Batch 17: Spectacular Volcanic Stone

These are stones going into 3lb Tumbler One and they are 40 stones collected from Gemstone Beach (Fossick #2 with JP on 24 March.) I’m particularly interested in 4th stone along the top row in the image below – it’s a JP find and it is pretty spectacular! JP thought it has a volcanic origin especially to have that kind of pattern.

Tumbler: 3lb Tumbler 1

Stage 1: 80/100grit

Number of Stones: 40
Collected from Gemstone Beach
Weight in: 982g
4 Tbspns of 80/100grit – no pellets added.
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 848g – loss of 134g

Stage 2: 220grit

Number of Stones: 40
Weight in: 848g
4 Tbspns of 220grit – pellets added.
Days Tumbling: 10
Weight out: 803g – loss of 45g

Stage 3: 400grit

Number of Stones: 40 + 1
(I added the “glass egg” for this stage)
Weight in: 803g + 47g
4 Tbspns of 400grit – pellets added.
Days Tumbling: 15
Weight out: 713g + 42g – loss of 90g & 5g

Soap tumble for 48 hours.

Batch 17 - Pre tumble
Batch 17 – pre-tumble – ready for Stage 1: 80/100grit

Some Before and Afters

I like that I have captured the starting journey for a few particular stones. I’m in a bit of a rhythm now when documenting the journey of a batch of stones (finally!) I like to have a go at recording a short video of a batch journey too. That’s what I’m thinking about at the moment – so stay tuned! For now though, I’m still just sharing images and I’m investing in a lightbox – I’ve been looking at this one.

IMG_9548
Pre-tumbling – font side
IMG_9547
Pre-tumbling – back side
Finished Stage 1 – dry (80/100grit)
B17 spectacular find
Finished Stage 2 – dry (220grit) weighs 23g
IMG_9589
Before tumbling (wet)
IMG_9587
Before tumbling (wet)
B17 SOI
Finished Stage 2 (dry)
B17 after 400grit
All – finished 400grit.

The stones tumbled in 3lb Tumblers One and Two are usually combined for the polish and borax stage and are done in the 4lb Tumbler. At the moment though, the 4lb Tumbler is doing a grit tumble with Batch 19 so it’s not available to polish at the moment. Instead of waiting for the 4lb tumbler I’m going to polish and borax Batch 17 in the 3lb Tumbler.

This will be the first time I’ve ever done polishing in the 3lb barrels so I have to calculate how much polishing mix to use. This website suggests 1 Tablespoon of polish mix per lb of rocks or 3 Tbspns. per full 3 lb. barrel – so I’m going to try 3 and 1/2 Tbspns of polish mix with 300ml of water and see how that goes.

Stage 4: Polish

Number of Stones: 41
Weight in: 755g
3 & 1/2 Tbspns of polish mix with 300mls of water – pellets added.
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 753g – loss of 2g

Stage 5: Borax

24 hour tumble in 1 & 1/2 Tbspns of borax to finish.

That Spectacular Volcanic Stone

I think I may have over-tumbled this stone. It was quite smooth to begin with so it probably could have skipped the 80/100grit stage. I am still learning to identify what a stone might need in terms of grit stages. In previous batches I’ve tried to keep the stones together in batches by when/where they were found. I think I have to let that go and create “general” batches based on what a stone needs as some stones need more work than others even if they were found in the “same” place.

Batch 17 finished
Batch 17: All finished – note – the stones are in the same order as they were in the pre-tumble photo.

A Video …

I made a video of the tumbling process for both this batch (17) and Batch 18. It’s a bit longer than I anticipated (8:25mins) but if you play it on 1.5x sped it takes about 4-5mins! You can find the video in this post or watch directly on YouTube here.

Batch 17 | 3lb Tumbler 1 | Gemstone Beach | 13 April 18 June 2023

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