Some time ago, I made a post talking about wanting to be a gemologist, taking classes with ISG, owning my own raw gem store, etc. I'm not much further along at this point, I'm still paying student loans on my English major, life stuff happened, you know how it goes. Life stuff sometimes costs a lot of money. Anyway, I've been studying stuff on my own. Basically, I've gone to lapidary auctions and have been collecting the pieces that don't sell. You wouldn't believe the quartz, smokey quartz, amethyst, and agates I've collected just because they were advertised wrong, pieces I could never have purchased on my own. I even have a few star sapphires, all because of an auction that should have read "Lapidary auction with a few misc cars and tractors" was advertised as "tractor and automotive sale with a few rocks in the basement." I guess tractor guys and gem guys aren't always one in the same.

Anyway, I've always been more concerned with identifying what I have over polishing them. In addition, most of my gems and minerals have either already been polished or don't need it. However, I now have a lot of slabs of things like Tiger's eye, jasper,agate, and silver lace onyx that have been sanded but not polished. While washing them off, I've discovered these minerals take on a whole new level of beauty when wet, and that has peaked my interest in polish. However, I know nothing about rock tumblers. In my mind's eye, in addition to a few of the pictures I've seen, rock tumblers resemble little washing machines, and some of these specimen don't look like they could survive being tumbled and jostled around, plus some of these tumblers are expensive. So, I've looked at how to polish gems without a tumbler. I'm good on the concept of sanding, starting from rough sandpaper and slowly transitioning to smooth. After all, I'm a farm boy and my father restored old tractors for a living, I dang near have a Masters in sanding. But here's the part I don't get: in all of these instructions, they tell me how to apply polish. I got that aspect too. Once again, farm boy who restored tractors; if sanding is my major, paints and polish are my minor. However, they never once say what type of polish to use. So that's the first main question: does anyone know what types of polish to use?

Now, here's the second part, which breaks my heart a little. I'm ecstatic because I now have an absolutely enormous collection from an estate auction. This man, God rest his soul, liked to take beautiful pieces of agate and Turritella and turn them into the hokiest nicknacks you've ever seen. Turritella got carved into little deer, Tiger's eye got turned into gingerbread men, he turned some of the coolest red and grey agates I've ever seen (with little geodes in the center) into ponds that he'd glue little hokey cattails that he made out of weeds around the edges. Now, I know they say "to each their own", but come on , man. You do that crap with wicker and plastic and crap, nature has already transformed these minerals into designs far more beautiful than anything we could ever create; they don't need help. The good news is he never got to more than a quarter of his collection. He did pencil some bizarre patterns on everything, but never carved them. The bad news (beyond the obvious fact that the man died) is he managed to slap something that looks like floor wax over everything and they look horrible; flakes, trapped dirt, and air bubbles all over it. It looks like the time I was drinking in the Navy and got the ever-so-brilliant idea of coating the toes of my shoes with floor wax instead of polishing them like I should with shoe polish. So, I obviously want to take this floor wax stuff off my minerals, some don't look like they can stand much sanding, and I don't want to bleach or harm the minerals, especially the silver lace and the Tiger's eye (poor buggers). The question for this last paragraph is: do you think mineral spirits will do the trick of removing all this wax junk off my minerals? 

Thanks for the response, Joe, very informative. As far as the last part..... I appreciate the time and patience it took the man to fashion these little nicknacks. But what he did was take things like Turritetella, smooth them into little arms and legs, wire them together into a shape of a man, and glued a little wooden cartoon bubble to his head that said "Howdy , Partner!". I admire the time and patience, but in my eyes, it cheapens it into something you'd find at a five and dime. I don't think I'll ever get it. In my eyes (I hope I don't get in trouble for using the G word) minerals are an everlasting fingerprint of God. For such amazing colors and designs to come out of the dirt, gunk, and decomposing stuff, it seems to me to be a shame to put glitter and glue on them and wrap them in cheap wire. When my time in the sun comes, I'll be able to sand and polish gems and minerals, but I don't think I'll ever be able to carve them into figures. No, I take that back, I like the crystal and mineral skulls that I've seen on websites, I just don't think I'll be able to fashion "Howdy Partner" nicknacks.