Batch 37: All Kakanui Stones - Tumble and Polish

This batch is all Kakanui stones plus you may have read in an earlier post that my fingers slipped and I “accidentally on-purpose” bought another Lortone 45C Tumbler from the Rock & Gemstone Shop! These stones from Seadown Beach, Kakanui are it’s first load.

I was expecting that lots of these stones will need a redo after Stage 1 especially the agates as they have lots of grooves and pits. Sure enough I was right and 19 stones were removed to go back to Stage 1 again for a redo.

At Stage 2 I did add a tablespoon of borax to the 220grit and I experienced my first ever blow out! Thankfully it was minor and I caught it early! There wasn’t too much of a mess to clean up. The 89 remaining stones from the original 108 looked really smooth after the 220grit tumble but the barrel was really warm. I’m wondering if the borax is causing the warmth and the warmth is what caused the blow out. I am not going to add the tablespoon of borax to anymore grit tumbles. I can’t say that I’ve noticed much of a difference anyway.

At Stage 3 (400grit) Batch 34 was added to this batch. This batch of stones had been sitting in the holding box waiting for more Kakanui stones to be added to it because 57 stones just wasn’t enough for even the 3lb tumbler and I didn’t want to “mix” stones from another beach.

Batch 37: 4lb Tumbler 2 (The New Lortone 45C Tumbler!)

Stage 1: 80/100grit

Number of Stones: 108
Weight in: 1713grams
7 Tbspns of 80/100grit
No pellets added
Days Tumbling: 10
Weight out: 1476grams – loss of 237grams

Stage 2: 220grit

Number of Stones: 89
Weight in: 1223grams
7 Tbspns of 220grit
1 Tbspn Borax
Pellets added
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 988grams – loss of 235grams

Stage 3: 400grit

Number of Stones: 89+57=146 (added Batch 34 – also Kakanui stones)
Weight in: 1503grams
7 Tbspns of 400grit
Pellets added – did not add Tbspn of borax
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 1253grams – loss of 250grams

Batch 37: Pre-tumble

Batch 37: After Stage 1

B37 after 80/100grit — Top right hand corner stones (19) removed for redo at 80/100grit

My new Lortone 45C Tumbler is working well and earning it’s keep despite the earlier blow out.

The stones were closely inspected after Stage 3 (400grit) with 14 removed because they need further tumbling in coarse grit. (Popped the removed stones into the redo box).
Pre-polish Soap Tumble after Stage 3 (400grit): 48 hours instead of usual 24 because life got in the way!

Waiting patently for a polish load was Batch 30 (Kakanui Stones) so it was great to finally add them to a polish tumble. Instead of polishing all the stones though, I decided that all of them might benefit from a tumble in 600grit to help eliminate a bit of surface pitting in quite a few of the stones.

I’m jumping ahead here but I really do think that the 600grit tumble made a huge difference to the readiness of these stones so much so that I wrote in my log that I was excited to see how this batch turns out!

Removed B37 — 14 stones removed after Stage 3 – holding box for redo

Stage 3a: 600grit

Number of Stones: 132+69=201
Weight in: 1772 grams
7 Tbspns of 400grit
Pellets added – did not add Tbspn of borax
Days Tumbling: 10
Weight out: 1662 grams – loss of 110 grams

Stage 4: Polish Mix

Number of Stones: 201
Weight in: 1644 grams
Polish Mix (2nd use): 9 Tbspns of polish mixed with 600mls of clean water. Pellets added.
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 1641 grams – loss of 3 grams

Stage 5: Burnish

Number of Stones: 201
Weight in: 1641 grams
2 Tablespoons of borax
Pellets added
Days Tumbling: 3

I was really pleased with the smoothness and shine of these stones from Kakanui after 11 days polishing. I made a little reel for my instagram feed as I took this lot out of the polish. Despite a really good soapy rinse there were still a number of stones with polish residue so I decided to do a burnish with borax to finish the three combined batches off.