This batch of stones includes tumbling Lucy’s stone (neighbour’s daughter), found at Papatotara on Easter Saturday. Lucy asked me if it would be a good one to tumble so we’ll see how it goes as it was a little rough around the edges. I’m sure it will respond to some grit tumbling! The rest of the stones were probably collected from Papatotara either on the 4 Feb or 18 March (which was my first ever fossick with JP).
I’ve also updated my tumbling log to include a column for numbering the batch. I like the idea of tracking how many batches of stones I’ve tumbled. At the time of writing I have Batch 19 starting in the 4lb tumbler since it’s not busy polishing at the moment. I’m also considering purchasing another Twin Barrel Tumbler from Colin and the team at the Rock and Gemstone Shop in Rotorua.
Tumbler: 3lb Tumbler 2
Stage 1: 80/100grit
Number of stones: 42
Weight in: 992g
4 Tbspns 80/100grit – no pellets added
Days tumbling: 11
Weight out: 865g – loss of 127g
Removed 2 stones (below) as they still have some pretty deep gouges.
Stage 2: 220grit
Number of stones: 40 + 8 (from Gemstone Beach holding box – already smooth enough to skip a 80/100grit tumble. The top right 3 are hydrogrossular).
Weight in: 769g + 137g
4 Tbspns 220grit – pellets added
Days tumbling: 12
Weight out: 854g – loss of 52g
Stage 3: 400grit
Number of stones: 48
Weight in: 854g
4 Tbspns 400grit – pellets added
Days tumbling: 15
Weight out: 760g – loss of 94g
Soap tumble for 48 hours.
Usually stones in 3lb Tumblers One and Two are combined for the polish and borax stage which I would normally do 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 18 in the 3lb Tumbler too.
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: 48
Weight in: g
3 &1/2 Tbspns polish mix in 300mls of water – pellets added
Days tumbling: 11
Weight out: g – loss of g
Stage 5: Borax
24hour tumble in 1 Tbspn of borax to finish.
A Video Journey
I created a video journey of the tumbling process for both this batch (18) and batch 17. It’s a bit longer than I anticipated but if you watch it on 1.5x speed – it’s a lot quicker! You can find it in this post or you can watch it directly on YouTube here.
Batch 18 | 3lb Tumbler 2 | Papatotara | 13 April – 18 June 2023
Keep up the good work! It’s hard to know what to do with the interesting stones with deep small holes or cracks – sometimes they polish well and the “imperfections” don’t cause a problem. Other times they mar the look and feel of the stone too much, and polish can actually get embedded in the holes and spoil the end product a bit. I think that different people have different “tolerances” and preferences, it’s a matter of experimenting and see what you like. I have a small container with some stones in it, especially poppy jaspers, where further grit tumbling won’t fix the holes and I’m not sure I want to polish them.