VEVOR KD-B1031 Mode D'emploi page 18

Helpful Tips For Perfectly Polished Rocks
Do not overload your tumbler! This is a leading cause of belt breakage and
motor burn-out. When in doubt, weigh your barrel. A barrel for a 1-lb motor
should not exceed a weight of 2 pounds when charged with rocks, grit, and
water.
Resist the temptation to tumble rocks with cracks or pits. Grit will get
into these pits and contaminate subsequent steps, ruining the polish of the
entire load. No amount of scrubbing with a toothbrush will remove all of the
grit inside a pit!
Use a balanced load
that includes both large and small rocks. This will
improve the tumbling action.
Make sure all rocks in a load are of the same approximate
hardness.Otherwise, the softer stones will be worn away during the
polishing process. An exception to this is when you are purposely using
softer stones to fill/cushion a load.
Don't wash grit down the drain!
lt will create a clog that is impervious to
drain cleaner. Rinse the grit steps outside using a garden hose. Another
option is to rinse the grit into a bucket, for later disposal somewhere other
than your plumbing.
Don't reuse grit.
Silicon carbide loses its sharp edges after about a week's
tumbling time and becomes useless for grinding.
You can add baking soda, Alka-Seltzer, or a Tums to a load to prevent
gas build-up.
For smooth river rocks or for any softer stones (e.g. sodalite, fluorite,
apatite), you may omit the first coarse grit step.
For softer stones(especially obsidian or apache tears), you need to slow
the tumbling action and prevent the stones from impacting each other
during polishing. Some people have success adding corn syrup or sugar
(twice as much as the amount of prepolish and polishing agent) to thicken
the slurry. Another option is to polish the stones dry (as in no water) with
cerium oxide and oatmeal.
Always wash a few "test" stones before changing grit. The purpose of
the roughest grit #1 is to completely round all of the edges. Whenever you
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