How to clean rock tumbler slurry (lots) from hardwood floor

August 23, 2022 9:32 AM

I bought my son a rock tumbler. It just leaked everything all over my hardwood floor. How do I clean this without destroying my floor, my plumbing, or my lungs?

We went camping. He brought back rocks. I got a rock tumbler. It was making a lot of noise and i meant to put a yoga mat under it, but for the moment there was a pair of pyjamas on the floor so I stock those under.

It's a national geographic one. After setting it up on Step 1, I did some reading online and learned that the grit that comes with the NG is insufficient and not great, so I ordered some more/better grit online. Today (After maybe 4 days of tumbling), it arrived. I opened up the barrel added more grit and closed it back up and set it back on the tumbler.

THen unrelated to rock tumbling I set the roomba to run and to avoid it hiting the rock tumbler or eating the under-tumbler jammies, I moved it more into a corner so the base was actually touching a wall and a toy kitchen.

Well some combination of today's movements obviously made it leak. THere's a large slurry puddle. I assume I'm throwing out the jammies and anything I use to clean the mess. but what am I using to clean the mess? Should I -- as I sop up slurry, wet the remnants and sop up eternally? Should I vaccum it at some point? I have a dyson which I believe has a heppa filter. I am wearing a mask while I sop up with jammies and paper tower and think and await your response.

Oh, and the machine. It had an E for error. Can I wipe it off and assume if that if it runs I can keep running it (in a tray) after everything is cleaned off?

posted by If only I had a penguin... to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

Best answer: Is this just something like silicon carbide grit? If so, it's just (hard) sand. Keep it wet to prevent dust and sponge it up. It's not toxic, just abrasive and potentially dusty. Don't scrape it across your hardwood floors. You can look up the msds sheets, here's some that may be applicable.
posted by jclarkin at 9:43 AM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I agree, just keep sopping it up with towels and/or rags, and don't put those things in the washing machine when you're done.

The tumbler was off-kilter from tumbling (hence the E) but should work fine again. Make sure you're putting in the measured amount of grit - it may have gotten overloaded when you added the new stuff.
posted by nkknkk at 10:01 AM on August 23, 2022

Best answer: Just lots of water, light scrubbing and shop vaccing it up. Time is critical; that stuff is functionally cement (I actually use spent slurry to fill cracks in the driveway very successfully).

Our tumbler lives inside a second hand cooler for noise suppression and mess containment issues.
posted by furnace.heart at 10:38 AM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: OK, that was way easier than I thought. I kind of expected it would turn to cement in the time it took me to post the question...but nor furnace-heart makes me think I should go out right now and buy some paper towel for the one little bit that was missed right now before it actually does turn to cement.

Anyway, please see my new question.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:40 AM on August 23, 2022