Stone polishing for garden display purpose

If you type ´rock tumbler´ in the CR4 search you will find a few people who maybe able to help.

good luck

Or, consult a lapidary specialist.

What you do may depend on what you are starting with and how many stones you want to polish, and how shiny you want them. The basic idea will be the same however no matter what you want. You put your stones in an agitator of some sort along with a grit and run it for a week or more. You then change the grit to successively finer grits until the stones look like you want them to. If you want to polish a lot of stones at once check out my blog on how I made a rock tumbler.

One of the guys here at work does rock tumbling for his very small rocke but has recently gotten into clearcoating some larger ones. He has a large variety of rocks in his garden from very small to very large. What is unique is the larger one have been thoroughly washed and then coated with a polyurethane clearcoat. Very pretty display especially when wet.

I do lapidary work in my spare time, and yes if you want to polish small stones a tumbler is the way to go. I would look on ebay for about a 6pound tumbler used if you are interested.

If you want to polish large rocks and do not have access to diamond grinding stones and a water cooled grinder, then the only way is too cheat. Take a large rock and clean it off very very good, while it is still wet take a med grit sand paper and go over the side of the rock you want to show off with alot of force for about 5mins. Then go buy a clear coat and when the rock is dry spray it all over the rock in an even coat. This will give the rock a polished apearence but with alot less work.

Check this DIY Rock Tumbler from the Workbench Creations blog on CR4