Using Tumbler 1 of the Twin Barrel Lortone 33B Tumbler, these stones were collected from the Waiau River Mouth. An extra 5 stones were also added (to make up numbers) previously collected from Gemstone Beach.
Stage 1: 80/100grit
Weight in: 905g. 4 Tbspns of 80/100 grit – no pellets added. 6 days tumbling. Lost 117g.
Stage 2: 220grit
Weight in: 788g. 4 Tbspns of 220grit – no pellets added. 8 days tumbling. Lost 161g.
2 hour soap tumble. Realised I may have used 400grit instead of 220grit in Stage 2. Ooops!
Stage 3: 400grit
Weight in: 728g + 6 stones added (101g). 4 Tbspns of 400grit – added pellets. 13 days tumbling. I think I may have overfilled the barrel with water. The recommendation is to just cover the tops of the stones (which should be 2/3 quarters of the barrel).
I left the stones in the soap tumble for 6 days (must have been busy!) Transferred the stones to the 4lb tumbler for polishing.
4lb Tumbler
Stage 4: Polish Mix
(Combined with Batch 5) 103 stones weighing 1180g – this polish mix was on it’s 3rd use. I don’t think I’m looking after the polish as well as I should – perhaps the water I’m adding to make the mix up to 600mls again is diluting the mix? Anyway, I feel the polish finish of these stones after 13 days is very lack lustre – quite disappointed in the finish actually.
Stage 5: Borax to Finish
Although I didn’t mean to, the stones then spent 6 days in the borax tumble. I also found it very hard to identify the stones from the pre-tumble (so I didn’t take a photo of the 48 stones as I really struggled to set the stones out like I had in the image at the top of this post). No weight was lost during the polish/borax either.
Batch 4 | 3lb Tumbler 1 (Grit) 16 July – 12 August 2022
4lb Tumbler | Polish & Borax | 18 August – 7 Sept 2022
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