Parts tumbler

[paulrbrown]

We made a chain gear driven 24"*36" tumbler for doing angle and flat stock, , the inside had 4 horizontal plates about 3" high the whole width. Gear reduction box gave us a speed of about 60 rpm. The best media I found was slugs from the ironworker, granite and grindstones just did not last more than a few hours and did not works anywhere as well. 5 hours compared to 30 min....Now as far as the noise, you could hear that baby 2 blocks away in an industrial area!!!!!!
I would line with floor mats screwed to the inside. We often loaded 300 to 500 lbs in that baby, sure made deburring nice. Hope this helps, Paul

[Wacko Welder]

I have built a few commercial peanut roasters, which are basically tumblers with burners underneath. You can avoid the expense of a gear box by using a double reduction. ie . . . motor pulley 1.5" to a 14" pulley on a set of bosses, that shaft has a 1.5" pulley to a second 14" pulley attached to your drum, coming off a standard 120 vac motor turning 1750 rpm would yield 20 rpm on your drum. Adjust pulley sizes as needed. You can buy aluminum cast pulleys at Grainger fairly cheap. In my later nut roasters I used a gear motor. They were nice, but very expensive. Since you really have no space constraints or OSHA requirements to meet, this is the way I would go.

Efficient, cheap & quite . . .