Frankford Rotary Tumbler

[Netpackrat]

Nice. My parents bought me a rotary rock tumbler for Christmas one year when I was a kid. The thing was so noisy, I used it once before they banned me from running it at the house. Eventually I was allowed to run it in my dad's warehouse, at night when nobody was around and trying to work. Soundproofing schemes using boxes and foam were largely ineffective, and as a result I only ended up using it a few times.

[Steamforger]

The drum has a rubber inner liner, so a lot of the rumblings are softened. I imagine if the liner wasn't in there it would sound like tumbling brass and stainless media in a subwoofer. I wait for middle of the day type hours and set the base unit on a thick towel.

[First Shirt]

Great! Now I gotta see what I've got in the toy fund that isn't already earmarked.

[HTRN]

I have some suggestions..

1)A cement mixer won't work well with the SS pins, because it really has to run horizontally(hence why vibratory cleaners won't work), and would leak out. They do work halfway decent with walnut media(also available from Horror Freight, for sandblasting), and nufinish. I will say that they seem to be somewhat angle critical.

2)For those wanting to build large horizontal rotary tumblers, the biggest obsticle is the drum - I've come across two ideas 1)a nifty little hand cement mixer "drum" on Amazon called "oddjob", complete with molded in paddle. This issue is going to be, you're gonna have to mount something round on the bottom of it, so it rides in the rollers right. Considering it's A)7 gallons, and B)thirty bucks, it's probably the way to go.

The other option is an olive drum, but that's... Large. like really large.

[blackeagle603]

6 or inch PVC pipe. Cap glued on one end. Reducer to a 4" on the other open end. Seal that with rubber sewer pipe cap and hose clamp. Wrap with a couple rubber strips for traction on the rollers.

[SoupOrMan]

Those cases came out nice and shiny!

HTRN, you were using walnut shell and NuFinish? The car polish?

Also, apropos of nothing, I hear "Frankford Rotary Tumbler" said in the same booming voice as "CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORT" in my head for some reason.

[HTRN]

Personally, no. But nufinish and walnut "lizard bedding/blasting media" is fairly well known amongst the more diy crowd of handloaders.

[Netpackrat]

Steamforger;

Since this is a wet tumbling method, did you do anything special in terms of getting the cases dried out?

[Steamforger]

Did a good rinse to get any free floating schmootz out. I rinsed a few times until the water was clear again. I drained them and laid them out on a clean towel on the kitchen counter and let them air dry after.

[Netpackrat]

A little bit of minor thread necromancy to note that I have joined the ranks of rotary tumbler owners... I was kind of skeptical at first, but this thread, plus my travels in search of 300 Blackout case forming info convinced me that this is the way to go. Plus, I have always found my vibratory tumbler to be a slow SOB.

I nearly bought the Frankford tumbler at a local gunshop last weekend because I had a gift certificate there that I wanted to use, but since the price was nothing special, I ended up buying ammo instead. I am not in a hurry to tumble any brass since my reloading gear is still in boxes, so I figured it could wait.

Then yesterday I stopped at Cabela's looking for ammo on my way to work, and was about to leave without buying anything, when I spotted a lone "Thumler's Tumbler" in the reloading section. It was marked down from about $250, which seemed a bit ridiculous, to $137.99, which seemed more like a steal. So, I left with it, and later confirmed that I'd gotten it for a much lower price than I could find it for online. Amazon has it here for about a hundred and eighty bucks. I didn't get any pins or separating apparatus with it, but I'm still in no hurry and can add those items later.

I took it out of the box last night after work, and it seems to run fine. It has a belt drive and it runs much more quietly than the geared motor rock tumbler I had as a kid (which was much smaller). One thing that I like about it is that the company seems to have been around forever, so parts should be available in the future should I ever need them. And I like the metal base better than the plastic housing of the Frankford unit.