There aren’t a lot of supplies or equipment needed for rock tumbling, but the few that are are absolutely essential. The most important accessories you’ll need for rock tumbling are:
- Rocks
- Grit & Polish
- Tumbling Media
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It is critical that you make the right choices with all three of these items because, along with the rock tumbler itself, they will have the biggest impact on your final tumbling results. Here are my recommendations for each, to give you the best chances of creating beautifully smooth and shiny rocks.
Rocks for Tumbling
I wrote an entire post about the best rocks for tumbling. If you want to tumble a specific type of rock then I’d suggest reading that post which also contains some links to tumbling rough of specific types of rocks.
If you’re looking for a great variety of rocks to tumble, you can’t do any better than this 3-pound mix of rough rocks & minerals (link to Amazon). It contains three 1-pound bags of rocks – one each from Madagascar, Brazil, and Asia. In total, you get about 50 to 60 beautiful and varied rocks from all over the world.
Tumbling Grit
If you need a refill on your tumbling grit, look no further than this tumbling grit from the Rock Shed (link to Amazon). Unlike some other grit refills kits, the final polish in this product is aluminum oxide which will give a much nice final polish to your rocks. It’s also surprisingly affordable and contains enough grit to tumble about 15 pounds of rocks.
Tumbling Media
Every tumbling enthusiast has their preference when it comes to tumbling media, but my personal favorite is these ceramic pellets from Polly Plastics (link to Amazon). I’d recommend getting 3 pounds worth because I often find that one 1.5 pound bag isn’t quite enough. These pellets are all the same size which works just fine, but some people prefer the version with mixed sizes of pellets.
While I have not personally used them, many people swear by Polly Plastic’s plastic pellets. I’ve had really good results with Polly Plastic products so if I were ever going to try using plastic pellets these would be the ones. They come highly recommended by many other tumbling enthusiasts.