Tumble and Polish

I am still catching myself up with these blog posts (retro-spectively) – referring to my tumbling log and my iPhone images to help me share the information about the stones and the process.

Using a Tumbling Log

This has been an evolving process in itself and in that process I seem to have “lost” a barrel of stones. I’m not sure what happened in my notes but I do know that I trialled 3 other types of logs before settling on the one I use now. Canva is my best friend when it comes to designing documents (I use it all the time for my teaching/librarian position at the local area school and I also use it extensively in my own personal work – it’s phenomenal!) You can download a copy of my tumbling log for free here.

Various iterations of my tumbling log

So I’m not at all surprised that for Batch 8 I seem to have lost an entry somewhere. Compounded by also using the 4lb tumbler (which I had designated as a polish and borax tumbler) to play catch up with a backlog of stones to put through the grit stages. It didn’t make sense to have the 4lb tumbler sitting there empty while the 3lb twin barrels were hard at work. Enter Batch 8 … collected from Gemstone Beach on the 10 September.

4lb Tumbler – Stage 1: 80/100grit

59 stones. Weight in: 2644g. 7 Tbspns 80/100grit. No pellets. 12 days tumbling. Lost 231g.

24 hour soap tumble.

Stage 2: 220grit

Weight in: 2413g. 7 Tbspns 220grit. No pellets. 7 days tumbling. Lost 169g. One stone had a big chip in it. I left it in to see if the 220grit would smooth it out and it did mostly. I didn’t think to take any photos at this stage either.

According to my log, the stones were split and transferred to 3lb Tumbler 1 and 3lb Tumbler 2 for the 400grit tumble (that’s because the stones in those barrels (Batch 6 & 7) were now ready for a polish and borax.) However, I only have a log entry for the 3lb Tumbler 1!

3lb Tumbler 1 – Stage 3: 400grit

40 stones in. 4 Tbspns 400grit. No pellets added. 10 days tumbling (and I din’t weigh the stones either – I’m presuming that that’s because the original batch that started in the 4lb tumbler was split in two so any weighing doesn’t show anything anymore.)

These 40 stones are now sitting in the holding box awaiting a polish and borax tumble when there is space for them.