Advice needed on tumbler capacity....

[Blackbird]

Hello Everyone

Having wanted to get into rock tumbling for a while, the "other arf" being short on Christmas ideas has leaped at the chance of escaping his dilema by getting me a tumbler! I've done some research and narrowed it down to a Lortone rotary twin barrel, however the difficulty I am having is in choosing the capacity. I want something not just for a beginner (although I am!) but one flexible enough to do a range of stone sizes. Currently I am trying to choose between the Lortone 33b (2x3lb barrels) and the QT66 (2x6lb barrels). I read somewhere that the 3lb barrels will only take up to a 1inch stone which seems to the uninitiated, a bit small. The 6lb will do larger stones but I was wondering if I would find it too hard to get the quantity to fill it. Having never seen either in action I can only speculate, so any advice from people with experimce of tumbling would be much appreciated.

Thank you
Hilary

[Aussie Sapphire]

There will always be a compromise so you need to decide according to your intended batch size, size of the material, quantity of available material and your budget.

*  You can make larger rocks smaller but you cannot fit large rocks in a small tumbler.
*  Barrels need to be filled to optimal level (say between 2/3 and 3/4) so if you dont have a ready supply of material, going too large means you may have to wait until you have enough to start.
* You should be tumbling a variety of sized material in the barrel - dont do stuff that is all same size.
* Rule of thumb is no rock should be larger than half the diameter of the barrel.  Essentially all rocks should have sufficient room to tumble freely.
* You can use filler media if you dont have sufficient rocks but better to use rocks as a better use of the consumables and power.

Please see the information on this document for more detailed data on the size of barrels in each model:

http://aussiesapphire.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/TumblerBarrels.pdf

We quote barrel size in terms of volume as well as physical dimensions so you can visualise this space in litres.

Hope this helps.

cheers
Leah

[Aussie Sapphire]

I want something not just for a beginner (although I am!) but one flexible enough to do a range of stone sizes.

Note - any of the normal tumblers of reputable brand are suitable for beginners, hobbyists and semi-commercial users.  Really only the "toy" type tumblers such as the National Geographic ones are not recommended as being too unreliable. So as you note, the only decision is what brand (Lortone, Thumler, etc) and what size.

I just wanted to note that even if you get a larger tumbler, make sure you have a generous ration of smaller stones in the load.  This carries the grit/polish better through the load and ensures a better final result.  If you go for the larger size, you still need some smaller material to fit in the gaps between the larger rocks and increase the amount of grinding surface area for a more even result.

cheers
Leah

[Blackbird]

Thank you, Leah that helped a lot! Good to know the rule of thumb too. So much to learn 

[Crocket]

Welcome to the world of tumbling and the dilemmas that come with it.  Leah pretty much covered it all and there are instructions that come with the tumblers to get you going.  Good luck with your decision.  Perhaps a similar dilemma will arise when your birthday comes around?   One can only hope.

[Rusted]

Whichever you get, don't take any notice of the instructions where they tell you to run each stage for a week.
Coarse grind should run for as long as necessary, add extra grit every couple of days but leave out grit additions for a few days before you clean it out. (Grit breaks down and gets finer and finer, by not adding the grit you save wasting good grit and the finer broken down grit also starts to put a fine finish on the stones you pick out.) After a couple of weeks  tip it all out in a sieve over a bucket (save some of the slurry to add back) wash the stones and go through them picking out ones with no holes or cracks and nicely rounded, put them to one side to go on to the next step when you have enough, top up the barrel with more rocks and grit and some slurry and roll them for another couple of weeks, repeat.
DON'T tip the slurry down the drain it will seriously block them. You can tip it into a wide dish and let it dry out then put it in the rubbish bin.

Next grit stages are probably OK to run for a week each.

Polish run for as long as necessary, till you have a good shine.

Try to keep your rocks around the same hardness otherwise your hard rocks will knock the soft ones around, also soft ones tend to grind to nothing in the time the harder ones are just starting to take shape.

[Aussie Sapphire]

Whichever you get, don't take any notice of the instructions where they tell you to run each stage for a week.

(other helpful advice snipped...)

Yes - the week per stage is a guide only.  Let the rocks tell you when they are ready to go to next stage - feel free to open up and take a peek.  For very smooth water worn rocks, they might go through first stage quickly or not need it at all.

Also note that if you buy a Lortone tumbler, they do include a helpful booklet of instructions - all good info but for some reason, they tell you to use way more grit/polish that you actually need to. We print usage rates on our jar labels that are less wasteful and there are other tweaks to the process out there that you may like to try (such as Rusted's advice).

cheers
Leah

[Blackbird]

No dilema Crocket.....it's gonna happen as we are a few years in 'birthday present deficit'  .


Thank you for that clarification Rusty and Leah. The more I have been researching on tumbling websites the more I can see it is not an exact science in terms of time...but more of an intuition gained through practice and experience with a heavy dose of patience thrown in for good measure!


I would be interested to know what capacity of tumbler you all use and any reasons for that decision?

[Gerda]

Hi Everyone,
I have been following this forum for a long time. You will  see my name regularly logged on line, but I haven't contributed much. I do wish to thank those who regularly contribute. I thoroughly enjoy your posts and pictures and have learned a lot. Even though you don't know me,  I feel that I know many of you as "friends". Thank you.


Now Blackbird,
I have been fossicking and tumbling the stones I [size=78%]have found for several years. I have several lortone  33b tumblers  that i bought second hand which I use continually. Last Xmas we bought a large lortone c200 because I wanted to process more "stuff". I am glad I started out with the 33b with the two barrels. It allows rocks of different hardness to be processed simultaneously. What I am thinking of buying next is a 3lb barrel that apparently will fit those machines and would give another volume option ( L eah, I assume this will work?!). It takes a lot of pre prepped material to fill the c200. (I found it is better to pre grind some material rather than just wait for it to grind and grind). Remember, rubbish in will result in rubbish out.[/size]
[size=78%]Eventually, if your experience is the same as mine, you will want both the smaller and larger capacity tumblers, but I would  start with the double smaller one... then you will want a grinding wheel...and a saw... and it keeps going... [/size]
[size=78%]Good luck,[/size]
[size=78%]Gerda[/size]

[Aussie Sapphire]

Last Xmas we bought a large lortone c200 because I wanted to process more "stuff". I am glad I started out with the 33b with the two barrels. It allows rocks of different hardness to be processed simultaneously. What I am thinking of buying next is a 3lb barrel that apparently will fit those machines and would give another volume option ( L eah, I assume this will work?!). It takes a lot of pre prepped material to fill the c200.

Thank you Gerda for this helpful advice.

Re the 3 pound barrel on the C200 - it is not really a workable proposition because the rollers are a bit too far apart to suit the smaller 3 pound barrel.  What you can do though is run a  6 pound barrel - this is the same diameter as the 12 pound barrel which you are using now but half the height (and therefore less material needed).

You may find that you start out with the 12 pound barrels for the earlier stages and then as the material shrinks a bit, use the smaller barrel for polishing rather than wait until you have enough material to fill the larger barrel.

Also the heavy duty metal 20 and 40 pound barrels fit the C200 tumbler although they are very expensive.

There was another company in England I think that made a double length barrel about the same size as two 3 pound barrels put together but we are not able to supply those. That might have suited the 33B tumblers but is a bit academic because I dont know if still available or how you would access them.

Hope this helps.

cheers
Leah

[Blackbird]

Thank you, Gerda, your experiences were most helpful. I had been thinking along the lines of having the one machine that allowed me to swap to a different sized barrel for the initial run and Leah (thank you also!) has just confirmed that idea. I believe the QT66 can take a 6lb barrel which I think would be as much as I would need for the forseeable future. I would certainly keep my eye out for a second hand 33b although I haven't seen many used tumblers at all on Ebay or Gumtree recently.

[Aussie Sapphire]

Thank you, Gerda, your experiences were most helpful. I had been thinking along the lines of having the one machine that allowed me to swap to a different sized barrel for the initial run and Leah (thank you also!) has just confirmed that idea. I believe the QT66 can take a 6lb barrel which I think would be as much as I would need for the forseeable future. I would certainly keep my eye out for a second hand 33b although I haven't seen many used tumblers at all on Ebay or Gumtree recently.

The QT66 and QT12 base is exactly the same.  So you can run either two 6 pound barrels (or just one if you like) or one large 12 pound barrel.  More expensive but this does give you some extra flexibility that the smaller 33B does not have.


Dont often see used tumblers on Ebay or Gumtree - more the sort of thing that gets sold at garage sales or privately within gem clubs.

cheers
Leah

[Blackbird]

Thank you for clearing that up Leah... got myself confused over the barrel sizes! Too much research, gets confusing after a while.


Time to just take the plunge methinks!