Homemade wet tumbler for stainless steel media

[MachIVshooter]

Jmorris-

I see no supports for your bucket. Not suggesting that you don't know what you're doing, but that's quite a bit of weight, and over time, it's going to fatigue the plastic. May also take a toll on your bearings

If it were me, I'd mount a couple of small casters for the bucket to roll on.

 

[jmorris]

If it ever needs it, I'll add them. The bearings are good for 1500 lbs each, should last forever with such a small load. The bucket is built to hold 100 lbs of a hazmat oxidizer and pretty stout itself, not your home depot type 5 gal bucket.

 

[MachIVshooter]

The bearings are good for 1500 lbs each, should last forever with such a small load.

Probably will, especially at 40 RPM. But they are carrying a lot more than the 30 or 40 pounds in that bucket, since they are positioned at the base. Two 1,500 lb bearings 1" apart with a 100 Lb. load centered between them are carrying 50 lbs/ea. But two bearings an inch apart supporting a 100# load on a shaft 14" from the outer bearing are just below and right at their maximums, respectively. The outer becomes a fulcrum, and the inner tries to act as a counterweight.

Kinda like wheel bearings that would last forever in a vehicle with factory wheels fail with monotonous regularity when someone puts severely offest wheels on the car. Vehicle weight doesn't change, but the load on the bearings does.

 

[jmorris]

My money would be on the .093 wall 3/4 box tube frame folding up before the bearings give way.

 

[GW Staar]

I think MachIVshooter was more suggesting that the plastic bucket might give out first. Something like THIS might be a quick and effective insurance against it. Not a table as shown, but a couple on each side and below the bucket, bolted to your frame, or to an appendage of your frame....like a a circle in a "V". They are 6 or 7 dollars a piece.



Nice Project jmorris! I saw a homemade unit on AR15.com a while back, but they used rollers and PVC cylinders. Your idea holds a hell of a lot more brass.

It never ceases to amaze me how you can find good used motors for your projects at a really cheap price.

 

[jmorris]

Something that thin might work more like a pipe cutter blade than a wide caster. I'll have to wait and see how it holds up as I didn't face the plate off in the lathe, I didn't figure the bucket would have been true enough, so there is a bit of run out at the end of the bucket. I figured an end support would force the bucket to bend every revolution and it would fail for sure then. At that point a dual roller with a round bucket might be better (like a rock polisher).

 

[MachIVshooter]

there is a bit of run out at the end of the bucket.

Shouldn't take much to shim it true.

Don'tcha just love trying to get things straight on smaller, non-industrial machines? lol. This is a constant struggle with my little lathe and mill. I spend more time trying to make sure the stock is straight than actually machining it, I think. Almost invariably end up with final hand fitting of any part with close tolerances.

 

[Striker Fired]

Earlier someone asked if you can use the ss pins in vibrating unit.I have been for a while and so far haven't had any trouble with the motor or any part going out.It also cleans my brass in about 20min instead of 2-3hrs.You are limited to smaller batches(which works for me).

 

[Seedtick]

Striker, I tried the smaller 'Turbo 600 bowl for liquid use' for my Lyman Turbo 1200 as well. My nephew has the Thumler setup so I borrowed his pins to see how it would do. But I wasn't satisfied with it.
It did a pretty good job but it wasn't worth the trouble for the so few that I could do in a load.

Seedtick

 

[Striker Fired]

I put approx 1.5lbs of pins(too many pins really reduces the amount of brass your able to do) in,just so cover the pins with water,lots and lots of soap(that was the key to it working better for me)just a sprinkle of lemonshine ,and for 45acp about 100pcs,9mm about 150.It can't handle the 300-500 pcs at once like the tumblers,but it does clen them in about 20-30min rather than 2-3hrs,so I can run more batches in that 2-3hrs and come out at about the same quantity per hour as the tumbler.It takes more messing around this way,but I didn't have to buy a tumbler this way.

 

[jmorris]

Shouldn't take much to shim it true.

Don'tcha just love trying to get things straight on smaller, non-industrial machines?

These buckets are not made the same as your standard 5 gallon bucket. You would reduce a lot of contact with the base plate with a shim. All it would take is to remove the love joy, chuck up on the 1” shaft and face off the first few inches of the 3/8” plate, might even help with concentricity to turn to the ID of the inner ring. I’ll give it a try if this one lets go.