Who's building or has built a homemade wet tumbler?

[Barfly]

I'm in the process of building myself a large wet tumbler to process more brass in a shorter time. I was curious who has built their own tumblers?

I go brass hunting up in the hills a lot and end up with buckets and buckets of brass. It takes too damn long to use my tiny Thumler's tumbler and my vibratory tumblers don't always get them as clean as I would like.

I picked up an already built angle steel frame with casters at a swap meet a little while back for $10 and figured it would be great start for a larger wet tumbler.
I scored a small bucket of stainless media from Wes and knew I needed to start gathering the rest of the parts for this build.
I'm using an 18" long section of 10" PVC pipe as my drum, with some 1" pvc pipe halves mounted inside to agitate media and brass when spinning. I found some sheet PVC at a local store and will be using it to fashion the two end plates. One solid and one with a screw on cap.
I just got the saddle bearings and will be getting some 3/4" steel round stock to support the drums. I will be pulling some 3/4 heater hose over the round stock to give it some traction to spin the drum.
I got an electric motor from an old scroll saw and will try using that. It is fixed speed motor (something like 1750rpm) and I think I want to have my drum RPM around 45-60, so will have to do some math. It may not work the best, but I got it cheap and it has a built-in switch and cord, so I figured what the hell, I'd give it a try.
I will try to get it mocked up soon so I can provide some pics and update as I progress through the project.

To anybody who has already built something along these lines, and tips or hints are greatly appreciated!

[alinkrod]

Sounds like you have a good plan and a good start!, I have tried both pin and chip type media and the chips are 1000% better than then pins any day.... + they dont stick in the cases or flash holes like the pins do.

[Muddydawg75]

Is it silly for me to want a plastic tub concrete mixer? I've seen them and think they would do a decent job.... its not far off from my vision of your plan.

[alinkrod]

Where do you live at? I can arrange one... im in central Ohio.

[Barfly]

Sounds like you have a good plan and a good start!, I have tried both pin and chip type media and the chips are 1000% better than then pins any day.... + they dont stick in the cases or flash holes like the pins do.

The media I got was chip media. I have used it in my little Thumler's Tumbler and it works great. I just need a much bigger tumbler! :-)

[alinkrod]

You mean like this?

[Muddydawg75]

Yeah, but I think I'd like to have a plastic tub

[Stew15948]

Ice cream

[Dkperdue]

I built two of them. One with an ice cream maker motor, the other with a wiper motor. Both work well.

[trlrdrdave]

15 to 20 rpm's instead of 40!