Thinking about building a tumbler

[BobK]

... the only response is talking to me like I'm an idiot and contaminating my house and ruining my wifes appliances. Call someone a redneck, expect a redneck response.

I didn't say any of those things to you.

First Amendment gives you the right to act rudely, but it doesn't make you immune from someone pointing it out.

[golfcarz]

I say go for it. I like to tinker with things too and I have been slowly collecting materials for a similar tumbler build. I think it will be a fun project and from what I can tell it will work great. I plan to make one with a pretty large drum so I can tumble quite a few at a time. If it doesn't work so well then no biggie. I won't have much invested since I'm taking my time finding parts here and there for free or very little cost. I have a cheap vibrating tumbler that does a fine job anyway.

Seems to me that the damp cloth in the dryer trick may work great on the outside, but how would that clean inside the case? A tumbler cleans inside and out. I don't see how a damp cloth could clean inside the case. I like my cases to be clean inside and out. I'm not too concerned about being shiny...Clean is good enough for me. Not knocking the dryer idea. Just an honest question.

[e3mrk]

I have seen a Guy make one from a Paint Can and a Electric Drill on You Tube.

[evan price]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKlu-4mJm2E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This guy is not using enough media. Up at the top of the drum, you can see all the brass that is thrashing around on itself and not in the media. That beats up your case mouths. It's also noisy as hell. He needs to double hte amount of media in that drum so that all the brass is in the media.
Also, he's using a Kobalt plastic drum mixer, which is a "Red Lion" model rebranded...it's a crap design, with a plastic worm gear that drives the drum. The plastic drum will get soft in the sun and then it flops around on the lower support rollers. It works here, but not for really large loads. I run mine (Direct drive, all steel) with 15 gallons of walnut and 5-8 gallons of brass. I added a whole pint of NuFInish to the media when I first ran it. Now I add a cup of stoddard solvent to the drum with each new load. 3 hours and nice clean brass, and it's no louder than a clothes dyer. And my media still looks like new.