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Rock Tumbler

I use a rotary polisher, to polish my pen clips and rings. Stainless Steel shot, water, and a couple of drops of dawn.
Polishes up my silver, bronze and nickel-silver quite well.
 
ShawnR said:
Would 3 or 4 (or 10) fattish orings on the shaft give enough friction?
Click to expand...
Possibly. But they might also walk (crawl?) over to one end over time. I've read it can take two weeks 24/7 to do the initial roughing with coarse grit.
Now fat Orings with 3D printed spacers would work perhaps. But then at the moment I'm expecting tubing via Amazon sometime today. Try that first.
 
darrin1200 said:
I use a rotary polisher, to polish my pen clips and rings. Stainless Steel shot, water, and a couple of drops of dawn.
Polishes up my silver, bronze and nickel-silver quite well.
Click to expand...
I have a vibratory tumbler from PA that I haven't unpacked yet for castings. Mostly since I haven't cast for quite some time.
 
Seems to me when my kids had one, he whole container was a medium durometer rubber so maybe that's where the traction came from? I seem to recall talking to the store that rubber doesn't wear like is obviously happening to the rocks which is maybe why not a hard container. But also helps dampen noise which is tolerable but it goes on & on. Last time I was in one of those lapidary places they had all kinds of replacement parts. I don't think the design as changed for some time. Now maybe the current ones are offshore renditions, not sure there. Its kind of cool to see purdy rocks come out even otherwise boring river gravel.
 
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Make a drum from large diameter rad hose? Or something similar? Then, the heavier the load, the more it presses into the drive rollers? Probably easy enough to make some caps for it...
 
PeterT said:
Just looking at the replacement parts, they all seem to be rubber or rubber lined. Must be something to it. You could probably glue in sheet neoprene or whatever. Or maybe 3D printers can squirt soft durometer stuff like this?

Rock Tumbler Parts For Sale - The Rock Shed

Lortone Tumbler Parts Thumlers Tumbler Parts
www.rockshed.com www.rockshed.com
Click to expand...
TPU could work. Not sure if it would be durable enough.
 
Amazon was here this evening. Took only minutes to slice the hard plastic and push the new rubber over the shafts.
1736996974656.png


Works great even with a full load of rocks. However since the soft tube had to be pushed on and it tends to compress a bit it's perhaps thicker at one end or the other. What happens is the drum migrates towards the right side. Have to prop it up to have it stay centered.

The old plastic covers had the drum migrate to the left but much much slower.
1736997182581.png


I think those two holes on the top could be used to mount some sort of roller that keeps the drum centered. After a few minutes of turning the inside of the drum was very dusty.

The TPU also arrived. need to work out parameters for printing as what the Bambu selects for TPU doesn't match the instructions on the outside of the reel. Then I can make a new gasket and hopefully be able to make the tub watertight.

And yes, seems the biggest thing is lining the inside of the tub with rubber as much to prevent erosion of the drum interior but also to reduce noise.

The the rubber tubing was a definite solution.
 
jcdammeyer said:
Amazon was here this evening. Took only minutes to slice the hard plastic and push the new rubber over the shafts.
View attachment 57936

Works great even with a full load of rocks. However since the soft tube had to be pushed on and it tends to compress a bit it's perhaps thicker at one end or the other. What happens is the drum migrates towards the right side. Have to prop it up to have it stay centered.

The old plastic covers had the drum migrate to the left but much much slower.
View attachment 57937

I think those two holes on the top could be used to mount some sort of roller that keeps the drum centered. After a few minutes of turning the inside of the drum was very dusty.

The TPU also arrived. need to work out parameters for printing as what the Bambu selects for TPU doesn't match the instructions on the outside of the reel. Then I can make a new gasket and hopefully be able to make the tub watertight.

And yes, seems the biggest thing is lining the inside of the tub with rubber as much to prevent erosion of the drum interior but also to reduce noise.

The the rubber tubing was a definite solution.
Click to expand...
The lid on my Lortone tumbler drum had a knob with a groove around the circumference that rides in a small bracket with a cutout for the knob to ride in. Located near where that hole is on the motor side.
1736997819691.png
 
TPU printing question. The ERYONE Standard TPU I received today has the following specifications:

Bed Temp 0-60C
Printing Speed 15-40mm/s
Nozzle Temp 200-220C

However, thinking that the pseudo intelligent Bambu should know how fast to do a print was either wrong or it's another one of those hidden commands that I can't find.

Suggestions?
 
jcdammeyer said:
TPU printing question. The ERYONE Standard TPU I received today has the following specifications:

Bed Temp 0-60C
Printing Speed 15-40mm/s
Nozzle Temp 200-220C

However, thinking that the pseudo intelligent Bambu should know how fast to do a print was either wrong or it's another one of those hidden commands that I can't find.

Suggestions?
Click to expand...
I expect that because it's not a Bambu filament ergo no RFID tag then that means you need to specify the print speed in the slicer.
My total wild ass guess...
 
jcdammeyer said:
TPU printing question. The ERYONE Standard TPU I received today has the following specifications:

Bed Temp 0-60C
Printing Speed 15-40mm/s
Nozzle Temp 200-220C

However, thinking that the pseudo intelligent Bambu should know how fast to do a print was either wrong or it's another one of those hidden commands that I can't find.

Suggestions?
Click to expand...
I would tell the slicer it is a generic TPU. The generic settings seem to do well in the Bambu for me.
 
My wife has four little Loratone tumblers and an old large one. https://rocktumbler.com/ like his Model "B". Those drums are an industrial standard . We were given one and I made a tumbler for my rifle brass, copying and improving the old one . I had repaired and improved my wife's before so I had a pretty good idea. I used 1/2" heater hose on the shafts. I put identical pulleys on the two shafts so as to drive with both. The heater hose wears out, but is easily replaced. My tumbler works for an hour once in a blue moon, hers goes for months on end.

Loratone has gone out of business last year. Like many hands on hobbies, both the rock hounding and the lapidary are a dying hobbies.
 
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Doggggboy said:
I would tell the slicer it is a generic TPU. The generic settings seem to do well in the Bambu for me.
Click to expand...
I've read some horror stories about the softer TPU in the Bambu. Jamming up.
So I used the SOVOL and set the max feed to 40mm/sec. After that all the other default feed rates were automatically reduced in the slicer. I couldn't make the Bambu do that with the default Generic TPU.
I can't believe that the slicer in the Bambu is that stupid so I'm clearly missing something.

Anyway, I printed my custom shaped ORing. It was now too large compared to the PLA version. But worse was when I went to test again I find my tub is also oozing water. Need to print a new one with 100% infill. And the lid gasket leaks too.

I'm not ready to spend $40 or more on a commercial tub when I can get an entire rock tumbler kit for $85 from Amazon.ca with delivery tomorrow.

Yes it's true I've now spent money on TPU and used up some more PETG but that's the cost of playing with a 3D printer.
 
Hey Kids, Rocks???

Now we are in my wheel house!
I will talk about rocks as long as someone will stand in front if me!
Lol

Heres a 10# Dunbar tumbler I purchased for $50 cleaned up and put in service.

I have several of those
 

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