Ceramic Media Replacement Rock Tumbling Experiment Crystal Wellness Studio 

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Rock Chips are awesome for making Tossles 😢 on Bracelets I know cause I've made an Amethyst bracelet and put an Amethyst Tossle on one end of it and it turned out Super Great 👍😃👋

in my tumbling after 2 days i clean the rock dust out to keep the slurry from getting to thick . this looks like what you have when you open your barrel at the end of the week . i pour the barrel into a small gold pan and float off the lite rock slurry ... the grit sinks to the bottom you wont louse it than put it back in the barrel..i dont use any soap just rock, grit, water . it took me a long time to learn the additives eather thicken or dilute the grinding action......

I sure sympathize with your mistake, having made it myself;). Don't throw them away! You don't need to pre-tumble chips to effectively use them as filler for tumbling more normal larger rocks. Using chips as a ceramic substitute in the rough stage works great. Leaving the sharp edges allows them to be ground away quickly making a great slurry which helps the stage one grinding. If you do want to tumble the chips themselves, add some larger rocks to the barrel, the weight of which will ensure that the chips are pushed around and tumble properly. A related trick I accidentally "discovered" is that adding some chip-sized pieces of rock that are slightly softer than the main contents of the barrel quickly makes a great slurry that helps harder rocks (e.g. agates) wear down faster and more effectively. If you add too many the slurry quickly turns to mud which doesn't tumble. Since then my most used go-to chips are some so-called "Sunset Granite" landscaping rock from Lowe's I happened to have from other projects.

I'm new to tumbling but bought like five pounds of random small rock pieces, mostly agate, to use as filler media in the grinding/shaping stage 1. It was much cheaper than ceramic or plastic. I didn't pre-tumble them and just toss in a handful or so as needed. It seems to work well for me for that first stage but like I said, I'm new and have only done hard (6.5-7) rocks. I do wonder if my rock piece media chews up more grit from grinding tiny rock media than ceramic media would. After a week in a 3.5 pound rotary tumbler there is no sign of any of the 3 tablespoons of grit left.

Are those chips in that Rock Tumbler drilled?