The Rebel 17 tumbler

They are metric (china built) m6.
edit- oops, that’s what you said actually lol. I’m tired today. M6-32

I have a Rebel 17 and have pretty much figured it out.

You can avoid leaking barrels by putting the seal on when it's wet. I use a spray bottle with water and only finger tight the nuts. It never leaks. It will potentially leak if I put it on dry or theres grit on the seal. Even the tinieat grain of 60/90 can cause a leak. The seal between the rubber nees to be pristine.

My grind time depends on load. Right now I'm running a huge piece of 7" jasper with the barrel filled 1/3 way with 1.5" rocks. It takes two days to reduce 1/2 cup #46 grit to nothing. 120-500 is even faster. It's stupid filling it up more because I want to grind the jasper, and if I use more fill rocks they just consume the grit, which isnt free.

If you fill the barrel up to 3/4 full with 3" or bigger rocks grind time gets a lot longer.

120-500 grit gets wreaked freaky fast. Takes 12 hours to break down 1/4 cup of either. I polish in 100% ceramic and it only taks 3-4 days.

Big piece of porcelean jasper I just finished up.

Nope. I also run #36 AO blasting grit and the liner looks fine. At this point I'm willing to try depleted uranium. :-)

This will likely be my last big rock shaped in my 17. Just consumes too much grit. Big jasper chunk has gone through almost 3 cups of 36 and 46, and I'm looking for a different technique.

I might try a technique I saw where you smooth a rock with a dremel first and then tumble. Once I get a rock shaped and rough smoothed its easy peezy. 120/220 onward flies.

After I first read this, I had to sit and think for a bit.  There are some pretty cheap, small sandblasting cabinets, add a cheap compressor, and gun… still looking around 300 bucks minimum for base quality equipment. There’s also the cost of the blasting grit, usually an aluminum oxide between 30 and 80 grit range. Maybe you could do it without the cabinet (messy), but a compressor is around 150. Gun another 50. Of course, if somebody already had a set up, sure it might work. 

I think they can and I know some sellers sand blast the Madgascar chalcedony pieces to make them look clean while keeping the surface features intact. I don't see that process myself though. I was quite intrigued by the idea and checked with the prices/sizes of the sand blasters, and then, end of story.

So mine leaked after 4 days. Made a huge mess and almost had me sending it back. I reached out to the vendor and they had some thoughts, but they didn't work. My solution was to add a flat washer under the thumbscrews. Just like that- no more leaks. I did share my findings with the vendor. Other than the leak, mine has been great (2 months in) and runs as well as my Model B.

When the rebel 17 is not leaking (knocking the wood), it is a very easy-going beast.

3/4" fender washers. A little bigger than what's on the model B. My Model B has never leaked even when I had the liner wear thru (what a mess when I removed the metal lid lol). Not sure why the rebel leaked as I tightened the nuts in the standard cross pattern, and they were all evenly tight.

Somewhere around 4 to 5 months after I got my rebel 17 the motor began making a humming noise. It has progressively gotten louder. It’s not obnoxiously loud but it’s definitely noticeable. It’s still working fine and it’s only running around 130 F, but this hum, to me, means there’s some kind of friction going on inside the motor. If it was a brushless motor in one of my RC cars, I would say the bearings are going out. So I placed a warranty claim with rebel 17. The hardest part about placing a clan was finding the right contact info. But after I manage that, they are being quite responsive. Only took about 24 hours to get back to me and the first thing they asked for was a video of the noise/issue. Which I sent them, and now they have asked for a video of the motor running without the belt on. Which I just sent them. I’m curious to see what they say. Does anybody else’s rebel motor developed a significant hum? I tried attaching a video, but I can’t figure out how to do it.