Building a Mega Rock Tumbler!
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- Опубліковано 22 січ 2024
- I’m tired of the maintenance it takes to keep the small rock tumblers alive. I’ve been running them 24/7 for the last year and all of them have needed some form of intervention lest they die. I built this bad boy to get more tumbler production and less maintenance, hopefully it doesn’t break on me it’s wayyyy overbuilt. If you enjoy watching leave a comment and I’ll respond!
#rockhound #geology #hobby #lapidary #rocktumbling #build - Розваги
AWESOME! I just showed this to my dad and told him we need to build one! 👍
Good luck! It was quite the endeavor, I used parts mostly found in my yard from my grandparents holding onto things. There’s no way I’ll be able to replace anything on there with simple parts lol
One mans trash is another man's supercharged rock tumbler. Nicely done Sir!
Thanks for all the help on it pops
I turned a home depot cement mixer into a giant tumbler. I put a plastic cat box tray to cover the opening, (remove the blades) add 10/15 % garden stones to create agitation and movement of the slurry and stones. If tumbling softer stones I use marble chunks in place of garden stones
I bet that’s a loud one lol. Awesome idea, how has it been working out for you so far?
Great idea. Turned out awesome!
Thanks man! It blew up once but has been running for over a month now with no problems. It’s a miracle lol
Super jealous! I wish I were more mechanically inclined, I want one of these. Great job!
Thank you! I didn’t have the internet as a kid so I had a lot of free time on my hands.
I have the one with the orange plastic tub, Kushlan 3.5 cu. ft. 1/2 HP 120-Volt Motor Direct Drive Cement Mixer. get the high one ,not the low one( comfort able to use). Be sure to put bolts and gaskets in the holes left when the blades were removed. I have run mine for 6 days straight , the motor will feel hot but not a dangerous hot. The first day tumbling it does make noise but as a slurry builds up the clacking cuts down I fill to within 4 or 5 inches from the outer edge, Take a bunch of soft stone, I use marble breake it up in to chunks larger than rocks you are going to tumble. I have 20 or 39 pound seach of various rounded out stones and of various sizes of various hardness. I have a lot of scrap granite and marble and and just some river rocks. Day one place them all in the machine pour a half gallon of sand and run for several daysuntill many are rounded out. sperate those and tumble the reast for a few days. then classify all, ato be used in the future when doing your main tumbling. I don't use this for final polishing, but I use it it to grind down large batches of rock and then pick out the good looking ones for final working. Just dump in a bucket full of your collrction and run. you can just remove the plastic cover and scope out a can full of tumbling stuff and check progress without cleaning it out or even stopping the machine.
That’s an awesome idea, I’ve been tempted to do something similar but the noise would probably bug my neighbors lol. The longest stage is the first one so knocking that out as quick as you can is a game changer. I have the big red tumbler for my course stage and then pick out what goes on to the next one just like you. I was sick of running material that I didn’t like so I’m picking out the undesirables and putting them in their own pile, I may use those for decoration or planter box stones
@@mudbrothersrock I was worried about the same, I had designed a plywood mini room with sheets of Styrofoam covering the whole inside. With inside dimensions of 6ft by 6 ft by 6ft. But I discovered the plastic tubs were not as noisy as the cheap metal tubs with the ring gear that turns the tub ( examples of what not to use, Central Machinery 1-1/4 Cubic ft. Cement Mixer or the YARDMAX 1.6 cu. ft. Concrete Mixer. Remember, before using it as a tumbler, load it up with chunks of marble, granite's, broken ceramic tiles and just plain old river rocks, with silica type sand for a few days, if you want to speed things up use a very aggressive large grain/grit sand blasting medium, like we used to use in industrial settings. When you have made a bunch of tumbling medium and classified it after its rounded off, then it is ready use as you see fit. I use gold prospector classifiers that fit over buckets to clean and sort tumbled gems and stones. I hate waiting days for disappointments at clean-ups, in fact, I hate the first few clean-ups. I am almost 80 years old, and not lose lots of time to waste, as a kid in the early 1950s, I always had to find my Xmas presents way before the big day.
If you can, do me a favor by making a video for UA-cam about the process. Good luck Lance
This is one of the best rock videos I’ve ever seen!!
It’s been an honor entertaining you
Producer holding you at gunpoint, Ha! Nice.
Man Amazing job !
Regarding speed outcoming your motor you coud have save money.
Diffèrent solution would have be toi use Big sized wheel to reduce speed and keep a Big strength. Like speed on bikes
I really love the way you did this, working on my self done AT this Time and had thé samedi speed control problem. My barrel was jumping from side to side and making liké a heartquake noice, even more once loaded with stone😅
Oh no that’s scary 😂 I just loaded one of mine in the wrong way and it wore a hole through the rubber. Whoops
I say good job!👍👊
Thanks! It was a blast making it. Currently working on it apparently the metal holding the motor shafts together decided to go into the gearbox and it caused all sorts of problems so it’s gonna be fun troubleshooting that lol
@mudbrothersrock tweeks here & there, but you'll figure it out. You're inventive... I just completed & made a 2 teer tumbler recently, all from scratch too. Cost a penny to build, but in the long run it will last for years to come. A lot longer than the high-priced tumblers they sell & eventually break down...
@dreamlookautodetailingauto3353 that’s awesome! And yeah you can say that again. I’ve dropped something like 1000 dollars over the years on tumblers and most of them only last 1-2. Nat geo is good with their warranties but they break super quick. Making a custom one is the way to go for sure
@@mudbrothersrock for sure.
Outstanding Ingenuity.
Gems are LIFE 🤙🏿
I need this.
Nicely done. You may want to loosen the chain tension just a little bit, I think that will lower the overall drag.
The chain connecting the 4 rollers is pretty loose, the link was almost close enough to connect perfectly but I ended up with an extra link. I put in an idler tensioner of sorts just a piece of plastic that the chain can rub against so it doesn’t jump off the teeth. I had that happen a couple times. I just barely got a 1 inch bore keyed sprocket and changed out the belt completely. I now have chains hooking up the gearbox to the first roller and the original chain hooking the rest together. Belt was giving me all kinds of problems since I didn’t have a pulley for it to ride in. Thanks for the advice!
Got my Support!
You can do it!!! You’re doing a great job. Rad.
🤤
I'm sure your next one will be better.
There are lots of things I would change if I could go back but that would require taking it all apart and welding it which I don’t have the patience for lol
This is what happens when you worry more about looks, than making things work properly. Besides using a several hundred dollar gearbox instead of adding a PULLEY to the motor, he uses the gearbox without a pulley as well. That belt is not gonna last long and you are destroying the shaft on the gearbox instead of a cheap/free pulley wearing out in 5-10 years that is replaceable.
You are also using about 10x the energy with this setup, basically like driving in first gear and revving the engine instead of shifting. The motor has plenty of power for more efficient ratios.
Rip out the gearbox, carve a pulley out of wood and attach it to the motor shaft. Do the same for the drive axle on the tumbler. By changing the size on either the motor or the rod you can trade speed for torque. Small motor pulley to big pulley for less speed more torque.
PS. Tighten up that chain and grease it or that will wear the teeth off the gears real quick.
Good points, I ended up ditching the belt entirely and used a chain. My long term goal was have enough torque on this thing to run 8 of the big red tumblers which will be between 3-400 pounds. I was using what I had on hand. I wasn’t going to spend money on this thing. This was a boredom project. I got everything for free, it’s been running since I made the video non stop, better than the National Geographic and Chicago electric have been. That’s all I needed
entropy all bigger metal stock becomes smaller random metal stock
And then it gets welded together by a barefoot dude in his backyard
That leegol electric tumbler is complete garbage. I got one and I had to MacGyver it to get it to work because it was always blowing out .
It was my second tumbler purchase and my biggest frustration. That was the reason I made my own. The belts kept breaking, the bearings were really cheap plastic and would always gum up, the pulley wheel was warped and would vibrate the whole thing. I could go on forever haha. The motor finally seized and I’m tempted to just gut it and turn it into something else. Or the trash, that works too