This is the first batch of pebbles and stones which I finished tumbling. There’s actually another stage to polish them to a high shine, but I think I prefer the more satiny look, particularly since some of the stones are still a bit pitted.
What did we learn…? Well, to be more discerning about what is put into the tumbler, some stones had cracks, which of course would never go away and became increasingly obvious as the stones were more polished. It might be that these weren’t apparent when we saw them completely rough – but in the future to take them out once they are noticeable.
The dingy brown stones which I ignored with the exception of a couple turned out to be some form of agate and look really nice! I don’t remember seeing the patterns on them when they were on the beach so I ignored them as they looked uninteresting! Definitely pick more of these up.
There are two types of white stone, which surprised me, and I’m not certain that they are both quartz. One i think probably is, but I’m not sure about the other. It is more opaque and polishes very well, and isn’t in the cristaline shapes of what I think is quartz. This is another one where I should have been more discerning, however, as one is quite badly pitted, which became more noticeable as the surface become smoother. This is probably my favourite, so we need to work out how we can tell the difference when we see them on the beach.
Mixed pebbles, ones made of two materials didn’t really polish very well – but I should have known that. One was quite interesting as it was a piece of dark stone with what i thought was white quartz running through it, but that rubbed away when tumbling, which I don’t think it would have done if it was quartz, anyway, it left a deep recess which was quite interesting.
I had a couple of pieces of granate, which came up nicely too, but I hadn’t really selected very good shapes.
So time to start collecting again! I think the next batch will be the brown pebbles which I think are an agate and the milky white stones. And I’ll try a bit harder with the granate. I’ll take out stones which look too rough at the first change of grit. It’s not like we’re short of pebbles and stones 🙂
So now I’m deciding what to do ith them, the brown ones and the white one in the middle of the pic above are just asking to be made into pendants, I do believe!