HELP ! NOVICE RUINS OR. SUNSTONES......

I tumbled a batch of sun stones like I was told and they came out very dull looking and waxie to the touch. Have tried everything I can think of to wash and rinse them, to bring back their shine, with no luck.

PLEEEASE HELP !

ALICA

This should be in the lapidary section
I haven't done much tumbling, Alicia, I will tell you up front, but the processes in polishing stones have some universal stepping stones to a good polish, as far as I know...
One, it is all in the prep
Never go to the next stage until you have removed the scratches from the previous stage of processing
Never go to polishing until you have removed all visible scratches and have what is deemed a PREPOLISh finish on the stones...ie a low sheen

re: polishing
I assume that if you had a prepolish condition before your polishing stage, that the lack of a finished polish may be because I believe you need some kind of carrier medium in the barrel to rub it against the stones to be polished...stones rubbing against each other may actually dull the finish..although I may be wrong.
The other potential problem, is that as far as I knew, one must carefully clean the stones to be processed , after each level of grit to remove the previous level of grit from both the stones and the inside of the barrel, or it will contaminate the mix..similarly, before polishing, any grit that may have been used for prepolishing must be cleaned thoroughly from the barrel and the stones, or if possible a separate polishing barrel could be used to prevent contamination...
Those are all the ideas I have . Maybe someone else who has done more tumbling than I have, and more recently than 39 years ago, should correct me or add to this

THANKS RAY,

I did all four steps in the directions for my tumbler and this is the first time I've had a problem, everything else I tumbled looks great. Have a post on lapidary site, will see what happens. Got these stones at a fee dig in Plush, Or. husband will have a fit when he sees them.

HAVE A GREAT DAY !

ALICA

Alica,
Not to worry, they are not ruined. You can always go over a step again without much loss of material.
Firstly, Ray did a good job with the instructions. I like to run a soap stage before polish for a day. Use fresh polish if there is a chance of contamination. Sometimes stones work better with other polishes. Run the soap stage afterwords also. You can always let them go for more time and use more filler (pellets) to slow down the action. Lastly, make sure there is no quartz mixed in.
Hope this helps,
Gary

THANKS GARY,

Will give it a try and let you know if it works.

HAVE A NICE EVENING !

ALICA