Post by Enigman on Jan 8, 2014 14:19:54 GMT -5
Hi all,
I'm looking for some advice on a grit and noise problem. I am new to tumbling and I have a dual 3 lb barrel Chicago Electric rotary tumbler. (It is a clone of the Lortone dual 3 lb barrel tumbler and even uses the same barrels.) I purchased two additional barrels for the tumbler and have dedicated a specific barrel to each stage because I noticed that the rubber barrels tend to get grit embedded in the rubber inside that won't clean out. With four dedicated barrels, ... contamination problem solved.
My first load of rough was hickoryite. The rough arrived as 2 to 3 inch pieces which I cut down with a cutoff saw (at the cost of two blades). I cut the rough into an average of 1 inch pieces. I used HDPE pellet media in stage 1 since I didn't have any ceramic and filled the barrel to 3/4 full with rough and pellets. I had to keep adding more media as the stones got smaller. Tumbling noise was minimal (spelled "acceptable") and stage 1 did well at nearly two weeks of run time. It is now in stage 2, nearing a week, and doing fine. The hickoryite initially ran alone as a single barrel in the two barrel galley.
For my second load I purchased some yellow aventurine rough. The rough came in pieces about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 and was very jagged and sharp. The pieces were bulkier than the cut hickoryite but cutting the aventurine would have made them too small, so all I did was cut off some of the longest and sharpest points and edges. I also bought some ceramic small and large media. In the initial load I added rough to 3/4 and filled in with small ceramic media and 60/90 silicon carbide, keeping the level at 3/4 full. The new barrel was added as the second running barrel in the galley.
After about 70 hours of run time the sound had changed to a very sharp clatter. I opened the barrel and noticed that there was no mud of any significance. I could pull stones off the top and they were literally clean with little to no rounding. There was only silvery water like thin mercury visible in the barrel. That's not right. I emptied the barrel and found that the small ceramic media had combined with the grit and created a concrete-like wall at the end of the barrel. The grit and media was not mixing with the stones at all. So I started over. I cleaned the barrel and stones and discarded the grit. I took away the small ceramic media. The barrel was reloaded with a small amount of large ceramic and rough to the 3/4 point. I added 60/90 grit and water, resealed and restarted yesterday.
The noise from the aventurine stage 1 barrel is extreme to say the least. The hickoryite barrel is still mild by comparison. I can pick up one barrel at a time alternating and there is a huge difference. I am not sure whether this noise difference is the nature of aventurine and the fact that it is still sharp stones, or if I am missing some detail. The noise is at a level that it is marginally tolerable since I am limited to running the tumbler inside our apartment. The aventurine is much louder than the hickoryite ever was. I can't even sequester the tumbler to the back bathroom since the neighbors would think we had a cement mixer running 24/7.
I am also not sure why the grit and media would have cemented themselves to the back wall like they did. There were brief periods when the tumbler was shut off such as during a meal, but these were very short and the barrel remained on its side so if settling was the issue, it should have settled on the side and then been raked off again when the barrel started. This was actually cemented on the barrel floor, not the walls.
If anyone has any insight on the noise or grit separation, I would love to hear it.
Thanks.
I'm looking for some advice on a grit and noise problem. I am new to tumbling and I have a dual 3 lb barrel Chicago Electric rotary tumbler. (It is a clone of the Lortone dual 3 lb barrel tumbler and even uses the same barrels.) I purchased two additional barrels for the tumbler and have dedicated a specific barrel to each stage because I noticed that the rubber barrels tend to get grit embedded in the rubber inside that won't clean out. With four dedicated barrels, ... contamination problem solved.
My first load of rough was hickoryite. The rough arrived as 2 to 3 inch pieces which I cut down with a cutoff saw (at the cost of two blades). I cut the rough into an average of 1 inch pieces. I used HDPE pellet media in stage 1 since I didn't have any ceramic and filled the barrel to 3/4 full with rough and pellets. I had to keep adding more media as the stones got smaller. Tumbling noise was minimal (spelled "acceptable") and stage 1 did well at nearly two weeks of run time. It is now in stage 2, nearing a week, and doing fine. The hickoryite initially ran alone as a single barrel in the two barrel galley.
For my second load I purchased some yellow aventurine rough. The rough came in pieces about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 and was very jagged and sharp. The pieces were bulkier than the cut hickoryite but cutting the aventurine would have made them too small, so all I did was cut off some of the longest and sharpest points and edges. I also bought some ceramic small and large media. In the initial load I added rough to 3/4 and filled in with small ceramic media and 60/90 silicon carbide, keeping the level at 3/4 full. The new barrel was added as the second running barrel in the galley.
After about 70 hours of run time the sound had changed to a very sharp clatter. I opened the barrel and noticed that there was no mud of any significance. I could pull stones off the top and they were literally clean with little to no rounding. There was only silvery water like thin mercury visible in the barrel. That's not right. I emptied the barrel and found that the small ceramic media had combined with the grit and created a concrete-like wall at the end of the barrel. The grit and media was not mixing with the stones at all. So I started over. I cleaned the barrel and stones and discarded the grit. I took away the small ceramic media. The barrel was reloaded with a small amount of large ceramic and rough to the 3/4 point. I added 60/90 grit and water, resealed and restarted yesterday.
The noise from the aventurine stage 1 barrel is extreme to say the least. The hickoryite barrel is still mild by comparison. I can pick up one barrel at a time alternating and there is a huge difference. I am not sure whether this noise difference is the nature of aventurine and the fact that it is still sharp stones, or if I am missing some detail. The noise is at a level that it is marginally tolerable since I am limited to running the tumbler inside our apartment. The aventurine is much louder than the hickoryite ever was. I can't even sequester the tumbler to the back bathroom since the neighbors would think we had a cement mixer running 24/7.
I am also not sure why the grit and media would have cemented themselves to the back wall like they did. There were brief periods when the tumbler was shut off such as during a meal, but these were very short and the barrel remained on its side so if settling was the issue, it should have settled on the side and then been raked off again when the barrel started. This was actually cemented on the barrel floor, not the walls.
If anyone has any insight on the noise or grit separation, I would love to hear it.
Thanks.