Post by revco on Oct 23, 2010 11:16:53 GMT -5
Hey all,
Winter is quickly approaching up here in Montana. I increased my tumbling capacity a fair amount this year over last and I'm starting consider what I'm going to do over the winter. Larger production requires a lot more effort when it comes to dealing with spent grit and this is a challenge in the winter time. Using small containers to capture grit just isn't practical at a certain point! I'm looking for suggestions from you cold-climate, year-round tumblers!
Currently, in non-winter months, I use classifiers over a 5 gallon bucket, with holes in the bottom, to rinse and separate my rocks from the grit. This works great because I just grab my hose and rinse until clean...the water and grit just drains out ad finitum. Processing 30+lbs of rough is easy this way and I can usually get it done in just two loads. But, in the winter time, the hose won't be available to me and it's less desirable to allow the gray sludge to just go everywhere and mess up the pristine snow.
Last year, I used a bucket without holes and used 1 gallon jugs to bring water from inside to my sorting station. I then dumped the spent grit into a designated spot, trying to minimize the spread of sludge. I'm concerned that this year it's going to take around 4 to 5, perhaps more, of these 5 gallon water loads and several dozen gallons of water trips to rinse 30+lbs of rough. That's just a lot of effort and I'm wondering if there's anything stupid that I'm not thinking of.
Some ideas I've come up with so far are to use 5 gallon buckets to transfer my water. (Carrying this much weight in water over packed snow has its own perils, though) I've also thought about making another rinse bucket with just one larger hole, such that I can control the dispersion of spent sludge with more precision. I've also been considering scaling back my rough loads over the winter to make it more manageable, but I'm really enjoying bi-monthly production.
I suppose you gotta do what you gotta do when it comes to larger quantities of production, but are there any winter tumbling tips that you'd be willing to share?
Cheers!
Winter is quickly approaching up here in Montana. I increased my tumbling capacity a fair amount this year over last and I'm starting consider what I'm going to do over the winter. Larger production requires a lot more effort when it comes to dealing with spent grit and this is a challenge in the winter time. Using small containers to capture grit just isn't practical at a certain point! I'm looking for suggestions from you cold-climate, year-round tumblers!
Currently, in non-winter months, I use classifiers over a 5 gallon bucket, with holes in the bottom, to rinse and separate my rocks from the grit. This works great because I just grab my hose and rinse until clean...the water and grit just drains out ad finitum. Processing 30+lbs of rough is easy this way and I can usually get it done in just two loads. But, in the winter time, the hose won't be available to me and it's less desirable to allow the gray sludge to just go everywhere and mess up the pristine snow.
Last year, I used a bucket without holes and used 1 gallon jugs to bring water from inside to my sorting station. I then dumped the spent grit into a designated spot, trying to minimize the spread of sludge. I'm concerned that this year it's going to take around 4 to 5, perhaps more, of these 5 gallon water loads and several dozen gallons of water trips to rinse 30+lbs of rough. That's just a lot of effort and I'm wondering if there's anything stupid that I'm not thinking of.
Some ideas I've come up with so far are to use 5 gallon buckets to transfer my water. (Carrying this much weight in water over packed snow has its own perils, though) I've also thought about making another rinse bucket with just one larger hole, such that I can control the dispersion of spent sludge with more precision. I've also been considering scaling back my rough loads over the winter to make it more manageable, but I'm really enjoying bi-monthly production.
I suppose you gotta do what you gotta do when it comes to larger quantities of production, but are there any winter tumbling tips that you'd be willing to share?
Cheers!