Rock or gem collecting can be an enjoyable activity, especially when discovering what’s inside them. There are various ways to accomplish this, such as cutting and polishing rocks and gems to reveal their inner beauty. Personally, I have taken up rock tumbling since 2016, and I am fascinated and joyous with what I find inside each rock. For instance, I have tumbled some Agate that was so rough on the outside that it required extra time in the coarse stage to expose its beauty inside. However, one should be careful not to grind through the awesome exterior patterns and always pull out a few rocks to examine before cleaning everything out. I learned this the hard way and ended up dumping my barrel, only to refill it with the same stage. Therefore, there’s no need to dump the barrel until it’s complete, but adding fresh grit once a week is essential.
A diamond saw is the quickest way to discover what’s inside a rock. People usually break geodes open by hitting them with a hammer, but it is much nicer to have two clean halves. Using lapidary arbors and wheels, one can grind, sand, and polish a small side to create a sort of window into the interior. Recently, we discovered a pile of jet-black rock in our collection that we almost used in a retaining wall. Still, we decided to cut a piece open and found beautifully pink and black Rhodonite inside. The black exterior turned out to be a thin layer of oxidization.