Tumble and Polish

It’s now been 8 days in 80/100grit (Stage 1) tumbling away. The stones, collected by myself and the students from Gemstone Beach , were put through the sieve and washed ready for inspection before moving into Stage 2 with the 220grit.

The stones experienced a loss of 254g from their first grit tumble. I added a further 7 stones that I’d previously tumbled. I felt they could do with a repeat at Stage 2 (or 220grit). This means that an extra 114g has been added to the tumbler and the total weight now stands at 1550g.

How the stones are looking after their Stage 1 (80/100grit) 8 day tumble:

Note to self: It is really hard to recognise stones after a tumble stage!

Stage 2

Weight In & # Stones	Grit	Pellets	#Days in Tumbler	Weight Out
1436g + 114g / 94 stones	220g	No	8	1321g

After inspecting the stones at the finish of the 220grit tumble (Stage 2), I removed 6 of the stones. None of the removed were the student stones. The removed stones went into the holding box for a redo at 220grit. I didn’t think they were as smooth enough to proceed to the 400grit tumble (Stage 3). I did replace those stones with another 6 from the holding box though. These stones were waiting for a redo at 400grit.

Stage 3

Along with the 89 stones I added seven Tbspns of 400grit to the 4lb tumbler. Weight in was 1331g so there was a loss of approx 115g from the 220grit tumble. It’s getting harder to track the weight of the stones now. I removed several stones for a redo and also added additional stones to make up the numbers/weight. The stones spend 8 days in the tumbler for this stage.

Soap Tumble Pre-Polish

I like to do a 24 hour soap (grated sunlight soap) tumble at the end of the grit stages. This ensures that all the grit has been washed out of the stones. This is very important especially before stones go into a polish tumble. I am always amazed by how much the water discolors (with grey) after a soap tumble, even when I believe I’ve rinsed and inspected the stones thoroughly!

Stage 4

Weighing in at 1101g, 89 stones went into the 4lb tumbler for a polish tumble. I used 9 Tbspns of polish powder. For the first time I mixed the polish in 600mls of water BEFORE pouring the polish mix into the tumbler. Up until now I’d just been putting the tablespoons of polish power into the tumbler then adding water up to the top of the stones in the tumbler. From JP’s very detailed and informative TumbleStoneBlog I have learned that polish mix powder should be mixed with 600ml of water before adding to the tumbler! He uses a sistema shaker to do this. I highly recommend any rock tumbler read his blog!!

Borax Tumble

One final stage for the stones once they come out of the polish is a tumble in Borax. Apparently borax gives the stones that final shine and washes all of the polish compound away. Usually just a couple of days is all that they need. Due to time constraints however, these stones spent 6 days in the borax tumble!

From start to finish: 42 days.

Note to self: I didn’t even think to capture the finished stones! I’d tracked their progress photo-wise at each stage to show the students how much their stones had changed and as they got the final product back, I didn’t think to capture them for the last time for this post! Ooops!

I do not have any idea what the stones are. Everyone just picked up the stones that were pretty to them (that’s exactly what I do – just pick up the ones that catch my eye or look really interesting to me!)
The extra stones I put in are now in a big glass jar – as I tumble more, I’m adding to this jar that sits on a shelf in my entranceway. If you’ve got any ideas for what to do with polished stones, I’d love to hear them!

Batch 3 | Gemstone Beach; Herbertville; | 6 July 2022 – 12 August 2022