Ah yes Leah nice lady, rotary takes 4-5 times longer than vibratory and from what I’ve been reading on their forum it can take up to 21 days longer for harder gems(ie: sapphires, black jack just over a month). The trick is to change the grit and wash the rocks each time you go higher grade.
From:
rocktumblingsupplies.com/faq.phtml Why didn't my rocks take a polish?
Tips on rock tumbling
• The number one problem people have with not getting a good polish on their rocks is impatience.If the earlier stages are rushed, then scratches are left in the rocks that the later stages cannot recover from... Typically I let coarse tumble for a week, medium tumble for a week, pre-polish tumble for ten days, and polish tumble for two weeks. If I have a batch that doesn't take a high luster polish I will generally redo only the pre-polish and polish stages.
• The second most common problem is overfilling the tumbler.If the tumble barrel is overfilled the rocks tend take a lot longer to get rounded in the coarse grits. I prefer my barrels to be about 2/3rds full. Often times I will tumble two batches in coarse, and combine the batches for the rest of the stages.
• If the tumbler and stones are not cleaned well between stages, then the grit from a previous stage could be scratching the rocks and preventing them from polishing. If the slurry gets really thick it can get wedged into crevices and holes and be difficult to clean out. In such cases I usually tumble the rocks overnight in soapy water to loosen the grit from the crevaces.
• Some rocks simply will not take a high polish in a rock tumbler. There's no sense even trying. For example when I tumble wonderstone which is a soft rhyolite, I use only course grit or medium grit for one to three days which produces nice rounded stones which show the colors and banding well. Other examples include: Sandstone, calcite, onyx, and limestone.
• Some rocks have minerals of different harness in the same stone. Only the hardest minerals in the stone will polish. Examples include: Granite, unakite, mica schist, banded agates, and petrified woods.
• Some types of rocks are brittle, which means that they tend to chip instead of polish. Examples include: Glass, obsidian, common opal, and some banded agates.
• Plastic pellets get impregnated with grit so if they are reused in a batch with finer grit than they were originally used in they will scratch the stones. For example; if plastic pellets that were used in pre-polish are also used in polish the stones will not take a high gloss polish.
• If you have a mixture of harder stones and softer stones in your tumbler, only the harder stones will take a high lustre polish. You can oftentimes get a nice polish on the softer stones by putting them back in the final polish after removing the harder stones. Best results are achieved when all the rocks in a batch have similar hardness.
• If a stone breaks during the later stages of tumbling, the sharp edges will scratch the other stones, so remove it before the final stages of polishing.
• I don't like polishing very tiny rocks in the final polish, unless I am polishing only tiny rocks. I have a feeling that they make the others less shiny. This is most noticable when the tumbler is less than half full. (I remove any rocks smaller than 1/4 inch in diameter in each stage after coarse.)
• I like to put a little bit of Ivory bar soap or liquid dish soap in the tumbler during the polish stage as it tends to make a nicer finish. Sometimes I even tumble the rocks with just Ivory and water after they are finished in polish.
• I use more water during final polishing so that the rocks have more of a cushion and don't hit against each other so much.
