homemade tumbler
- Thread starter fogducker
- Start date
Yes, I used one of the rock tumbler style machines before I got the vibratory cleaner.
It worked fine but the walnut media tended to jam up the threads of the two yellow drums that it used.
I find the vibratory cleaner to be far more convenient. Almost like it was designed for the task.....
As for this huge home made thing, there's nothing like reinventing the wheel and having it turn out 'not quite round'....
blacksmithden
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I actually went out and looked for one of those things before I bought my vibratory tumber. Not the easiest thing in the world to find anymore. When I did finally find one, they wanted 60 bucks for the kit !!!!! Forget that noise. Labarons has the Lyman Turbo 1200 for less than 70.
took a quick video of it in action...the speed it is turning......
i want to cut that in half..hence the motor and rheostat im looking for out of a treadmill..
i put a black line on the tank to give a rough idea on fast it is turning now..
so if any of you fatties out there want an excuse to give up your tread mills..heres your chance,just send me a pm..
let me know if the video works,as im still a computer dummy
i want to cut that in half..hence the motor and rheostat im looking for out of a treadmill..
i put a black line on the tank to give a rough idea on fast it is turning now..
so if any of you fatties out there want an excuse to give up your tread mills
..heres your chance,just send me a pm..let me know if the video works,as im still a computer dummy
took a quick video of it in action...the speed it is turning......
i want to cut that in half..hence the motor and rheostat im looking for out of a treadmill..
i put a black line on the tank to give a rough idea on fast it is turning now..
Looks good. If you want to cut the speed, trim those rubber drive "wheels" down from 2" to much smaller. Effectively changing the "gear" ratio.
On the right track, just need to slow down the speed a bit like in 1/2. You need to move the motor over about 2 inches to the right and move it out about 5 inches so that you can put a bigger pulley on as the drive pulley needs to be twice as big. Use a split ring pulley on the motor as small as you can get it and have the belt loose enough and that might slow it down some also. Looks like the drive shafts would need to be raised for extra clearance to put a bigger drive wheel on there so that might not be an option.
Tread mills use a DC motor in them and are controlled by an ac to dc motor controller so finding a rheostat from a treadmill will do you no good. Usually the motor controller has burnt out and people have thrown the whole thing in the garbage when all they had to do was change a 80 buck controller and they would be back in business. If that motor that you are using is from a furnace or dryer than there is no way you can control the speed other than changing pulley sizes, they are manufactured for one speed only. Using a fan controller or a light dimmer will just make the motor buzz until the dimmer allows enough current to the motor to get it to move and it will be at full speed. If you can find an older furnace with a two speed motor in it that can be used because the fan on all the time speed is about 1/3 of full speed. When you look at the motor it will have 4 wires coming out of it, HOT, Neutral and an extra wire usually pink or red for a continues speed that you can hook up to a 110v hot and have it run at about 300 rpm, there is a black/green ground wire also. Lennox and Carrier used them in the High End models in the early 80 and some of these furnaces will be changed to Mid or High efficiency and the old ones can be found at the metal recyclers usually.
Find an old dryer and take the motor and the huge pulley off the back of the drum and you will be close to the speed that it needs to be is also an option.
It is fun making stuff yourself and knowing that you made it for low cost and usually better than store bought. I made a sand blaster 20 years ago out of a 40 pound propane tank and I still use it today and it works fabulous.
Tread mills use a DC motor in them and are controlled by an ac to dc motor controller so finding a rheostat from a treadmill will do you no good. Usually the motor controller has burnt out and people have thrown the whole thing in the garbage when all they had to do was change a 80 buck controller and they would be back in business. If that motor that you are using is from a furnace or dryer than there is no way you can control the speed other than changing pulley sizes, they are manufactured for one speed only. Using a fan controller or a light dimmer will just make the motor buzz until the dimmer allows enough current to the motor to get it to move and it will be at full speed. If you can find an older furnace with a two speed motor in it that can be used because the fan on all the time speed is about 1/3 of full speed. When you look at the motor it will have 4 wires coming out of it, HOT, Neutral and an extra wire usually pink or red for a continues speed that you can hook up to a 110v hot and have it run at about 300 rpm, there is a black/green ground wire also. Lennox and Carrier used them in the High End models in the early 80 and some of these furnaces will be changed to Mid or High efficiency and the old ones can be found at the metal recyclers usually.
Find an old dryer and take the motor and the huge pulley off the back of the drum and you will be close to the speed that it needs to be is also an option.
It is fun making stuff yourself and knowing that you made it for low cost and usually better than store bought. I made a sand blaster 20 years ago out of a 40 pound propane tank and I still use it today and it works fabulous.
just to clear this up..im looking for a motor and a rheostat from a treadmill..i want to use both items from the machine
btw..thanks for all the info you have given,all advice is more then welcomed to me here........
cheers fellow nutz
Don
blacksmithden
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Holy crap !!!! Ok buddy. That needs a speed cut of about 3/4, not half . MORE POWER SCOTTIE !!!!!
The other thing that just occured to me. Is that steel tank going to beat the snot out of your brass......specfically the necks ????
I had a little repair to do here today and it made me think of you FD. Do you know anyone with, or have yourself, a vacuum cleaner power head that still has a working motor in it ?? They're fairly high torque, 115 volt motors with about a 3/8 inch shaft. One of those, and a large vaccum cleaner drive belt (cost me $4.50 for a small one) would have you pretty well set up......and no, you can't have mine since it's still running the vacuum cleaner head I'm still keeping an eye out for ya.
. MORE POWER SCOTTIE !!!!!The other thing that just occured to me. Is that steel tank going to beat the snot out of your brass......specfically the necks ????
I had a little repair to do here today and it made me think of you FD. Do you know anyone with, or have yourself, a vacuum cleaner power head that still has a working motor in it ?? They're fairly high torque, 115 volt motors with about a 3/8 inch shaft. One of those, and a large vaccum cleaner drive belt (cost me $4.50 for a small one) would have you pretty well set up......and no, you can't have mine since it's still running the vacuum cleaner head
I'm still keeping an eye out for ya.
I was thinking the same thing except adding different size pulley to the motor. We did this to the motor for our full size lamb spit.
blacksmithden
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Don't be pi##ed at me Foggy
I found some stuff today. Active Surplus on Queen St W in Toronto. Made my bi-annual trip down there to see what they had that I didn't need, but somehow manage to buy anyway They had another 6-8 of these motors on the shelf and at least a dozen rollers if anyone wants to go and get some.
The motor was $35. The rollers were $5 each.
The motor is 115V and has a gear reducer built onto the end of it that makes the turn speed 61 RPM. It's an old photocopier motor..continuous duty cycle...dead quiet. The rollers are cushion type rollers so they shouldn't produce any noise at all. Just need to head over to Canadian Bearing And Belting to pick up some bearings, pillow blocks, pullys and a belt. I've got a big hinge that I'm going to mount the motor on so that the drive belt will be tightened by the motors own weight trying to swing it out and away from the driven roller. I'll build the frame so that the free spinning roller can be slid back and forth for different sizes of drums. I also got 8 heavy spings that should hold up around 100 lbs to act as legs under the whole thing (quiet quiet quiet) Here's some pics of the goods. Anybody got an old broken garden pump sprayer that they want to donate to the cause (for the plastic drum) ???
EDIT: Forget the pullys....I'm going to make up a coupler and direct drive it.
I found some stuff today. Active Surplus on Queen St W in Toronto. Made my bi-annual trip down there to see what they had that I didn't need, but somehow manage to buy anyway
They had another 6-8 of these motors on the shelf and at least a dozen rollers if anyone wants to go and get some.The motor was $35. The rollers were $5 each.
The motor is 115V and has a gear reducer built onto the end of it that makes the turn speed 61 RPM. It's an old photocopier motor..continuous duty cycle...dead quiet. The rollers are cushion type rollers so they shouldn't produce any noise at all. Just need to head over to Canadian Bearing And Belting to pick up some bearings, pillow blocks, pullys and a belt. I've got a big hinge that I'm going to mount the motor on so that the drive belt will be tightened by the motors own weight trying to swing it out and away from the driven roller. I'll build the frame so that the free spinning roller can be slid back and forth for different sizes of drums. I also got 8 heavy spings that should hold up around 100 lbs to act as legs under the whole thing (quiet quiet quiet) Here's some pics of the goods. Anybody got an old broken garden pump sprayer that they want to donate to the cause (for the plastic drum) ???
EDIT: Forget the pullys....I'm going to make up a coupler and direct drive it.
blacksmithden............ive not checked this thread in a bit,and im just reading on all the goodies you got and your plans..looks like you have a great plan set up..
if you need some plastic for a drum,member dumbdawg(my brother),gave me about a 10 ft piece of 12 inch diameter plastic pipe.its got about a 3/8 thick wall,so it should work out great
i will be using this pipe instead of the bbq tank,as it will be better for the brass to tumble against plastic walls ...all i have to do is put some kind of agitator on the inside wall..
.im working on trying to dig up a few pipe caps to close the ends..so if any one has an idea were to get 12 inch plastic pipe caps,it would help out alot..
back to my tumbler..update..
i finally came across a treadmill,that i could salvage the motor and contols,its a 130vdc/2 hp/17 amps..just today i rough wired it togeather just for a test run..that sucker goes from 0 to fast enough i cant hold the motor down by hand..
so now i just have to make up a mounting bracket for the motor and the controls..then fabricate the tank up..
i,ll post some more pics as i get it going togeather in the next fewdays when i get time
,and im just reading on all the goodies you got and your plans..looks like you have a great plan set up..if you need some plastic for a drum,member dumbdawg(my brother),gave me about a 10 ft piece of 12 inch diameter plastic pipe.its got about a 3/8 thick wall,so it should work out great
i will be using this pipe instead of the bbq tank,as it will be better for the brass to tumble against plastic walls ...all i have to do is put some kind of agitator on the inside wall..
.im working on trying to dig up a few pipe caps to close the ends..so if any one has an idea were to get 12 inch plastic pipe caps,it would help out alot..
back to my tumbler..update..
i finally came across a treadmill,that i could salvage the motor and contols,its a 130vdc/2 hp/17 amps..just today i rough wired it togeather just for a test run..that sucker goes from 0 to fast enough i cant hold the motor down by hand
..so now i just have to make up a mounting bracket for the motor and the controls..then fabricate the tank up..
i,ll post some more pics as i get it going togeather in the next fewdays when i get time
Sounds like you have your summer project going there FD!
naaaaaaaa..i already have the rollers set up.i would say once i have all the parts i need..it will take me about three hours to put it all togeather..
then i,ll dissasemble it all,sandblast it then paint it..
working for a steel shop does have a few extra perks for doing projects like this
