Thread: case tumbler

Originally Posted by TeRei

Deye223 my motor is on its way. Can you tell me what pillow bearings you used. Please see this selection and see what ones you have used. Thanks. I need the right size to go with your rods too?

Housing Pillow Block - Ball Bearing Unit Components - Industrial Bearings - Farrell Bearings

Decide on shaft size, give bearing supplier a dingle and ask about suitable bearings and housings?

Go into your local SAECO Wilson branch and corner one of the staff that looks awake

Originally Posted by Jimmynostars

Decide on shaft size, give bearing supplier a dingle and ask about suitable bearings and housings?

it's just 12mm rod and bearing but i will be changing to 20mm bearing and 20mm pipe when i get around to it . these are the ones i used and will be using

2pcs Pillow Block 8 10 12 20mm Bore Zinc Alloy Inner Diameter Metal Ball Bearing | eBay

Deye223 any reason for upgrade to 20mm for the rods? Better turning?

They are hardly going to wear out.. Quite slow + relatively small load = a bloody long time

yeah mate because when it's full and over 40lbs it bows the rods out a fair bit and as pipe is stronger than rod plus the bigger dia thats where i will end up

I've been in the middle of making a tumbler as well.
Gone real simple though. Using a 12V wiper motor and a 10L paint bucket spinning on skateboard wheels. Still got a little to go before it's fully operational, but I have given it a test run to test my ideas and it works fine.
Stainless pins are going to be the most expensive part. Everything else has been free so far.
This tumbler will be great for doing the tons of brass for the AR's.
Test run was using a 7ah spotlight battery. I have now wired in a laptop DC power supply to power the wiper motor. A 3 way switch means I can change direction to wind the bucket on/off. I've also slowed teh speed down a bit. Didn't realise I had it in 2nd gear for test lol.
I like the idea of using some conduit for agitators. Might have to steal that idea

Here's the test run vid I made.


I've also been making a smaller version using a battery drill motor and old coffee tin to do smaller batches of brass.
Only thing left to do is attach grip tape to the drive rods. Test run with tin full of water worked OK. I have since closed the gap between the ends so the rods don't bend too much.

Originally Posted by deye223

yeah mate because when it's full and over 40lbs it bows the rods out a fair bit and as pipe is stronger than rod plus the bigger dia thats where i will end up

40lbs!!! Holy shit! You're gonna need a lot of SS pins..

no thats it all up full of water pins and brass 15lb of that is pins

My motor on the way. Just organising the steel.

Motor arrived from Oz. Steel organised. Start on the minor bits shortly.

Ok so I didn't make my tumbler but I did find the secret ingredient to make cases shine. OK not so secret ingredient of lemi shine is CITRIC ACID. yep that's right. Tried it and look at the results...

how much did u use and what form did u buy it in

Powder, look on Tar Me. Used about 1 gram, 2 liters of water, approximately 1.5kg of pins with 3 teaspoons of Palmolive, 100 cases. Apparently bad idea to let cases sit in it for too long, it can leach the brass. This only took about 2 hours to tumble.

And I've got single phase 1 HP motors for $70 each + freight