Tumbling My Time Away — Goldbug Mosaics

As the weeks and now months of social isolation drag on, one of the ways I’ve been amusing myself is by running my rock tumbler 24/7. About three years ago my husband and I decided to invest in a tumbler. He was most interested in tumbling rocks. Now don’t get me wrong, tumbled rocks are beautiful, but in general I prefer to use rock in its raw form for my mosaics. So I tend to spend most of my time tumbling glass and ceramic for use in my mosaics. Our tumbler is a Lorotone, the model with two 3 pound barrels, which allows me to tumble two different things at once.

The glass I tumble is primarily glass that would wind up discarded or possibly recycled. Beautiful blue and green wine bottles, olive oil bottles, Bombay Sapphire gin bottles and assorted other bits and pieces. I cut the glass (using my wheeled nippers mostly) into a variety of shapes and sizes and the end result is spectacular! Here’s the thing though, it is NOT instant gratification. It takes three weeks to get the result that I’m looking for, which is very smooth, somewhat shiny pieces of future tesserae.

If you read online, you’ll discover there are a variety of ways to tumble glass and everyone has their own preference. Some people use beach sand and some people do not go through all the different levels of grit that I use. Some people want their glass to look more like sea glass, but as I said, I’m looking for something that is smoother and shinier than most sea glass. I start with 120/220 grit (which is #2 in the four steps required for rock) for a week, then move to aluminum oxide for a week and end with a week of a finer polishing aluminum oxide. I also add a small amount of baking soda each time which takes care of the gas that is produced when tumbling glass and can lead to the lid popping off of the barrel which would be very messy! Occasionally, I just want to tumble some pieces of stained glass to eliminate the sharp edges. For this, I just add a few drops of dish detergent with the water and only tumble for a couple of hours. The look of the glass does not change very much at all, but the sharp edges are gone.

It is also lots of fun to tumble ceramic, either dishes or pottery type ceramic. Some of the ugliest dishware and pottery can make some of the most beautiful and interesting tesserae! When tumbling ceramic, I typically use the 120/220 grit but only tumble the material for a few hours. The length of time depends on the material. I have tumbled things too long and wound up with a bunch of white tesserae. You never know how something is going to turn out and that’s half the fun. Here are some pictures of tumbled ceramics and pieces I’ve created using material I’ve tumbled.