Building a big tumbler?s

Dad once had a rock tumbler made from 1/2 an old hot water tank, but that is no where near the size you need.

Paul

A friend of mine who did stamping used a barrel type concrete mixer. It was noisy but it did a good job.

I use a five gallon plastic pail with 4 internal wooden 2x2 pieces screwed to the inside surface of the pail. I put the pail in one of my bigger lathes and run it at a real slow speed. The tailstock was pushed against the lid of the pail.

John

Check the various auction sites as well. Lots of those in those sizes winding up for auction as companies shut down..

If the bowl is worn..simply take it down to the Rino Liner place and have it sprayed nice and thick. Works like a champ

Gunner

"Confiscating wealth from those who have earned it, inherited it, or got lucky is never going to help 'the poor.' Poverty isn't caused by some people having more money than others, just as obesity isn't caused by McDonald's serving super-sized orders of French fries Poverty, like obesity, is caused by the life choices that dictate results." - John Tucci,

The mining industry uses a big rock tumbler called a ball mill. A typical one might use steel balls about 5 or 6 inches in diameter in a large drum to pulverize ore.

Paul

They don't usually self destruct IF they were built right. The ones we had were real simple. They had a large drum made of 1/2" thick steel panels welded along each edge, with one that locked in place with simple dog locks. The end caps were the same steel and welded all the way around. On each end were two pairs of pillow blocks with stub shafts that bolted to the tumbler body. Power for rotation was a simple hydraulic drive motor that connected to one stub shaft with a sprocket. Had a control lever that allowed you to roll the drum either way. Used to tumble a LOT of stuff in there, Abrasive wise it used a standard ceramic media just like the vibratory units.

We also had a medium sized vibratory unit. It worked great on things that you couldn't tumble but it was N O I S Y!!!!! You couldn't run it during normal production hours because it was so loud. Had to run it on third shift when you could load it, hit the switch and get well away from it.

We built a tumbler that big to wax coat wood blocks. How can I help? Need pictures?

Thanks for the links. We will probably use 3/8 since we have so much of that size steel scrap and roll a drum i'm guessing.

I have considered the same question, and I came up with: 55 gallon refuse plastic barrels, and shopping cart wheels. The wheels can be mounted with bolts so if and when they wear out, it's a five minute changeout. The whole thing can be mounted on a tilting assembly for easy emptying. No need to reinvent the wheel here, just use cheap available parts.

Steve

"Paul G. Shultz" wrote

I did repair work at the Nipton, NV (Maybe over the line into CA) gold mine. They had ball mills that were the size of cement truck mixers. Six inch rubber standouts from the outside of the drums, 4-6' steel balls. Ground it all to a powder. N-O-I-S-Y!

Steve

"used"

You don't want a true circular drum if at all possible. The parts will just slide around and not tumble. Adding paddles doesn't work real well as they tend to do more damage then help. The sectional drum avoids this with the angles of the drum causing the media/parts to tumble. If you have a good sized break you could make it in one piece easy enough.

It all has to be an equation of: size of parts to be cleaned, hardness of those parts, how clean they need to be, how much needs to be cleaned in a batch, time allotted per cycle, and possibly other factors. Building one huge mondo unit may take a lot more time, money, and upkeep than making several smaller ones that may run a little longer, but would be cheaper to replace balls, grit, and other consumables.

Steve

-- Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. -- Demosthenes

I don't understand what a "sectional drum". And we don't have a break. How do the paddles cause damage? I have a feeling my boss just wants something like what he has seen in the past, using what we have around here. That would be some rolled drum, with no media