In June, when I was visiting Riverton and Gemstone Beach, my sister Helen accompanied me on some of my fossicking trips. She collected a few bucketfuls of stones and carefully selected some for me to take home and polish for her.
Today I completed polishing a 4lb barrel full. Included are a wide range of types and sizes of Gemstone Beach beauties. Here they are, in two trays:
A closer look at the first tray:
A closer look at the second tray:
These stones started out as relatively smooth beach stones. They tumbled in 320 silicon carbide grit for eight days and 19 hours, followed by a five hours soap tumble. A pre-polish in tin oxide was next, for just under eight days, followed by a five hour soap tumble. Finally, just under nine days was spent tumbling in pro-polish tin oxide, with a final burnishing tumble in borax for two days.
So beautiful. They look glorious polished!
Yes! These ones seemed to come out really well.
There are some stunning specimens in there.
Agreed!