OT: rock polishers

Christmas gift. I

Harbor freight sells a couple in your price range:

The cheaper one should be good enough for a 5 year olde...And leave some $$$ in your budget for a few supplies too.

Happy Holidays,

Jeff

Harbor Freight has this model..I have the double and it has held up well. I'm not sure if it comes with abrasive, but they do sell it separately:

Thanks Dan and Jeff. I'd go for the double. That way they could get something out every

10 days.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

something out every

Don't kid yourself. Some things scale down to toy size, and some don't. Small doesn't work for this, although it does go around and make noise, if one is just toying.

Looks ok - have seen more expensive ones in worse condition.

Be sure to buy the lad a couple of sets of the grit/polish. And have the item number for mom and pop so they can reorder when they can. Each batch of rocks takes a batch of grit/polish.

Left over grit - and rock chips... can be used as a coarse grit boost. So save the grit when cleaning and moving to a finer set.

In the vacant lots and open areas - there are lots of pretty rocks.

Be sure to grade hard rocks in a different batch from softer rocks.

Mart> Wes wrote:

Avoid the cheap units seen at toy stores: that plastic drum would drive you insane from the noise. The HF seem to be knock-offs of Lortones, which used to be decent quality, better than the Thumlers.

Bad/cheap drums can 'burp' so don't run them on something you can't clean easy.

** mike **

It took me a while to remember where I used to buy supplies from but I found it.

For two kids, busting down a selection of bags would be a better deal.

I have a thumlers tumbler and a Lortone 33B somewhere. The HF knockoff looks like a deal. Part of me really wants to buy US, anyone that has bought a Lortone can you verify if it is USA made or just a chinese import? If it is an import now, might as well do HF.

Wes

On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:19:13 -0500, the infamous Jeff Wisnia scrawled the following:

Christmas gift. I

tops for a

Better yet, he could build one for cheaper, and the Goldbergian Factor would likely be higher, increasing the kid's interest.

171k hits. ;)

-- In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell

Christmas gift. I

Wes, beware, I had a disappointing experience with one that I bought. It was made like crap, not to be used, only to be given as a gift. Min fell apart after a day of use. Good thing I bought it at a garage sale (never used). I hope that you can find something better. I would ask some lapidary groups for advice.

Christmas gift. I

tops for a

I got started with one of the smaller Harbor Freight ones, worked well, except for their "o-ring" belt. The first couple of those crapped out right away. I stopped off at a local (to me) lapidary place

and bought a couple of their replacement belts in the same size. The only one I ever used lasted me past the point I outgrew the tumbler. I did find that Harbor Freight's rock polishing grit is terribly overpriced. Seems like I bought pounds for the same as I did this: I ended up making one using an old washing machine motor, a couple rollers and a piece of schedule 120 8" PVC pipe. Works very well. A true Goldberg, though.

sells a selection of round belts, and will custom make any length for not much $$. Most common mistake with a round belt in a small thingy (:-)) is to get the radius of the drive pulley below the minimum radius spec of the belt. We import and sell some cheap orbital shakers that routinely broke the belt in a week or three, so now we replace them before we ship with the smallest diameter belts McMC carries and those last a year or two at least (smaller the belt diameter the smaller the minimum pulley radius spec).

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

Wes, Make your own.. I made one when I was 14. Wooden base with two sides. Two pipes were just sitting in holes drilled in the sides. One pipe had a grill spit turner attached to it to turn the rod. A coffee can sat on top of the two rods and turned. The only problem I remember was getting enough friction on the drive rod to turn the can.

Even cheaper folk just put the rocks and a polishing medium in the hubcab of their car... but your nephew is not old enough to drive yet : )

The serious polishers at the local rock shop were old car tires. If you are in a fabricating mood, perhaps you can find something a bit smaller (lawn tractor tires?) and rig one up. Nice thing about those .vs. the little cans was that you could check the progress without having to stop the process - and with their setup, each grit stayed in its own tire, with the rocks being removed, washed, and moved up to the next finest grit.

Basically a powered roller (knurled would be good) an idle roller and the tires in-between.

I have often contemplated one of these. Has anyone ever done this with the tire hanging on a revolving shaft driving the tire bead? Seems to me it would be very simple and should work well. Gerry :-)} London, Canada