mix of polished stones

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pics of petrified wood. There was other stuff in that barrel, and I've finally got around to taking photos of the rest -- local quartz, local quartzites, hawkeye from the Rock Shed, and amethyst and rose quartz from a local rock shop.

The recipe (in a rotary tumbler) is roughly:

1 month in coarse (60/90)
1 week in 120/220
2 weeks in 500/600
10 days in aluminum oxide (CPP really, but I think that is mostly AO)

First, an overview:


Of the local quartz materials, there was the standard white quartz, plus some coloured and patterned stuff, but the oddest were these dark brown ones -- they are transparent, take a wonderful shine, but are very dark brown to almost black. I don't think there is any smoky quartz in this area, so I don't really know what these are.


Local quartzites:
Being downstream from the Rocky Mountains, a fair bit of sandstone washes downstream, with the occasional piece of quartzite thrown in for good measure. The sandstone falls apart when tumbled, but the much rarer quartzites take a nice shine. Quartzite comes in many colours, depending on the impurities in the stone. My favourite is the dark purple quartzite on the lower left of the photo -- maybe because this has so far been the rarest type I've found.


This is some hawkeye from the RockShed. It turned out okay. However, I was expecting more. I think it might have been the softest material in the batch, and was perhaps beaten up by the other stones in the barrel. Or maybe I was just expecting too much from a stone that I paid for instead of finding locally? I'm not sure.



Here's a couple of pics of some amethyst and rose quartz in the batch. The amethyst is very dark coloured, so often looks almost black in photos, but up close it is deep purple.




Thanks for looking!