Hello! Welcome to my Rockhounding, Rock Tumbling, Fossil Hunting and Lapidary Arts page. This is a place where I'll post links to videos of all my adventures in these areas. I hope you find them interesting or educational, or at least entertaining. The links are organized by category. The categories include:

Rock Tumbling
Rockhounding
Fossil Hunting
Lapidary Arts & Equipment
Gold Prospecting
Great Rock Shops

Rock Tumbling

Home Depot Landscape Rocks: Will they tumble?
In this video I tumble a bag of landscape rocks purchased at Home Depot. Will they polish? Will they get pretty? Was it worth the effort? Watch and see...

Home-Made, High-Capacity Rock Tumbler: Easy Build
How to build a super simple, home-made, high-capacity rock tumbler that can handle up to four 6 pound tumbling barrels. It was built using inexpensive and readily available materials and replacement Lortone tumbling barrels, which can be bought for a fraction of the price of whole tumblers.

DIY High-Capacity Rock Tumbler Update: Minor Issues & Pretty Rocks
An update on how well my home-built, high-capacity rock tumbler is working. I show a couple of minor issues and proposed fixes. Plus I show off some of the really pretty rocks that have been tumbling in it.

Whats Tumbling 23: Shiny Agates & Petrified wood, Jasper issues
In this video we take a peek in two of my rock tumblers at some really pretty rocks that have been in polish for several weeks. The agates, petrified wood and flint look amazing. Some of the jasper and chert could be better. I think I know what the issue is. Watch and see...

Whats Tumbling 24: Shiny Agates, Petrified Wood & Jasper
In this video we take a peek in one of my rock tumblers at some really pretty "Special Project" rocks that have been in polish for several weeks. The agates, petrified wood and jasper amazing. Most of these rocks are going to be stars of future "Find to Finish" videos. Watch and see...

Tumbling Wyoming Gravel Driveway Rocks: Will they shine?
In this video, I collect some ordinary rocks out of our gravel driveway at our Wyoming house and tumble them to see if I can make them shiny and pretty. Will it work? Watch and see how it goes.

Ultrasonic Cleaning Rocks Between Tumbling Stages
In this video I show how useful an ultrasonic cleaner can be to clean grit out of nooks and crannies of your rocks between stages of tumbling.

How To Reuse Polish In Rock Tumblers: Save Money!
You can reuse your cerium oxide polishing compound over and over again in your rock tumblers. It's a great money saver. Watch and see...

Rockhounding

Rockhounding Arizona: Picketpost Mountain
In this video I went rockhounding around the base of Picketpost Mountain, southwest of the town of Superior in central Arizona. This is an exploratory trip. I'd never been here before, or heard much about the area, but the geology looks promising for finding agates. Let's see what I can find...

Rockhounding Arizona: Secret Petrified Wood Collecting Site
In this video I take you along on a rockhounding trip to a secret place I know where the ground is literally paved with shards of petrified wood and it sounds like walking on broken glass. There's big pieces too, and lots of other cool rocks. Come along and be amazed...

Collecting Petrified Wood At The Doebell Ranch In Arizona
In this video I visit the Doebell Ranch, which sits just outside the Petrified Forrest National Park in Arizona. They have the same sort of world-famous Arizona Rainbow Petrified Wood that is found in the National Park. The difference is you can actually collect and keep the wood from the Dobell Ranch. I spent a very pleasant couple of hours there, both collecting wood that had already been excavated, and jumping down in some of the pits and digging myself. It was a blast, and I left with about 80 lbs of high quality petrified wood at an amazingly low price.

Wyoming Outback Rockhounding: Owl Creek Mountains
Come along as my wife and I go rockhounding in the Wyoming Outback at a spot I know that has produced some really nice specimens in the past. What did we find this time? watch and see...

Hunting For Wyoming Lysite Agate
In this video my wife and I go rockhounding in central Wyoming, at the base of Lysite Mountain, looking for Lysite Agate. What did we find? Watch and see...

Rockhounding In Wyoming June 2023 Part 1
In this video I go hunting for the rock collecting honey hole of some friends of ours who are into lapidary and jewelry making. They gave me some general directions to their spot, but I don't think I found it before torrential rain and lightning drove me out of the field. I did find some interesting rocks before I left though.

Rockhounding In Wyoming June 2023 Part 2
In this video I continue hunting for the rock collecting honey hole of some friends of ours who are into lapidary and jewelry making. They gave me some general directions to their spot. This time I hit the banded iron jackpot. I'm not sure that this is the exact place our friends told us about, but it sure works for me.

Rockhounding SE Wyoming: Petrified Wood, Agates, Jasper, Banded Iron, Etc.
In this video I find an amazing area in southeast Wyoming to rockhound. Over the course of two days I find a bunch of petrified wood, agates, banded iron and really pretty jaspers. Come along for the hunt...

Nebraska Prairie Rockhounding: Now with rattlesnakes!
In this video myself, my wife and seven friends go rockhounding out on the Nebraska prairie looking for agates (especially Fairburns) and other pretty rocks. We have an unexpected encounter while rock hunting. Check it out...

Fossil Hunting

Hell Creek Formation Dinosaur Fossil Hunting 2023 Part 1
This video chronicles the first three days of our Summer 2023 dinosaur fossil hunting expedition in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. We are new to this sort of dinosaur fossil hunting, so it took us a couple of days to really get up to speed. We are more used to fossil hunting in the White River Badlands, but we still managed to find some T-Rex and Triceratops.

Hell Creek Formation Dinosaur Fossil Hunting 2023 Part 2
This video chronicles the last two days of our Summer 2023 dinosaur fossil hunting expedition in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. We really started hitting our stride in the last few days. It was a shame we couldn't stay longer. We found a lot of great fossils, including some T-Rex and Triceratops, and had a great time.

Nebraska Badlands Fossil Hunting 2023: Arrival, Prep and Hunting Day 1
This is the first in a series of videos chronicling the 2023 Tampa Bay Fossil Club fossil hunting expedition to the White River Badlands of Nebraska. We will be hunting for fossils of the strange animals that lived between the end of the age of dinosaurs and modern mammals. This video covers our arrival in the badlands, prep work and our first day hunting in the field.

Nebraska Badlands Fossil Hunting 2023: Days 2-4, Found Saber Cat
This is the second in a series of videos chronicling the 2023 Tampa Bay Fossil Club fossil hunting expedition to the White River Badlands of Nebraska. We will be hunting for fossils of the strange animals that lived between the end of the age of dinosaurs and modern mammals. This video covers our fossil hunting days 2-4 in the field.

Lapidary Arts & Equipment

Cheap Lapidary Equipment: How to cut, tumble & polish rocks inexpensively
In this video I show you how to get lapidary equipment inexpensively, and get started with cutting, grinding, polishing and tumbling rocks without spending a fortune on equipment. Cutting, grinding and polishing rocks isn't rocket science, and you don't need expensive, high-tech equipment to do it.

Making Rocks Pretty & Shiny The Quick and easy way
In this video I show a quick and easy way to turn rough-cut, junky, unwanted or left-over rocks into real attention getters by giving them a quick and easy shine. Plus it brings out the colors nicely too.

Recycling and Reusing Rock Saw Oil
In this video I demonstrate a super easy way to recycle used rock saw oil for reuse. Mineral oil has gotten too expensive to just throw away when it gets dirty. Filter and reuse your old oil instead. Watch and see how it's done.

Gold Prospecting

Gold Panning and Sluicing in Fairplay Colorado July 2022
In this video I spend two days gold prospecting along the famous "Fairplay Beach" in Fairplay, Colorado. It's been a loooooong time since I was last in Fairplay, and the place has changed a lot. I got my permit and spent much of two days panning and sluicing for gold down on the river. I really found my groove by the second day and was on the gold, when weather shut me down earlier than I would have liked.

Gold Concentrates Cleanup From Fairplay Sluicing
In this video I pan out and clean up the gold concentrates from sluicing at Fairplay Colorado. I wasn't on the river long enough to get much gold, but I still had fun cleaning up the concentrates. Next time I will know where to dig.

Gold Panning and Sluicing, Plus an Abandoned Dredge in Wyoming Sept 2021
In this video I show a trip we made to go gold panning and sluicing in Wyoming. On the way we also stopped to see the abandoned dredge on Rock Creek. It was a good time, plus we found some gold.

Gold Prospecting Exposed Quartz Veins With Mineralization
Here we do some prospecting and sampling on some heavily mineralized exposed quartz veins I found on the side of a hill in Wyoming. This area had several historic gold mines in the past. So I am hopeful these samples will contain some gold and precious metals. They will be crushed and panned out in later videos.

Crushing & Panning Gold Ore From Western Gold Mines
Here I crush and pan out a couple of samples of gold ore I brought back from western gold mines I visited on my recent vacations. I first reduce it to pieces with a hammer. Then I crushed it with my jaw crusher. Then I pulverized it into a fine powder using my manual impact crusher and an improvised ball mill. Panning the samples revealed gold, copper, garnets, sulfides, fools gold and possible silver. In a future video these samples will be smelted in an effort to recover the gold and silver.

Great Rock Shops

South Dakota Rock & Fossil Shop Crawl
In this video the Tampa Fossil Club takes a break from Fossil hunting in the White River Badlands and goes on a crawl of rock and fossil shops in South Dakota. We hit as many shops as we could in one day. I think everyone bought something. I bought stuff at every shop. I came back pretty loaded down. At the end of the video I go over all my purchases.

South Dakota Rock Shop & Museum Tour 2024
In this video, the 10 of us take a day off from fossil hunting in the White River Badlands due to impending bad weather, and instead go on a magical mystery tour of museums, fossil & rock shops and amazing sights in South Dakota. Come along for the ride.

Rockhounding Arizona: Jim Gray's Petrified Wood Co.
In this video I visit the largest rock shop I have ever seen, and I've been to a lot of rock shops. I'm taking you along on a visit to Jim Gray's Petrified Wood Co. in Holbrook, Arizona. This place is amazing. It's one of my "must stop" rock shops whenever I am in Arizona. I think you'll be amazed.

Prairie Agate Rock Shop Nebraska: Bought A Bunch!
In this video I visit the Prairie Agate Rock Shop in Crawford, Nebraska. This is one of my all-time favorite rock shops. They have an amazing variety of great stuff. It is also right in the town where we stay every year when we go fossil hunting in the White River Badlands. I left with a bunch of cool rocks. Watch and see...