Rock Tumbler

[NorbertDentressangle]

Has anyone got any experience of Rock Tumblers?

Would I be mad to consider getting one for DD (nearly 9)?

She loves semi-precious stones, tumbled stones, pieces of quartz etc but my reservations are:

-I get the impression it takes a long time to get a smooth, polished stone
-that it might be noisy/dangerous having it running for x days

DDs freind has one of these and loves it. It does take a long time though and it is a bit noisy.

What age is she dustystar?

re: noise. We could put it in the workshop/stable but I wouldn't be happy about leaving it running for days unsupervised due to potential fire hazard TBH.

Shes 9. I know that her parents have left it running for long periods and haven't had a problem.

If you leave it running in the workshop you could have it plugged into a circuit breaker which would remove the fire risk.

I always wanted one of these

Ask for one for Xmas pigleto.

There seem to be 2 sorts I could consider:

National Geographic one which is obviously designed to look nicer

and

Others like this which are obviously not tarted up to look nice.

Anyone know anything about them?

Do you have to leave it on continuously, or can you turn it off at night?

From what I've read it needs to be on continuously as otherwise it congeals and sets in the tumbler.

I think its just the noise and time thats putting me off -DD would love the results

Any of the evening crowd have any experience?

I'm still undecided