The wet tumbling recipe that I have calls for Dawn and Lemi-shine. My suggestion is to get this great book which I sent to my granddaughters when they expressed an interest in rock tumbling after seeing mine. The rocks show off their colors best when they are wet and shiny. The easy way would be to use an acrylic spray to make your slabs shiny. River rocks can make an attractive display in your home or yard. Related: How To Make An Oil Lamp With Vegetable Oil & DIY Wick. These rock tumbler instructions will help give you a good before and after result. So grab your rock tumbling grit and a bucket of rough rocks to put in the rock polisher and simply follow these instructions! As a gift I bought them tumblers, rocks, grit, polish, and most importantly this book to read before starting the tumbling process. Re-Oil Rocks. They all ended up with some beautiful shiny tumbles. In burnishing, the rocks are tumbled with only the plastic pellets and the addition of an oil-free non-abrasive soap. After further tumbling, the rocks should now have a shiny look when dry. #rocks #minerals #rocktumbling #hobby #rockseeker Try a batch without the Dawn and try a batch without the Simple Green and report back the results. After a couple of weeks or months it’s usually necessary to re-oil the stones. The more porous rocks really don’t tumble all that well they will be rounded and nicely shaped but you will never achieve anything that looks like shine if the rock is soft or porous. Sometimes, stone "preforms" are used. This stage is the actual final stage to making rocks smooth and shiny. I'd guess the Simple Green might be reacting with one of the others and diminishing the cleaning and polishing action. Please Pin It! Feel free to ask a question or post a picture. A public subreddit for the discussion of rock hunting, rock collecting, crystals and mineralogy, geology, lapidary arts and rocks in general. By definition, burnishing is the act of rubbing a metal to make it shiny. 2. By the way, if you decide later that you don’t want shiny river rocks, just wash off the oil with soap and water! If this is not the case and the rocks appear to have a film on them, a burnishing step may be necessary. You will need to be careful when wrapping them, because the coating will scratch easily. Now the river rocks are more colorful and shiny. How to Give Stone a Glossy Finish. Whether you venture to the river bed or find river rocks at … Their variations in color and texture add aesthetic appeal wherever you place them. Topics include outings and trips, polishing, tumbling, cabochons, slabs and specimens. Your second option would be to either get a lapidary from a local rock club to tumble … Rocks and stone show off their colors when they are wet. 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