Sometimes the best stones you tumble are the ones gifted to you. As are the stones in Batch 90, a treasured gift of Kakanui stones, left to me to tumble by my good friend JP, author of TumbleStoneBlog.
These stones are just gorgeous without even tumbling and I couldn’t wait for a barrel to come free in order to tumble and polish them to the best of my ability. JP has an uncanny knack of spotting the most amazing stones and he’s honed his skills of being able to resist just any old rock unlike myself who is still working on leaving stones behind!
Included in the stones JP left me (he found all of these on his way down to here during his September visit) is one very special one. It is a bryozoan fossil stone. JP explains more about the bryozoan fossil stone in this post on his blog. I’m incredibly lucky to be able to have it now as part of my “keepers” collection.
Batch 90: 3lb Tumbler 1
Stage 1: 80/100grit
Number of Stones: 53
Weight in: 915g
3 Tbspns of 80/100grit
1 Tbspn Borax
No plastic pellets added
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 836g – loss of 79grams
Stage 2: 220grit
Number of Stones: 53
Weight in: 836g
3 Tbspns of 220grit
1 Tbspn Borax
Plastic pellets added
Days Tumbling: 10
Weight out: 769g – loss of 67grams
Stage 3: 600grit
Number of Stones: 53
Weight in: 769g
3 Tbspns of 400grit
1 Tbspn Borax
Plastic pellets added
Days Tumbling: 9
Weight out: 739g – loss of 30grams
Rather than the usual 400grit at Stage 3 I opted for the finer 600grit as all of the stones looked super smooth already but I didn’t want to send them to polish just yet.
Pre-polish Soap Tumble: 24 hours in 2 tspns of grated sunlight soap plus water up to the ⅔ mark.
Batch 90: Pre-tumble
Batch 90: After 600grit
Ready to Polish
It was definitely a good call to skip 400grit and do 600grit instead. The stones lost minimal volume and they were looking great for polish after the soap tumble. I even managed to create a reel for Instagram after the final polish too!
One stone was removed and placed in the redo drawer as it just wasn’t quite smooth enough to polish yet. I also layered the pellets and re-checked all of the stones for smoothness for this special batch!
Stage 4: Polish Mix
Number of Stones: 53-1=52
Polish Mix – 2nd use
Plastic Pellets layer added for cushioning
Days Tumbling: 10
Stage 5: Burnish
2 Tbspns of borax and water (with plastic pellets) and the Kakanui stones burnished for 4 days.
Polish Complete
Polished Stones of Interest: Batch 90
There’s always so much going on in the background of Kakanui stones and that’s what makes them so interesting. I’ve just about showcased the whole batch here!
If I’m naming the stones in the captions, please note that I am by no means an expert and they are my “best guess” with some being more confident guesses than others. That being said, I am really keen for any thoughts, corrections, suggestions on the stones of interest (to me) that have come out of my tumblers so please leave a comment – it’s greatly appreciated!
Batch 90 | 3lb Tumbler 1 | Kakanui (gifted) | 10 November – 24 December 2024