Batch 59: Gemstone Beach Mix of Colour

Batch 59’s stones have all come from Gemstone Beach and the mix of colour plus the various types of stones that one can find here never ceases to amaze me. It really is my happy place and I can easily spend 4-6 hours trudging along the beach often returning to the carpark with a heavy load in my back pack! I am usually joined by Ohla dog and I’m sure she enjoys meeting the many visitors to this popular tourist spot.

Once I return home, I will tip all the stones into a water container and sort through them all one by one. If there are stones that I have many examples of I will put them aside and bag them up to send to some very good friends of mine who also tumble (and cut) stones. They are in the North Island so it’s very cool to be able to send stones from Gemstone Beach up to them. You can watch their “rock pick videos” on Nicola’s YouTube channel – it’s great to watch them pick out their favs from the stones that have been sent up to them and to get hints about what stones to keep an eye out for.

I use Pass the Parcel to transport the rocks up to the North Island and usually send about 12kgs at a time. Pass the Parcel is a very reasonable courier service costing under $20 to get a decent amount of stones from the bottom of the South up to Hawkes Bay!

Batch 59: 4lb Tumbler 2

Before these stones became an “official” batch, most were tumbled in F60grit (the coarsest grit I have). Originally there were 94 stones tumbling in F60grit but at the end of 11 days, finally ready to move on were added to the 82 stones!

Stage 1a: F60grit

Number of Stones: 94
Weight in: 1480g
4 Tbspns of F60grit
1½ Tbspns Borax
No pellets added
Days Tumbling: 11
Weight out: 1212g – loss of 268grams

12 stones not ready to move on. 18 stones (15 hydrogrossular garnets and 3 redos) added to Stage 1b.

Stage 1b: 80/100grit

Number of Stones: 82+18=100
Weight in: 1393g
4 Tbspns of 80/100grit
1½ Tbspns Borax
No pellets added
Days Tumbling: 8
Weight out: 1152g – loss of 241grams

Added 20 more stones from readies drawer. Most stones looking good but some of the pinks have lost a LOT of volume!

Stage 2: 220grit

Number of Stones: 100+20=120
Weight in: 1407g
4 Tbspns of 220grit
1½ Tbspns Borax
Ceramic media added
Days Tumbling: 8
Weight out: 1317g – loss of 90grams

Stage 3: 400grit

Number of Stones: 120
Weight in: 1317g
3 Tbspns of 400grit
1 Tbspn Borax
Plastic Pellets added
Days Tumbling: 15 (cos life got in the way!)
Weight out: 1148g – loss of 169grams

Pre-polish Soap Tumble: 48 hours

Stage 4: Polish Mix

Had to use designated soap plastic pellets for the polish tumble as I all of my supply was already in use. I am trying to make the switch over to ceramic media so that I can stop relying on plastic.

Number of Stones: 120
Weight in: g
Polish Mix (1st use): 9 Tbspns of polish mixed with 600mls of clean water.
No borax added. Plastic Pellets added.
Days Tumbling: 10
Weight out: 1146g – loss of 2 grams

Final Clean

What was supposed to be a 48hour tumble in 2 Tbspns of borax for a final clean and shine turned into 5 days tumbling. I think this was responsible for some of the bruising of stones upon completion.