Tumble and Polish

I am incredibly lucky to live so close to Gemstone Beach and to experience the magic of Gemstone Beach stones almost any time I want. It is only a 25 minute drive to this place and if you’re not quite sure where to go, my friend JP over at TumbleStoneBlog has some excellent and interesting posts to read about this magical place!

I am in the process of trying to tweek my tumble and polish process as I am getting very mixed results with the polish. I have been talking to my friends and fellow tumblers, Angie & Nicola (both from Hawkes Bay) as well as JP of course, plus I have been watching the very informative Rob (Michigan Rocks) including this video Top 8 Beginner Rock Tumbling Mistakes. He has another very thorough video called A Complete Guide to Tumbling Rocks: A Reliable Method, which is worth a watch too especially if you are just getting started with tumbling rocks or stones. I’ll keep you posted (on here of course) of what changes/differences I make to my own processes.

In the meantime, here’s another batch of Gemstone Stone beauties being put through the tumble and polish process in one of my seven (yes I have that many) Lortone tumblers!

Batch 53: 3lb Tumbler 3

Notes: This is the first time I have missed out 400grit and done 600grit instead. It was a judgement call due to how smooth the stones looked already after 220grit. I have also been doing a LOT of researching of other rockhound’s processes that has led me to use less grit than in previous tumbles. Since I weigh my stones already, it is really easy to convert grams to lbs using an app on my phone. That lets me know how many Tbspns of grit to use based on the weight of the stones. It is not exact – I do round up! For example: 586grams = 1.29190 lbs. So I rounded that up to 2 Tbspns for 600grit for Stage 3. It is half the amount of grit that I would usually put in.

At the end of 6 days the stones all looked nice and smooth with no bruising or pitting. I am still being very particular with filling the barrel 2/3rds and use my measuring stick and chalk to mark where the stones need to fill up to. I am hoping that these two small tweeks along with being more fussy with my wet/dry inspection will led to a better polish finish overall.

Before transferring to polish, these stones did a two hour pre-polish Soap Tumble.

Transfer to 4lb Tumbler 1

This batch (53) with 38 stones has been combined with Batch 52 (also Gemstone Beach) along with Batch 49 and Batch 51 (from Hampden Beach and Kakanui). I try not to “mix” sources of stones but both Batch 49 and 51 have been waiting for quite some time in the polish holding box. I do hope that I am able to pick out stones of interest from each batch using the before photos to help me!

Polished Stones of Interest: Batch 53

I really like these three stones and am planning to turn them into pendants!

Batch 53 | 3lb Tumbler 3 | Gemstone Beach | 29 February – 29 March 2024
4lb Tumbler 1 | Batch 53, 52, 49, & 51 | Gemstone Beach, Hampden Beach, Kakanui | 29 March – 7 April 2024