It was my birthday on the 14th of May. Michael got me something nerdy I have wanted since I was a kid--A rock tumbler.
Frankly I was expecting something more complicated. I had imagined some strange system of brushes or grinders inside the cylinder. It's really just a tube with 14 walls on the inside so the rocks can ... well.. tumble. The polishing is done by adding in sand/grit which grinds away at the surface of the stones. Here's what it looks like before starting:
6/17/2011 edit: The entire process takes about a month. I, of course, have been slacking and keep forgetting to switch it to the next phase. After a week tumbling in "coarse grit" the rocks were already looking kinda shiny. I took some pictures which somehow got deleted off of my phone.
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