Stainless Steel Tumbler

Well I have decided to jump ship to the Stainless Steel tumbler and media. I got a call this morning that they got a shipment in stock, and I'll be picking it up after work. I ordered through [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which is probably the largest supplier right now that I know of.

I'll hopefully have some results posted by this weekend.

Nice...I'm very Interested in how it works for you. I was looking into switching over at some point down the road....now you get to be the Guinea pig.

Are you going to use Lemi-Shine? I remember that Dean Grennell used to rave on how great it is. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I saw the price on them "Rock-Tumbler's"
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
It's cost's less than a rock tumbler , but it doesn't have a lid ... Think it'll work ?

EdgarEg wrote:Are you going to use Lemi-Shine? I remember that Dean Grennell used to rave on how great it is. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Yes I will be using Lemi-Shine. I have been using it for a couple years with my Ultrasonic Cleaner and my buddy Joe uses it with warm water.

george457d wrote:I saw the price on them "Rock-Tumbler's"
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
It's cost's less than a rock tumbler , but it doesn't have a lid ... Think it'll work ?

The price of buying something made in the USA vs China.

Could a rotary tumbler be made out of a bucket with a tight fitting lid and a 110v motor of some sort? Put a small pulley on the motor and a large pulley on the bucket?

Or even extra large diameter PVC pipe with end caps would make a great tumbler canister.

hawcer wrote:Could a rotary tumbler be made out of a bucket with a tight fitting lid and a 110v motor of some sort? Put a small pulley on the motor and a large pulley on the bucket?

Or even extra large diameter PVC pipe with end caps would make a great tumbler canister.

Yep they sure can but you have to put paddles in it to make sure that the media and brass tumble other wise it just sloshes in the bottom.

Reload3006 wrote:

hawcer wrote:Could a rotary tumbler be made out of a bucket with a tight fitting lid and a 110v motor of some sort? Put a small pulley on the motor and a large pulley on the bucket?

Or even extra large diameter PVC pipe with end caps would make a great tumbler canister.

Yep they sure can but you have to put paddles in it to make sure that the media and brass tumble other wise it just sloshes in the bottom.

Ahhh...so you are saying an old mobile home sized cloths dryer would be the ticket? LOL

hawcer wrote:Could a rotary tumbler be made out of a bucket with a tight fitting lid and a 110v motor of some sort? Put a small pulley on the motor and a large pulley on the bucket?

Or even extra large diameter PVC pipe with end caps would make a great tumbler canister.

I saw the instructions where a guy did this for his metal casting sand muller. A 5 gallon bucket with lid (I suppose paddles could be incorporated into the bucket) suspended by rope from a rod that is supported on each end. A larger pulley on the rod than on the 1/4 hp motor and there you go. Imagine putting a round rod (axle) through the uprights of a goal post. Hang the bucket sideways so that it has a rope around the top and then around the axle - like a belt. Do the same thing at the other end of the bucket

Well I've done a couple batches so far, but was so excited I forgot to take before pictures.

So far I am impressed with the results. I do hate how much water is wasted (I'm a conservative after all), but I probably use 1/10th as much water as they did in their video.

You can only tumble about 2# of brass, where I was thinking I could do much more than that. Realistically this is about the same as a vibratory tumbler too, and still more than my Ultrasonic Cleaner.

I haven't got the drying down pat yet and I do seem to leave a lot of water marks on my brass the next day. I either need to start dunking them in ammonia like I was doing with my Ultrasonic or getting a fan on them.

I need some sort of media sifter to speed up separating the brass and stainless steel rods. Unlike corncob/walnut the rods do easily slide out and don't stick like I thought they might.