Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Hobby Rock Tumbler Kit - Rough Gemstones, 4 Polishing Grits, Jewellery Fastenings, Great STEM Science Kit for Geology Enthusiasts

Top positive review

What a Gem!

Reviewed in Australia on 30 August 2020

I bought the tumbler for my 7 year old but have had more fun than him. Running it near constant for a month has been no issue at all with the exception of the noise. The noise comes from the rocks tumbling, not the machine. I highly recommend building a box for it and filling lining the inside with foam to heap deaden the noise, then put it in a garage. That's what I did and I only hear it when I go in there. You get used to the noise but it is noticeably quiet when it gets switched off after a month. The safety features such as cut off it fingers are caught in the rollers are great, not that it is any concern as it is only the weight of the rocks. I highly recommend it but be prepared to find your own rocks and grit after.

5 people found this helpful

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John sukan

Not satisfied as it trips out.

Reviewed in Australia on 23 August 2021

It's tripping into fault mode and I cannot find a return address to get my refund. I am looking for a friend to assist me as return system is too difficult to work out. I guess I will be stuck with it till then.

3 people found this helpful

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flamebot

Decent little starter tumbler...If it keeps working for you

Reviewed in the United States on 21 February 2021

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

Got this for my 8 year old son for Christmas 2020. I myself had a very cheap rock tumbler as a child in the 80's, and enjoyed it until the cheap plastic barrel broke on that one back then.

This NatGeo tumbler seemed of much better construction than the one I had as a child, with a RUBBER barrel instead of plastic, and a thumb-screw that holds the lid on. The rubber barrel is much quieter than the plastic, and the design is good for an easy leak-free seal. Even with quieter operation, we keep this in the basement as it would be quite annoying to have in the living portion of the house.

So far, the performance of this tumbler has been very hit or miss. The supplied rocks are of a good quality, but the instructions provided are very rudimentary and you won't get good results with those instructions and the materials provided. The instructions are very nice looking and have nice pictures, but don't really give you the whole story. I know this is an instrument aimed at educating children as to the natural processes that produce smooth stones, but I feel that getting good results helps with that education. As supplied, your stones will not turn out shiny. Smooth, yes, but dull. The instructions tell you to rub them with a bit of mineral oil to get them to shine. Not only does that not work very well, it is also cheating in my opinion. You should be able to get shiny stones with the supplied materials. But, sadly, not with this kit. For good results, I needed to order some tumbler media, namely ceramic cylinders, to help cushion the stones from smashing into each other, and to aid in letting the grit/polish do its job.

And then there is the "blinking lights of death" issue. This phenomenon presented itself about three weeks into our first tumble. After a few minutes of operation, the motor would shut itself off and all the red lights would flash rapidly. Unplug the unit for a minute or so, and it would resume operation, sometimes. At first I thought we had overloaded it, but being as how we had lost a lot of mass from the stones in the first few weeks, I knew this was not the case. Could it be temperature? It is kind of cool in the basement (50degF). But, no, it wasn't that either. Finally, it got to the point that the unit wouldn't turn on at all, just go into red blinky mode whenever the power was turned on. Outside the return window, I had only one option. Take the sucker apart and see if I could spot the problem. What ended up being the issue was the motor getting filled up with a very fine black powder. Not entirely sure what the powder is, but blowing it out of the motor with an air compressor got us back up and running. You could use the canned air they sell for computers if you don't have an air compressor. If you need to perform this, there are 4 screws on the bottom, hidden under the 4 corner rubber feet. Just peel the feet off and put them somewhere clean until you are done and they'll stick right back on after you return the screws.

If you aren't handy at all, I'd stay away from this model. I don't see how anyone gets more than a month or two of performance out of it without having issues. The issue, for us, presented itself before we got even one batch of rocks tumbled. This could have been a real disappointment for my son and I had I not found a solution.

THE GOOD:
Rubber barrel for quiet(er) operation
The barrel is easy to use and leak free
Relatively inexpensive (get what you pay for)
Has options to set # of days up to 7
Seems to be efficient when it is running

THE BAD:
Will require strange maintenance to keep running
Instructions and supplies inadequate for good results
Tumble speed is rather fast, and is not adjustable.
Only enough rocks and grits for one tumble

Good Luck fellow Amazonians!

10 people found this helpful

Libbydlm

It is pretty quiet. Her parents moved it to their pantry ...

Reviewed in the United States on 19 October 2017

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

I bought this for my 7 year old granddaughter. It has been running almost non-stop since Sunday.They have stopped it only to check the progress of the stones. She began with about a 1/2 pound of stones - some came with the tumbler and some she had collected around the farm where she lives. Her plan is make Christmas presents from the rocks. We purchased her an extra jewelry to supplement the small kit that came with the tumbler.

It is pretty quiet. Her parents moved it to their pantry area where it was less of a distraction for their 2 year old who wanted to push thnse buttons.

I think this is a great tumbler to start any child with who is interested in rock collecting. My granddaughter is home-schooled so she will use her rock tumbling as part of her lessons in math and science. She will learn to identify different rocks and the geographical area in which they are found.

I would recommend this rock tumbler.

I will update this review after she has tumbled a month's worth of rocks.

61 people found this helpful

tracey miner

Not happy ☹️

Reviewed in the United States on 16 January 2022

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

Tumblr turned on but would shut off shortly after spinning. All the lights would be flashing. Thought I may have had too many rocks and we removed rocks and water until there was barely any left. Tumblr still stopped. Thought it would may be the outlet… nope. We tried a different outlet and it still quit. Was a Christmas gift for my 10-year-old daughter and we ended up returning it. She was very upset and crying. I’m very disappointed and I feel sorry for my daughter. She was really looking forward to this and enjoys nature and rocks.

3 people found this helpful

Martika Sweet

Not at all what I anticipated…

Reviewed in the United States on 4 February 2022

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

So I purchased this because it was on my child’s Christmas list and I thought it was something different to do, and something cool to try during the wintertime as it’s an indoor activity. I will say as I purchased this for my 5 year old and I do not believe this is a toy for him. He’s very mature and interested in rocks and different things than kids his age. But this was quite deceiving… once we received and starting setting up/reading instructions we realized this was meant for a much older child. First off, it could take anywhere from 2-6 weeks to be able to actually stop the process/cycle and the rocks to actually be done. You cannot touch the stuff you put in with the rocks with your hands, you need an adult to do it and you have to use these plastic tweezers/tongs to touch the rocks. You have to keep this thing running all day long on certain/different modes and it is quite loud. No child is going to want to wait 2-6 weeks for anything…. This felt more like an adult project. The packets it comes with to dump in with the rocks you have to switch daily- depends on the situation. It’s kind of a you do what you think type of thing but still trying to follow the directions. It’s very confusing, for me and my child. We ended up spending the money on this thing and on day 5-6 gave up. We haven’t touched it sense. It became more of a chore than anything fun. I regret spending the money on this/the refill packets to go with it. It’s expensive and I see why now… it’s not meant for children, maybe teens but even then I guarantee very few teens would find this interesting. Sadly disappointed and now something that’ll just sit in the box. Maybe it’s my fault for not reading the description upon buying, but it was definitely not at all what we expected.

One person found this helpful

Mega reviews

Such a great purchase! Before and after pictures taken

Reviewed in the United States on 9 February 2018

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

Such a great purchase! Before and after pictures taken. We bought this for our 5 year old daughter but it’s just as much of a gift for the entire family. It’s a great family activity and I highly recommend it. Follow the directions and it’s easy to use.

17 people found this helpful

EllieMae

Ample patience required

Reviewed in the United States on 12 September 2018

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

Works as promised. Rocks come out polished. The rocks included with the unit are a great sampling of tigers eye, rose quartz, etc. However, the polishing process takes so long that the child may lose interest. I bought this for my nephew who is 8...as most 8 year old boys do, he has a short attention span. Mom and Dad keep bringing this back to his attention so that it doesn't just end up in a pile of forgotten toys.
The polishing process literally takes weeks and weeks.

11 people found this helpful

C. Hatch

Fun for All Ages

Reviewed in the United States on 31 December 2020

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

My 11 year old grandson requested this for Christmas. He opened it on Christmas Day and immediately started choosing rocks to put in the tumbler and get it started. He thought it would be a fast and easy process, yet the process takes a lot of patience and time. The process itself is easy (putting the rocks and grit into the tumbler), but the time it takes for a rock to go from "natural" to "polished" is a lengthy process. He is now on grit #2 and excitedly shows me how the rocks are smoothing out after each tumble time. Great present, yet make sure the recipient understands that it's not a miracle product that immediately shines up the rocks. It takes time and more time to get to the polish that is expected.
Five months later: This tumbler has been running nearly day and night since Christmas, and we are getting some smooth rocks, yet not shiny polished. I don't understand the reviews that say this product isn't long lasting and dies. ours has been in the garage going forever and is working well. Great product.

Christopher N. Mills MD

Broke after 15 days: but great customer service

Reviewed in the United States on 4 March 2021

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

I got this for my eight year old son for his birthday, who is crazy about rock collecting. We set it up and made it through the first and second grit cycles nicely for the batch of rocks. But for the third cycle, the tumbler only goes for five minutes then stops, all lights flashing. I thought, maybe it is slightly too heavy (though the first two cycles were fine), so I removed over half the rocks and tried again, but the same result.

The rocks look way smoother but still have a rough feel to them. This was by far my son's favorite gift and he is crestfallen.

The return window is closed because it made it through the first two cycles, then broke.

I always loved National Geographic products--watches, compasses, sweaters, maps... This makes me think their quality has diminished and they are profiting on their past reputation.

-----------------

Edit 3/7/21:
I emailed help@natgeotoys.com and they got back to me within a couple hours asking for my address so they could send me another unit from a different production line of the motors. It arrived yesterday and so far it's working great... Excellent customer service even though the product was poor, so I'm changing to 4 stars.

Nerissa Sherrill

Customer service done right!

Reviewed in the United States on 9 June 2021

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

Customer service done right! We ordered this for our daughter for Christmas, then moved across country. It took five months for it to get unpacked and finally used. On the third grit stage of the first batch of rocks we had issues with the tumbler, the lights flashed red and it wasn’t spinning. We turned it off and back on and started it up again, it turned itself off and flashed red again and again until we admitted defeat and emailed the company for trouble shooting advice. Right out of the gate they apologized for the inconvenience and admitted it sounded like something not easily fixable and offered to send a replacement. They went above and beyond and included some extra rock kits and grit which was a happy surprise for my once bummed out 8 year old. I wish all customer service transactions were this pain free and pleasant! Thank you!

Shop Lady

It takes forever and is very noisy!

Reviewed in the United States on 13 January 2022

Style Name: Hobby KitVerified Purchase

I bought this as a Xmas present for a 9 year old without knowing it takes one month to polish the rocks and is very noisy. We had to put it in the garage! There are 4 packages of "Grit". Grit #1 took 5 days, Grit #2 took 8 days, Grit #3 took 8 days, Grit #4 took 10 days. All total 31 days! Not exactly the gift gratification I was hoping for it was left at my house to finish the process as the 9 year old grew board with it. Each time we open the tumbler to change out the grit the rocks are smaller and smaller. We are on the last grit packet and hoping we have enough rocks left over to use in the jewelry kit that came with it.

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5 star		69%
4 star		14%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		8%

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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Hobby Rock Tumbler Kit - Rough Gemstones, 4 Polishing Grits, Jewellery Fastenings, Great STEM Science Kit for Geology Enthusiasts

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