Tumble and Polish

On the 19th of October I popped down to Gemstone Beach on a special mission. My NZ rockhounding friend Nicola asked me if I would gather up some stones to courier up to her place as a surprise for another rockhounding friend Angie because she had been working hard on the farm with lambing. Her bestie wanted to provide a relaxing morning of “rock picking” HB style and I was only too happy to oblige of course given that fossicking on Gemstone Beach is a favourite pastime! Check out Nicola’s video playlist of their rock pick and the tumbling of the rock picks that finished their polish tumble on Christmas Day 2023!

Awesome Courier Service

Nicola got me onto an awesome courier service called Pass the Parcel. It took a few minutes to sign up then all I had to do was measure up the box, book it in/pay and print off the courier tag. I wasn’t surprised that the courier didn’t offer a door to door pickup from my place (hehehe) but I was pleasantly surprised to see that The Red Door shop in Riverton was a courier pickup spot! Yay for not having to drive an hour and ten minutes to Invercargill! It is really easy and very, very reasonable cost-wise to send up 12kg of rocks for the ladies!

Although I tried hard to just collect stones for Ange and Nicola a few stones found their way into my mesh collection bag! Found between the Tanoa Stream and Waimeamea River these ones are a little rougher than what I would normally pick up. I am expecting to put these through 80/100grit a couple of times and I was just too curious to not tumble them as soon as a barrel came free! In the end only four stones needed to be removed for redo at 80/100grit. I wonder if the borax thickening the grit slurry is what is making the difference.

Batch 39: 3lb Tumbler 2

Pre-polish Soap Tumble: 24 hours with 2 tspns of grated sunlight soap and pellets for cushioning.

The grit slurry was thick and the barrel wasn’t warm. All the stones were smooth enough to move through to 400grit. A closer inspection after the soap tumble concluded that all stones look good for polishing!

Transfer to 4lb Tumbler

Both 4lb tumblers are busy tumbling batches so Batch 39 has joined Batch 33 in the polish holding box (in water) to wait for one to come free! It’s looking like that won’t be until after Christmas!!

Polished Stones of Interest: Batch 39

Can you spot these stones of interest in the pre-tumble stage? Some of them have changed so much over the different tumbling cycles.

Batch x | 3lb Tumbler 2 | Gemstone Beach | 4 November – 5 December 2023
4lb Tumbler 2 | Batch 39 & Batch 33 | Gemstone Beach | 28 December 2023 – 7 January 2024