Rock tumbler polishing and burnishing - can you do it at the same time?

[meMiner]

I have attempted to burnish in the fine polishing stage and the results have been questionable. I guess I need to experiment more, but wonder if anybody else has tried this? ie. add the proper amount of polish compound PLUS ivory soap and perhaps sugar and baking soda. It sure makes a thick slurry, helping to keep the rocks from breaking. I suspect that doing it separate would yield better results or I would still need to burnish anyway.

 

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[willjo]

Cant help my final stage is polish for hard stones Aluminum oxide and it gives as good a finidh as I want.

 

[T.C.]

My final stage is burnish....polish is next to last. That's how I do it with petrified wood anyway.

 

[meMiner]

In my experiment (just finished), I did aluminum oxide with soap and backing soda for a week. It came out pretty good. But....6 hours more with just soap and water was a marginal improvement. So I conclude from this one run, that you need to do each separately, but putting some soap into the polish stage does not hurt. ie. burnishing alone makes them nicer. Rock tumbling sure teaches a fellow patience.