Can You Tumble Random Rocks?

I am so glad I'm not the only person who has buckets of random rocks that have no real purpose but get kept forever because each rock is special. It's a lifestyle.

I've got an old plastic peanut butter jar filled with raw agates I picked out of gravel pits when I worked as a truck driver hauling gravel in to a factory that made prefab reinforced concrete, some 30 odd years ago. As I was the only lady driver in the company, the guys I worked with started picking out any cool rocks they found for me as well. Never got a tumbler, and when I took my 'umble collection to a rock club to see if they'd tumble them for me, they sniffed at my collection and said it wouldn't be worth the time. This makes me want to get a tumbler myself and give it a go - I bet my little agates would shine up just fine if even this bunch of random rocks came out so pretty...

My biology professor always said "there's no such thing as a failed experiment, record everything that happens, you can always learn from it". That's definitely what happened here, i think we all learned a lot from this! I have no idea how i ended up here btw, i was randomly recommended this video. I love seeing people's hobbies and how interesting they are!

I do batches of random rocks for my girls and their friends. They spend so much time picking through for their favorites and trade them with their friends for hours. I set up my light table and give them magnifying glasses and lupes they can share

I know nothing about rock tumbling but I do think it's cool how the process brought out a lot of bright colors and patterns you couldn't see before, low key makes me want to get a tumbler someday

We do random rocks a lot in our tumblers....our whole family are constantly picking up rocks to put in the tumblers to see how they turn out....those turned out good 👍

10:40. I really like how the basalt looks, even though it didn't come out the best I still really just love how it looks with that texture, it really compliments the dark color of the stone.

I am impressed by your commitment to rock tumbling as well as mint chocolate chip ice cream

The final product for me is kind of nostalgic, just cause it looks like the polished rocks you could get in the grab bins of so so so many gift shops across the country, at least when I was younger. Much to the annoyance of my dad since my brother and I ALWAYS had to get a bag of those random rocks, to the point that I still have a box of them in my nightstand XD I love it, and so glad I came across your video.

Finding your own rocks is great. I spent a couple months working in Spain and my girlfriend picked up tons of rocks on the beaches. We used a Mohs hardness kit and separated them by hardness before tumbling them. We ended up with fantastic results, and it was a lot more fun than just using rocks that we ordered.

I got a tumble-polisher when I was a kid and just dug stones out of the garden to feed it. We're on glacial till so there was a huge variety of gorgeous reds and browns from all parts north. I made pendants and bracelets from some, filled the dishes around plant pots with the rest. The tumbler's long gone but I never broke the habit of picking up random rocks :)

I feel like these would make really cool additions to aquariums.

When I first started tumbling, I grabbed random rocks from our driveway and from the road side! It was a good way to practice and some came out really nice. I love your quartz piece, the red ones are kind of like jasper! They are also pretty!!! Fun project!

i grew up in the 60s tumbling found rocks with my grandpa, and i still have a few of them. i actually didn't even realise some people bought special rocks to tumble until my 20s! and i LOVE how yours turned out!

I'm 76, former Infantry Marine with 28 months in combat, college grad, design engineer, and am teaching my 9 year old granddaughter how to "Tumble Rocks", as I bought her a Rock Tumbler for her 10th birthday. I loved your video, I'll have granddaughter watch it with me today, then we'll follow your instructions. She is wildly excited and frankly so am I, but I'm more excited by her excitement then anything of my own making. But..., ..., I can't wait to see our end result together. Thanks so much for making this video!

I think it was a success. I really like the random textures and colors. I'm always bringing small pretty rocks home to my wife that I find while walking my dog. Thanks for sharing.

Maybe I’m basic, but I think they turned out pretty :) Im not sure what I would use them for, but I think they would look really pretty embedded in clay as a showcase of local geological colors and textures On that note, I’m reminded of a time around 2012, this great art store in St Paul called Wet Paint carried a really nice watercolor brand where some of the paints were actual crushed up pigments (ie: the amethyst was crush amethyst). The brand made a local paint for every state. Minnesota’s we’re crushed up clay pipes and it was a beautiful, warm, earthy brown. But anyway, fun video. Thank you for sharing :)

I think this was a great experiment. They turned out a lot better than I thought they would. Wow, that slurry was crazy thick and muddy. I'm glad you did this. 👩‍🔬

Yup, it was a lot of fun. Random rocks give a random polish. You never know until you try. Now you know. Thanks for taking us along on the journey.

All of my rocks are stuff I’ve picked up on walks or from the North Shore. I don’t think I’d just go grab a bunch of rocks and dirt off a road and tumble though. Thanks for sharing and thanks for helping us learn.