Stone Tumbling Service
We run rough loads through staged rotary drums, starting at a coarse cut and stepping down until the surface closes. Each barrel is weighed, logged and turned on a set schedule so no load is rushed.
Carnelian Sanchez, LLC runs a working lapidary shop at 4995 W Sandwell Dr, West Valley City - 84120-6473, United States (US), where rough rock is tumbled, ground and glazed until the banding inside finally shows. Our drums turn night and day, and every load passes a hand check before it is called finished. Collectors and makers send us rough stock, and we return pieces that are ready to hold.
Ask the bench a question about a rough loadThree drums, one drive belt, coarse grit running
Each card below is one bench service, hung at its own height the way our shop board keeps them. Read across the rail and you have the whole route a rough stone takes through this building.
We run rough loads through staged rotary drums, starting at a coarse cut and stepping down until the surface closes. Each barrel is weighed, logged and turned on a set schedule so no load is rushed.
After the fine stage we take every stone to the glaze drum and then to the cloth wheel for a hand buff. This is where the flame colour of a good carnelian finally lifts out of the rough.
Oversized or awkward pieces go to the trim saw before they ever see grit. We square edges, remove fractures and reduce a heavy nodule to a size that will finish evenly.
Not every rock in a bucket deserves a drum. We sort by hardness, fracture and colour band, then set aside the pieces worth the time and tell you plainly which ones are not.
Old shelf pieces come to us cloudy, scratched or dull from handling. We re-run them at a gentle stage, lift the haze and return the depth without grinding away the original shape.
Once a stone is finished we clean the surface, check the footing and prepare it for the plinth or shelf it will sit on. The piece arrives ready to be placed, not ready to be handled again.
People often ask why tumbling takes weeks when it looks like a machine doing the work. The answer is that stone does not care about the calendar. A coarse drum has to round corners slowly, or it will chip the very banding that makes a piece worth keeping. So we run coarse stages long, we step grit at the right moment, and we let the medium drum settle the surface before the fine drum ever touches it. The Stone Tumbling Service is therefore a schedule and a discipline as much as it is equipment.
Once a load has come through the fine stage we move to Surface Polishing, where the glaze drum and then the cloth wheel do the last of the work. On a carnelian the difference is loud, a dull orange shell turning into a deep flame that seems lit from underneath. Pieces that arrive too large for the drum go through Cutting and Shaping first, and loads that are simply mixed get a pass through Rough Stock Selection so that hard and soft material are never asked to finish together.
We also keep a small restoration bench. Hobbyists bring cloudy heirlooms and shelf pieces for Collection Restoration, and when a finished stone is headed to a case or a cabinet we handle Display Mount Preparation so the footing and surface are ready. Every one of those steps is written on the card rail above and described in full on the services page.
Carnelian Sanchez, LLC opens its autumn tumbling batch window, and rough stock dropped at the West Valley City bench before the frost joins the first coarse run of the season.
The floor of our shop is arranged by grit, not by product. A coarse corner holds the big drums and the trim saw, the middle of the room belongs to the medium and fine stages, and the far wall near the window is the polish bench with its felt lined tray, its cloth wheel and its drain board. Walk the length of the room and you walk the whole route a stone takes.
We work in small batches because small batches can be watched. A load of twenty pieces can be inspected stone by stone at every stage, which is how we catch a fracture early instead of finding it after weeks of turning. The schedule on the wall is the real product of this shop, and it is kept by hand.
Collectors bring buckets of rough gathered on trips and ask for a finished set. Makers send cut blanks that need a softer edge before they are set or mounted. Clubs send mixed loads and trust us to sort before we run. Museums and private owners hand over cloudy pieces for a gentle restoration that will not erase the original form.
Because we are a workshop and not a storefront, everything moves by arrangement. Tell us what you have, how much of it there is, and what you want it to look like at the end. We will tell you honestly whether the drum is the right tool for it. Reach the shop on +18655005937 or write to support@carneliansanchez.autos and we will answer from the bench.