Media tumbler

Overmountain

Overmountain

Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
1,711
Hey fellas, both old and new. Sorry, been away a while and haven't been introduced to the newer folks.

Anyway, I'm considering building a 5 gallon bucket size media tumbler. I have a spare 3/4 hp motor to use. Want to see if anyone has pics of something similar they've built. I don't want to put holes in the bucket if I can help it so I can wet tumble.

I saw a pic of a bucket laying on a frame that had wheels on it, and was subsequently rolled. I'd like to be able to just sit buckets on some sort of angular frame making it easy to swap stuff on/off.

Cheers.
Eric
 
We are making one also. Its a vibratory rig using a treadmill motor.
The tub hangs suspended on 4 short arms, via an connecting rod to an eccentric cam attached to the motor.
Suspending the tub was easier to cobble up compared to supporting the tub from upright springs.

Media tumbling is quite a science in itself. At least for production machinery.
Getting the vibration speed & loading just right, can roll the parts thru wonderfully.
 
I have two commercially made vibratory units... They're great but capacity is about a gallon on my biggest one... I thought about driving the thing with the 3/4 hp motor rolling on some skateboard wheels in rack at about 45° angle. Then thought if I used rollers that had big grooves cut out of them or oblong in shape I might get some vibration in the mix too....
Will likely try to throw something together this week, curious to see some other homered designs to spur it on.

You are correct though, I've seen tons of equipment dedicated to just this process in a production line capacity. A.Gough has a cool unit. Or at least he did last I remember. If I could afford it I'd go that route...
 
While rotary seems like the cheap way to go, vibratory is the efficient way to go.

By doing some surplus shopping, a 3Ph 3/4HP vibratory motor with a sufficient Kg of force can be bought pretty cheap. A VFD or vibratory controller will allow adjustment of the shake rate.

As Lieblad said, a small bin/tub of the proper shape (really important) suspended properly (really important), shaken at the right rate ( really important) can tumble items very evenly and rapidly. You can stop and check the items any time.
 
I've been thinking of doing this as well, and I haven't really decided if I should do a vibratory tumbler or a rolling one. I saw a pretty cool setup online using a drill, a set of motorcycle sprockets and a chain to drive the whole thing, it was pretty cool in a ghetto kind of way. The big sprocket was on the bucket, the small in the drill chuck. The bucket sat on a couple of rollers and it spun as fast as you wanted to make the drill go.

search youtube for "brass tumbler" and you'll find tons of videos on the subject
 
Here is my 5-gallon tumbler, shown without the bucket for clarity www.flickr.com/photos/110785734@N05/24248537780 I run it about 60 hours per week on average.

The bucket is installed with the lid on the right (toward the motor). It took a tremendous amount of trial and error to optimize the position of the wheels - good placement vs bad placement is the difference between a 10 hour bucket lifespan and a 40+ hour bucket lifespan. Bucket wall thickness also makes a huge difference - I buy 70 mil buckets from Uline.

Note the 5th wheel on the left - the bottom rim of the bucket rides along this - the other 4 wheels are intentionally aligned such that the bucket 'tracks' to the left, into this 5th wheel.

On the right side, the drive and idler wheel ride on the final 1/2" of the bucket lid. I found that this was the optimal placement to extend bucket life, and it opens your options as to bucket selection because the rib/collar section on buckets varies with manufacturer.

I'm using a 2HP with VFD in addition to the pulleys you see in the pic. I think 3/4 HP would be fine, but you'll need a pretty serious pulley speed reduction if you don't plan on using a VFD.

The drive shaft is Ø1" with Ø4" yellow urethane drive rollers - I got all drive hardware from McMaster.
 
Stacy, I had thought about doing that. My larger brass tumbler is simply made by suspending a big bowl on top of four springs and has a motor with an eccentric weight on it directly attached to the bottom. That thing has served me flawlessly for about 9 years now. And is very even and efficient.

The bucket route and rollers seemed the easiest to do quickly (I have a set of big parts to tumble and short time to do them. Won't fit in my current setup.) Does the motor need to be specifically set up to run an eccentric weight, or could one do so and live for more than 5 minutes? The motor is a two speed swamp cooler style motor... Slow speed is like 1120rpm I think? If so, I believe I could suspend it fairly well with some rubber exhaust hangers. And weld up a square tube frame to hang it in. Trying to keep from poking holes in the bucket that I'd later have to try and seal...

Thanks for the photo PB. This is almost exactly what I was thinking of doing...

Cheers. Thanks.
Eric
 
A short video of mine. If I can fit a blade into my Lyman vibratory tumbler, I will use it instead of the rotary one as it's quicker and has a nicer finish. I had to change the pulleys to get it slow enough.

[video=youtube;HiD_L0RmKz0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiD_L0RmKz0[/video]
 
moparjake said:
I spend a lot of time on gun forums in the reloading threads. There are some pretty decent tutorials on DIY tumblers for brass cleaning if you search Google. Here's a pretty good how to thread on a DIY wet tumbler using a 5 Gallon bucket. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?260685-DIY-Brass-Wet-Tumbler
-Jake
Click to expand...

I originally tried this approach and it was an utter failure (not enough friction to drive, short bucket lifespan, etc), presumable because of the mass of a typical load of knives/media vs the mass of a typical load of brass/media. I'd estimate my average load per bucket at 40-50 pounds.
 
A quick vid of mine just after i made it , 1.5hp motor connected through a vfd , the pic of the knife blade is after 5 minutes in the tumbler.
The motor also doubles as a disc grinder by changing the pulley out.
The length is a bit limiting so i'm intending to make another about 6" longer in the near future , most of the parts were sourced from ebay and the timber i had in the shed already , from memory i think it cost about $80aud to make excluding motor & vfd
[video=youtube;_jr2hsxOkwE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jr2hsxOkwE[/video]

32%20D2%20PSK%20%20%20_zpsn1wtmvb3.jpg
 
If you can weld. The Northern tools model is an easy build. Grimsmo has a video on YT where his broke, he shows how simple the design is to make one. If that helps
 
What media are you guys using, I have batch of Q3 - mini knives coming up and think this finish would be perfect.
 
JTknives said:
What media are you guys using, I have batch of Q3 - mini knives coming up and think this finish would be perfect.
Click to expand...

In a rotating tumbler, size of the media determines how aggressive the corners, tips, and edges will be knocked down. When I want to aggressively knock down the corners, I use 'fast cut' media that is big - 1.13x1.13x0.88". Otherwise I use landscaping rocks (river rocks, pea gravel, etc) - quartz-bearing rocks seem to work the best. Marble, limestone, or anything similar is a no-go.

Harbor Freight sells tumbler media but the price is way too high. If you want real tumbler media, and don't have a local supply, McMaster is probably the best deal.
 
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