Its always exciting to find cool rocks yourself, especially when you can't afford to buy them from anyone else. I was able to find quite a few really nice ones that should help to keep the tumbler busy for a while.

I found these at a family reunion in Pine Idaho. These are not for tumbling, they are really interesting just the way they are. I think they are mostly quartz but they have that cool silvery stuff in them which I think is mica.

I found lots of rocks like these in Pine. I think they are quartz and at the reunion I was trying to find a piece of glass to scratch with them to get some idea of how hard they are. I also wanted to rule out the possibility that they were really just white marble which is too soft for tumbling. I wasn't able to find any broken glass or anything so when my wife wasn't looking I used one of the baby's bottles. They scratch glass quite easily so I'm pretty sure that this is quartz.

I also found some granite (I think). The pink granite is from Pine and the black is from Blackfoot. Most people don't bother tumbling granite because it is a bit on the soft side but I can't ever seem to say no to an interesting looking rock and beggars can't be choosers as they saying goes. I'm going to try it with a fifth stage (1000 grit aluminum oxide, if I can get it).

These are some more interesting rocks I found in my parent's back yard in Blackfoot. I really have no idea what they are (I really don't know much about rocks or identifying them) if any one does, let me know. I can't scratch them with the quartz so they should be hard enough to tumble.

I also found a bit of obsidian. I was especially excited to find some that was a greenish blue. I've never seen any but the black or the snow flake varieties. I was really excited. I'm going to wait a while to tumble this. I understand that obsidian is fairly difficult to tumble well so I'm going to practice for a bit first.

Here's a close up of one of the pretty green ones.

So that wraps up of the trip. Be sure to click on the pictures to see them their full sizes. If any of you know what these rocks actually are or have any tips on how to tumble them leave a comment.

My Rock Tumbling Story

When I was a kid I got a rock tumbler for Christmas from my grandparents. I had never seen nor heard of a rock tumbler before but it sounded cool so I tried it out. Well, like most little kids who try rock tumbling I was soon a little disappointed. The process takes a long time, patients is something kids seem to have in short supply, and the results were not that fantastic, certainly not like the pictures on the box (the directions that come with tumblers seem to be designed to guarantee failure). So after a few attempts, the rock tumbler was set aside and largely forgotten for a few years.

Some time towards the end of high school for unknown reasons, I began to have a renewed interest in tumbling, but again had disappointing results. This time however I had access to the Internet and was able to find lots of great ideas to improve my tumbles. Unfortunately, I was not able to put these into practice then because the time had come for me to go to college (for some reason, roommates don't seem to appreciate the 24/7 noise of a rock tumbler). So once again the rock tumbler got packed away, not before I was able to get my hands on some decent rough (unpolished rocks) and grit though. There it sat unused but not forgotten for a year of college, two years of a mission for my church, about three more years of college, and a year while I was working and living with relatives. During this time I also got married, had a son, and my wife became pregnant with our daughter. Finally, at the start Dental School we found a house to live in with a basement where I could set up my rock tumbler again. So, once we were sort of unpacked I dug out the old tumbler and have had it running ever since, probably about 9 months or so.


Here it is, the classic, much maligned rolling stones rock tumbler. A lot of serious tumblers hate these things, but with a fair amount of baby sitting, they will polish rocks and besides, since on a student budget with a family of four we can barely afford the electricity to run the ten watt motor, any tumbler that I already have is a good tumbler. It is also nice because it is very small and so it doesn't cost much to keep it full of rough and grit. Of course the small size also means that my pile of rough to be tumbled grows a lot faster than what my tumbler can keep up with. My biggest problem right now though is that the manufacturer seems to have gone out of business and these things do require replacement parts to keep them running. Perhaps the time has come to rebuild my grandfather's old tumbler.