Polly Plastics Polypropylene Plastic Poly Pellets - 2 lb Rock Tumbling Media for Enhanced Tumbling Action

Using this for the prepolish and final polish. Works very well. Because of the costs, I rinse and wash both off very well and reuse each, but only with the same level of grit.

I got a rock tumbler for Christmas. It was more for the kids, but we were looking for an opportunity to polish rocks we found at the beach and do it as a family. At the end of the 4+ week process, we found that the rocks were still a little dull. So we got these plastic fillers and ran it through the polish process again because we read that this helped with the overall shine . It definitely did. The rocks break down during the early phases of the tumbling process and they need some filler to keep the friction during the tumbling process to keep the barrel full. I think if the barrel isn't full, the barrel doesn't get enough friction to polish properly. It has been so much fun to do this with the kids. They love the end product. We already started the next batch of rocks. Fingers crossed, we are hoping for some more polished results. Overall, a fun family activity.

These did exactly what I was hoping, I had tumbled stones for about a month and upon the completion I just wasn’t happy with the polish left on the last grit I used. I asked for some recommendations and after a few people suggested this product I decided to try them out and after 6-7 days the shine on my stones was great and it worked on both hard and soft stones. Definitely would recommend to anyone tumbling stones

arrived quickly, love the re-seal bag. The size of the pellets is consistent and just as expected- this has really quieted down the noise from our tumbler!

I tried my first batch of rocks without using filler media and it didn't turn out like it should have. After further research I purchased the above plastic filler media and then some ceramic filler media and had great success. The ceramic filler media is for the 1st and 2nd steps while the plastic filler media is for the 3rd and 4th steps in the tumbling process. The plastic and ceramic do different things so make sure you get both in order to get the best results.

Just what we needed to add to our tumbler to get better results.

This item was shipped very quickly. I added the beads to my rock tumbler only a couple of days ago. I think they will make a difference in helping cushion the rocks as they tumble. I plan to use the beads with all the steps to help with the noise. The instructions with my tumbler suggest wood shavings with the last step. I think these will be much better because it will be less messy and I can reuse them. The large, resealable bag gives me plenty so I can use clean beads with each process. I'll put the used ones in separate, labeled bags for later use.

I'm new to rock tumbling and people I have spoken with have universally said their biggest complaint was the noise. The tumbler I bought was supposed to be quieter than average but I bought these to help out even more. Where I noticed a big difference was between the first and second grit I didn't add additional pellets to compensate for the loss of material in the first tumble and it was significantly noisier. In the 3rd grit phase I added new pellets to get the drum about 2/3 full and the difference in noise is amazing. Since I haven't run any without the pellets I can't speak to how it is affecting the performance of the tumbling vs without the pellets but I'm happy with the results I've seen so far.