After spending the morning at the Penguin Markets (Undercover when it poured rain quite hard) we went down to our rock beach of choice just outside the town.
Happily all my family are just as excited about collecting rocks and sea glass as we are and a number of excellent hours were spent – with only a brief period huddled under some sheltering trees while it rained.
We brought along a picnic, so we could wander about with a sandwich in hand and check out the beach treasures
The rock walls in the water were fish traps made by the local Aboriginal people long before Europeans got to Tasmania
Sea glass is plentiful here!
Another day out and about – everyone in bed before 10pm – lol – except for me!
Have a great day!
Cheers!
The rocks and sea glass finds are exquisite!
Enjoy your family!
Its such a hard beach to leave!! You might just find one more amazing rock! 😀
What a great collection of beautiful rocks. Everyone must have been very happy.
yes – and we are looking into getting Michelle’s family extra suspension for their car! 😀
Recently I have been considering a rock polisher for Christmas because of the beautiful rocks you have shown us. It sounds like it takes a few weeks to run a batch. Do you have any comments on the pluses and minuses? Anything helpful would be appreciated. Thank you.
http://www.lortone.com/tumblers.html
33B is the model I have – if you are going to run the power, might as well do two at a time! 🙂 I am so glad you have found this interesting!
Yes – it takes me about 4 weeks to get a final polish – sometimes more. The last lot needs another go in the final polish stage!
Its a week with each grit – the grit getting finer each time.
Talking to local rock people is handy. The final polish I got from Lorotone wasn’t suitable for the rocks I had – they didn’t go to high gloss… so when I got the right final polish on their advice I was getting them to look really super!
It wasn’t that hard to get into the swing of it all… the only drawback being the wait until the end to see if you got it right!
Also putting a variety of sizes into each barrel makes the tumbling process better – more natural… small ones moving in around the larger ones all contributing to the final effect.
Get yourself an old sieve from an op shop (thrift shop) to drain. I can just chuck the grit into the paddock – you don’t want it down your drains so you need to find a place to empty each barrel of water/grit and rinse.
If I think of more ‘stuff’ I’ll swing back to tell you. Its mega-exciting to get your first really shiny ones out of the barrel!
Let me know how you go and ask any questions anytime!
Thank you for your helpful advice. I will check out the site.