Rock Tumblers?

[Mama Lynx]

My geology nut has a birthday coming up (8th birthday), and he has asked for a rock tumbler.

 

Any experience, advice, tips, suggestions? So far what I'm seeing is that we can buy him a cheap one, which will be loud and will break; or an expensive one (well, 2x the price of the cheap one). I'd rather go for the quality, but ... er, well, it's expensive, and who knows if the kid is really going to enjoy this, or if it's going to sit in the corner. I also read that it takes *weeks* to complete the rock polishing process, and I don't know how he'll feel about that.

 

Thoughts?

 

I always wanted one as a kid, but my parents refused. They didn't want the noise, or the rocks everywhere :D I figure if nothing else, we'll have pretty rocks for the garden.

[plansrme]

friends of ours had one that they kept running in the garage. I thought that was a sensible way to minimize the annoyance.

 

That sounds like fun, and those 8 weeks are going to go by whether you have a rock tumbler or not. Might as well have some shiny rocks at the end of it.

 

Terri

[Lolly]

my dd13 wanted one of these for Christmas. All I could find was the cheap one. It worked for two batches of rocks. Now it will not turn at all. On the second batch, we kept having to fiddle with it to keep it moving. Plastic gears do not hold upl at all. No point in purchasing the cheap one unless you just like to throw money in the trash. The noise is pretty bad. Hers was kept in the garage. I still kept wondering what the noise was for quite a while whenever I was in the kitchen.

[CindyH in NC]

I am pretty sure that I asked about tumblers on the old board, and the answers were just what you mentioned - buy a cheap one that will break or buy an expensive one. :) We purchased the Thumbler's Tumbler Model T for approx. $100 and we have been very pleased. The "bowl" part that you put the rocks in is a thick rubber material and even though it is noisy it is not as noisy as I expected it to be. Also it has been very easy to find the replacement grit and polish for this at our local craft stores.

 

It does take approximately a month to run a load of rocks through the whole cycle.

 

I read through reviews of the various tumblers on Amazon ( I think it was Amazon ) and was able to determine the brands I was interested in.

 

Hope this helps,

Cindy

[Tammyla]

They are so much fun. My kids loved it, we set it up in the BASEMENT. No problem with noise down there. The finished rocks were amazing.

[teamturner]

My il's got one last December for our rock loving son who really wanted one. I read the reviews on the cheaper ones and they all seemed to break. So we got one that was available at a local rock store (Lortone 3A) for around $80. What adds to the price is getting all the grit and bags of rocks. Here's a website that is listing this tumbler for $66

 

http://www.erocktumbling.com/

 

The guy at our local rock store said this was a good first rock tumbler and this brand has been around for a long time. I think there was some kind of warranty included but I can't remember what it was.

 

My son only did one set of rocks and seemed to lose interest. I think it was more complicated than he thought it would be and my husband helped him when it was time to change the solution, etc. But I'm still glad we went with the better model because I'm sure he will get into it again. When he is older and can do it by himself. He'd probably use it more now if I took the time to help him. My father brought us some rocks he found on the shores of Lake Superior that we need to polish up so we should be using it again in the near future. Plus I have 4 dc so the likelihood that one of the other kids wants to try it is good. I didn't find it too loud and we kept it in our garage and sometimes in the laundry room. At first it was in the kitchen which did bother me.

[Desert Rat]

My geology nuts love ours. The only thing that's hard is that it takes soooo long. And I don't like the noise. We set our up on top of the freezer in the garage. HTH

[Jenny in Atl]

We have one and love it. Now that I'm making jewelry, we use it for both.

Here's a great link to help you choose the best tumbler for your family.