Chicago Electric tumblers

hi there. Are these from Harbour freight? Blue or red barrels? My husband bought me one and I took it back. Then another person bought one and that person said the barrel wore out before 24 hours was up. The grit used for rocks is to much on the barrel. They are made for polishing brass and stuff with walnut shells. I'm saving my money to buy a thumblers vibe. Only hear good things about them. I personally haven't heard anything good about the Chicago Electric.

Tonja

I bought a couple early this year...burned 'em up already. My Lortones are still turning and they are much older... It's worth the extra cash to buy Lortone. Check with Shawn at the RockShed.com he has some good deals on tumblers.....

Yogi~ Did you get those bearings at a hardware store or online? I should replace the bearings in mine to get 'em rolling again...

....Oh yea...I've replaced pulleys on my tumblers with larger diameter pulleys and I'm very pleased with the results...it's worth the effort to do the mod....

I've been working with the CE tumblers for a few months now and have experienced about everything that everyone has posted here. Simply put, they are not really that reliable, and need constant work. I have made a stubborn decision (better yet, my mission) to find a way to make these tumblers reliable no matter what it takes. With some help from Rocklicker, I have managed to keep my dual 3# running fairly well, as he provided me with parts. One of the biggest issues are the drive belts that break constantly. I have had good results using rubber bands to drive them (they last a bit longer and are a heck of alot cheaper than replacement belts).

If you are willing to spend some time "babysitting" them, the CE will give you results and a good used one can at least get you started tumbling for cheap. If nothing else you can always use the parts to rig a home made unit if you are good at tinkering and want to experiment a little.

If you are looking out for the long run and something that will last, the Lortones would be money well spent.

This is our tumbler, it was cheap to make and cheap to keep it running. Once in a while the belt stretches but other than that, it works perfectly. When all three tires are running we can tumble about 100 to 120 lbs at a time.

Awesome DD. What do you use for a cover?

Neat idea.
Tonja

My husband made covers out of some hard plastic, actually used the lids from some 55 gallon drums that we shipped. He is so clever, he just made a hoist that bolts onto the trailer hitch so we could load boulders into the bed of the truck without killing ourselves. It swivels so we don't have to unload them either.

How often do those tires need alignment??

Seriously, we have a CE tumbler that we use for hardening the wire & cleaning our wire jewelry. We had our suspicions about the CE's reliability from the start but have had not troubles from them, probably because we use them infrequently.

Harbor Freight has a replacement "insurance" you can buy for a small fee. They claim you can replace any of their products that fail. I wonder if they would replace the replacements as well....?

Not knocking the CE tumblers. Just passing on my experience with them.

I have never owned a Lortone and never will to expensive.

I ordered the CE tumblers knowing what I was in store for from reading about them on this board. The original belt broke an hour after I put it on and that was the track record for everyone of them. I ordered the Lorton belt and had no more trouble out of that. After about 6 months the bearings in the motor gave out I bough new ones and replaced them kind of expensive but worked. Those bearings made it a year and went out so I changed out the old CE motor with a lortone motor, runs quitter and I think it is stronger. Time will tell on the life of it though because about a month after doing that change the plastic bearings the rods/shafts the barrels ride on gave out and the rod/shaft ate into the frame of the tumbler so I shut it down. Then one after another the old CE motors gave out on the other 2 twin 3# tumblers I had. On a side note the single 3# CE tumbler is still going strong after almost 2 years.

I recently moved and had all of my broken down tumblers setting out in the garage with almost everything to get them back on their feet. I finally got around to ordering the bronze bearings I have been wanting to replace the plastic ones with last week.

This past weekend I dug all of my tumblers out. After cleaning them up and disassembling them I pulled the old motors replaced them with Lortone 33b motors with the metal pulleys. Then cleaned up the holes where the old plastic bearings were with my dermel and glued in some oil impregnated bronze bearings. I loaded up some barrels and they are tumbling right along.

Like I said the CE tumblers are great but they can be a handful. What sells me on CE is that even after all of the work I've done, parts I've ordered, and tools I've bought to fix my 3 CE tumblers I still saved money compared to buying 3 Lortone tumblers. On top of that replacement parts for the barrels and the barrels them selves are way cheaper than Lortone. I have rebuilt all but one of my twin 3# tumblers (it will be soon have all of the stuff) and I suspect they will run forever now.

As for the Lortone motors I will have to wait and see how they hold up.

Rose Quartz is a good rock to tumble, but does lend itself to internal fractures like amethyst, citrine and white/clear quartz. like most rocks, the better the material that goes into the tumbler, the better they come out. welcome to the board, Steve and Betty!

KD