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Post by greig on Feb 9, 2021 15:07:09 GMT -5
I ended up buying the tumbler for $20. Something to play with maybe. Until it breaks. I was wondering if you wouldn't just pick that thing up!  ...if you wait just a little bit to use it, I hear there's gonna be a video soon to show you how to properly use it!  Yesterday, somebody posted a Lortone 45C for free. I was too late on that one. Lots of used rock stuff being posted recently. I guess people are spring cleaning early. Now, if I could only find a good how-to beginner tutorial. ;-) |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 9, 2021 15:09:16 GMT -5
I ended up buying the tumbler for $20. Something to play with maybe. Until it breaks. Good luck with it! |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 9, 2021 15:10:39 GMT -5
I was wondering if you wouldn't just pick that thing up! ...if you wait just a little bit to use it, I hear there's gonna be a video soon to show you how to properly use it! Yesterday, somebody posted a Lortone 45C for free. I was too late on that one. Lots of used rock stuff being posted recently. I guess people are spring cleaning early. Now, if I could only find a good how-to beginner tutorial. ;-) I heard that meMiner guy has something. |
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blob
off to a rocking start
Member since December 2020
Posts: 2
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Post by blob on Feb 9, 2021 23:14:36 GMT -5
Hello, my family was gifted a natgeo tumbler for christmas last year. The thing lasted probably 2 months before the motor froze. I found a replacement motor (on amazon), and have broken and replaced the motor two times. After the last motor froze I decided to completely retire the thing. The barrel it comes with is pretty nice imo.
Jugglerguy, on a personal note, your videos are super helpful, and are what brought me to this forum. I really appreciate and thank you.
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stewdogg
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2020
Posts: 388
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Post by stewdogg on Feb 9, 2021 23:26:28 GMT -5
Has the Nat Geo tumbler taken over for the Harbor Freight dual barrel tumbler as the go to beginner tumbler? Might be a fun idea to run them head to head and see who comes out on top? Or at least give a good idea of what they are getting into with popular entry level tumblers. We already know the Thumler's and Lortone's are good reliable long term tumblers. Were you not rolling enough rocks Jugglerguy or you trying to drown out some noise in the house with another tumbler... |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 10, 2021 9:16:40 GMT -5
Hello, my family was gifted a natgeo tumbler for christmas last year. The thing lasted probably 2 months before the motor froze. I found a replacement motor (on amazon), and have broken and replaced the motor two times. After the last motor froze I decided to completely retire the thing. The barrel it comes with is pretty nice imo. Jugglerguy, on a personal note, your videos are super helpful, and are what brought me to this forum. I really appreciate and thank you. Thanks for the more negative review. I was actually expecting more of those. I read quite a few Amazon reviews mentioning failed motors. I'm glad you found this forum. I learned pretty much everything I know here. I can't believe how many helpful people are here. |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 10, 2021 9:20:40 GMT -5
Has the Nat Geo tumbler taken over for the Harbor Freight dual barrel tumbler as the go to beginner tumbler? Might be a fun idea to run them head to head and see who comes out on top? Or at least give a good idea of what they are getting into with popular entry level tumblers. We already know the Thumler's and Lortone's are good reliable long term tumblers. Were you not rolling enough rocks Jugglerguy or you trying to drown out some noise in the house with another tumbler... I think the National Geographic tumbler is by far the most popular now. It's hard to find a reasonably priced Lortone or Thumlers on Amazon, but those National Geographic numbers pop right up and have 4.5 star reviews. So many people go straight to Amazon to buy anything now. I'm as guilty as the nest guy too. Doing a head to head comparison is an interesting idea, but as you pointed out, I don't really need any more tumblers in the house. Hopefully this little guy doesn't add to the noise too much. I plan to use it for two or three batches and then sell it or give it away. |
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller 
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,432 
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 10, 2021 9:31:22 GMT -5
I plan to use it for two or three batches and then sell it or give it away. You will try and fix it before you even get started |
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Brian
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2020
Posts: 1,512
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Post by Brian on Feb 10, 2021 10:57:27 GMT -5
Has the Nat Geo tumbler taken over for the Harbor Freight dual barrel tumbler as the go to beginner tumbler? Might be a fun idea to run them head to head and see who comes out on top? Or at least give a good idea of what they are getting into with popular entry level tumblers. We already know the Thumler's and Lortone's are good reliable long term tumblers. Were you not rolling enough rocks Jugglerguy or you trying to drown out some noise in the house with another tumbler... I think the National Geographic tumbler is by far the most popular now. It's hard to find a reasonably priced Lortone or Thumlers on Amazon, but those National Geographic numbers pop right up and have 4.5 star reviews. So many people go straight to Amazon to buy anything now. I'm as guilty as the nest guy too. Doing a head to head comparison is an interesting idea, but as you pointed out, I don't really need any more tumblers in the house. Hopefully this little guy doesn't add to the noise too much. I plan to use it for two or three batches and then sell it or give it away. It can be hard to find a Lortone or Thumler anywhere right now. I waited months to get a Lortone last year from the Rock Shed. The National Geographic tumbler was readily available for most of that time, if I remember correctly, and being sold on Amazon made it even easier. Another important factor is the National Geographic name. It’s a name that is familiar to most people, and for those with kids, it’s a name we see often on science-related toys and kits. And for the most part, the quality is decent even if the price is usually high for what you get. My kids have gone through quite a few of the National Geographic kits and without the research I did into tumblers, I probably would have purchased the National Geographic kit without a second thought. |
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Tommy
Administrator 
Member since January 2013
Posts: 12,987
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Post by Tommy on Feb 10, 2021 11:01:39 GMT -5
Hi Rob Jugglerguy and thank you for doing this. As we discussed, we get a lot of posts from new members that mention that they either bought the Nat Geo brand as their first tumbler - or they bought the kids/grandkids one for birthday or Christmas. My personal opinion is that the price point has a LOT to do with it - when I search Amazon for 'rock tumbler' the Nat-geo is heavily featured in my results. There is no denying that it's a sexy looking black tumbler in a wonderful visual presentation that looks like it has everything a person would need (edited to add: for under a hundred bucks!). When the discussions are posted here (and on the Facebook group) they seem to have three major themes, where do I purchase more supplies, how do I get better results, and what should I upgrade to. Anyway, there is no question that the brand name comes up a lot and this idea grew out of a staff discussion - I think Tela rockjunquie dropped the initial suggestion. What I personally have observed is that not a lot of the resident members of the forum seem to actually have one, so with our hard-earned knowledge of tumbling and tumblers firmly in place we tend to trend the conversation (and this is VERY generalized by me) towards that's a piece of crap, get yourself a real tumbler... Quite often new members are already trending the conversation towards a negative view of the Nat-geo when they arrive here and that's fine too. So... There is no question that Rob's Rocks has become a valuable online resource for rockhounds and rock tumblers alike. When I first started I was sucking up every bit of online knowledge I could find, which wasn't easy, and your walking the beaches videos would have filled a major gap in the how to actually rockhound thought process. With your freely given mentions of RTH I sincerely believe that it's a contributing factor on why we get a lot of new members from Michigan - but I digress. Regarding the Nat-geo video if you find you have time and the desire to make one, I have zero doubt that you will stay true to your platform and present the information in an honest and logical manner and it would be an instantly trusted resource for us to include in our responses to the how-to questions by new members on the forum. I originally mentioned an unboxing review video because I could see you being quite methodical and good at it, but any other format would be just fine as well. |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 10, 2021 12:04:09 GMT -5
Hi Rob Jugglerguy and thank you for doing this. As we discussed, we get a lot of posts from new members that mention that they either bought the Nat Geo brand as their first tumbler - or they bought the kids/grandkids one for birthday or Christmas. My personal opinion is that the price point has a LOT to do with it - when I search Amazon for 'rock tumbler' the Nat-geo is heavily featured in my results. There is no denying that it's a sexy looking black tumbler in a wonderful visual presentation that looks like it has everything a person would need (edited to add: for under a hundred bucks!). When the discussions are posted here (and on the Facebook group) they seem to have three major themes, where do I purchase more supplies, how do I get better results, and what should I upgrade to. Anyway, there is no question that the brand name comes up a lot and this idea grew out of a staff discussion - I think Tela rockjunquie dropped the initial suggestion. What I personally have observed is that not a lot of the resident members of the forum seem to actually have one, so with our hard-earned knowledge of tumbling and tumblers firmly in place we tend to trend the conversation (and this is VERY generalized by me) towards that's a piece of crap, get yourself a real tumbler... Quite often new members are already trending the conversation towards a negative view of the Nat-geo when they arrive here and that's fine too. So... There is no question that Rob's Rocks has become a valuable online resource for rockhounds and rock tumblers alike. When I first started I was sucking up every bit of online knowledge I could find, which wasn't easy, and your walking the beaches videos would have filled a major gap in the how to actually rockhound thought process. With your freely given mentions of RTH I sincerely believe that it's a contributing factor on why we get a lot of new members from Michigan - but I digress. Regarding the Nat-geo video if you find you have time and the desire to make one, I have zero doubt that you will stay true to your platform and present the information in an honest and logical manner and it would be an instantly trusted resource for us to include in our responses to the how-to questions by new members on the forum. I originally mentioned an unboxing review video because I could see you being quite methodical and good at it, but any other format would be just fine as well. I will probably do an unboxing to some extent. I have never actually done an unboxing video, so that will be a new one for me. I have to be careful to keep things moving though. I tend to make my videos a little too long. Currently my plan is to unbox it, commenting on what is included, followed by running a batch of rocks according to the directions that come with it. I expect to have a failed batch, but who knows. Those new foam polishing things might work better than I expect. At the end of the video I will promise another video showing how I hope to get good results from the tumbler by not following the directions. Then I guess I'll try to keep that promise. That's the plan anyhow. I guess I should order a new tumbler today. Just what I need! |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 10, 2021 12:05:27 GMT -5
I think the National Geographic tumbler is by far the most popular now. It's hard to find a reasonably priced Lortone or Thumlers on Amazon, but those National Geographic numbers pop right up and have 4.5 star reviews. So many people go straight to Amazon to buy anything now. I'm as guilty as the nest guy too. Doing a head to head comparison is an interesting idea, but as you pointed out, I don't really need any more tumblers in the house. Hopefully this little guy doesn't add to the noise too much. I plan to use it for two or three batches and then sell it or give it away. It can be hard to find a Lortone or Thumler anywhere right now. I waited months to get a Lortone last year from the Rock Shed. The National Geographic tumbler was readily available for most of that time, if I remember correctly, and being sold on Amazon made it even easier. Another important factor is the National Geographic name. It’s a name that is familiar to most people, and for those with kids, it’s a name we see often on science-related toys and kits. And for the most part, the quality is decent even if the price is usually high for what you get. My kids have gone through quite a few of the National Geographic kits and without the research I did into tumblers, I probably would have purchased the National Geographic kit without a second thought. Good point about the National Geographic brand. I don't think we ever bought our kids any National Geographic stuff. I am only really familiar with the magazine. |
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Post by greig on Feb 10, 2021 16:58:55 GMT -5
I looked at my used $20 tumbler from earlier in this thread. The quality of the plastic barrel is better than I expected. It has rubber inside, whereas other plastic tumblers I have unfortunately owned were plastic inside and out. They wore out prematurely and leaked. I might start a tumble tonight, just to see how it sounds and performs. Pretty funny because I have 3 Lortones currently sitting idle.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 11, 2021 15:43:37 GMT -5
I looked at my used $20 tumbler from earlier in this thread. The quality of the plastic barrel is better than I expected. It has rubber inside, whereas other plastic tumblers I have unfortunately owned were plastic inside and out. They wore out prematurely and leaked. I might start a tumble tonight, just to see how it sounds and performs. Pretty funny because I have 3 Lortones currently sitting idle. You must have gotten the yellow one then. I think the other tumblers have rubber barrels that are basically a copy of Lortone barrels. |
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Post by Rocket Rockhound on Feb 11, 2021 20:37:53 GMT -5
I received the National Geographic Hobbyists tumbler as a birthday day presents. I have now been running the little tumbler for 4-5 months straight and have had no issues with running it. For the past month I have been running it outside of my closed porch so it even runs fine at low temperatures. It got down in the 30 at night a week or two ago where I live in Florida. I didn’t use the grit that came with since it doesn’t polish but I had good results with the girt I got off the rock shed. 1 thing to look out for is to make sure that rubber drive belt is near anything as my somehow vibrated it’s way to close to some plastic and started to grind the plastic away but the belt was fine and is still working good. The only issue with the tumbling results I had was the rocks crashing into each other causing more cracks in the rocks I believe that is more of my fault though and I hope to correct it with the ceramic media I recently got. I have a threat post of a picture of my second batch on rocks on here of them. Also the rocks that come with it are not the best for tumbling with different hardness and at times they have weird shapes and divots in them. So in my experience I’ve had lots of fun with it. learning about this hobby and tumbling rocks, so much so that I had to get a bigger barrel to tumbler more rocks at once. I’ve even started making YT videos on it too. So that being said I think it can be a good starting tumbler to see if this is a good hobby for oneself.
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brotherbill
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2018
Posts: 388
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Post by brotherbill on Feb 11, 2021 21:02:03 GMT -5
My experience: I have the Professional Model. I have been running it approximately 4 hours a week for 18 months(polishing silver). The rollers are heavily worn (grooved). At this rate I suspect that within a year I will have to replace them. I doubt they sell replacement parts so I will probably improvise something.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 11, 2021 21:27:31 GMT -5
I received the National Geographic Hobbyists tumbler as a birthday day presents. I have now been running the little tumbler for 4-5 months straight and have had no issues with running it. For the past month I have been running it outside of my closed porch so it even runs fine at low temperatures. It got down in the 30 at night a week or two ago where I live in Florida. I didn’t use the grit that came with since it doesn’t polish but I had good results with the girt I got off the rock shed. 1 thing to look out for is to make sure that rubber drive belt is near anything as my somehow vibrated it’s way to close to some plastic and started to grind the plastic away but the belt was fine and is still working good. The only issue with the tumbling results I had was the rocks crashing into each other causing more cracks in the rocks I believe that is more of my fault though and I hope to correct it with the ceramic media I recently got. I have a threat post of a picture of my second batch on rocks on here of them. Also the rocks that come with it are not the best for tumbling with different hardness and at times they have weird shapes and divots in them. So in my experience I’ve had lots of fun with it. learning about this hobby and tumbling rocks, so much so that I had to get a bigger barrel to tumbler more rocks at once. I’ve even started making YT videos on it too. So that being said I think it can be a good starting tumbler to see if this is a good hobby for oneself. Thanks for the input. I also noticed that there was not any ceramic or plastic media included. |
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 11, 2021 21:28:55 GMT -5
My experience: I have the Professional Model. I have been running it approximately 4 hours a week for 18 months(polishing silver). The rollers are heavily worn (grooved). At this rate I suspect that within a year I will have to replace them. I doubt they sell replacement parts so I will probably improvise something. That's not much use to have wear on the rollers already. Thanks for the info. |
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Post by Rocket Rockhound on Feb 11, 2021 21:39:05 GMT -5
I received the National Geographic Hobbyists tumbler as a birthday day presents. I have now been running the little tumbler for 4-5 months straight and have had no issues with running it. For the past month I have been running it outside of my closed porch so it even runs fine at low temperatures. It got down in the 30 at night a week or two ago where I live in Florida. I didn’t use the grit that came with since it doesn’t polish but I had good results with the girt I got off the rock shed. 1 thing to look out for is to make sure that rubber drive belt is near anything as my somehow vibrated it’s way to close to some plastic and started to grind the plastic away but the belt was fine and is still working good. The only issue with the tumbling results I had was the rocks crashing into each other causing more cracks in the rocks I believe that is more of my fault though and I hope to correct it with the ceramic media I recently got. I have a threat post of a picture of my second batch on rocks on here of them. Also the rocks that come with it are not the best for tumbling with different hardness and at times they have weird shapes and divots in them. So in my experience I’ve had lots of fun with it. learning about this hobby and tumbling rocks, so much so that I had to get a bigger barrel to tumbler more rocks at once. I’ve even started making YT videos on it too. So that being said I think it can be a good starting tumbler to see if this is a good hobby for oneself. Thanks for the input. I also noticed that there was not any ceramic or plastic media included. Yeah it doesn’t but small ceramic media seems to be working good. I at first got plastic media for it but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the plastic. It does come with some jewelry stuff for the rocks witch is useless |
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electrocutus
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2020
Posts: 341
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Post by electrocutus on Feb 11, 2021 22:57:12 GMT -5
My first, and so far only, tumbler is a Dr.Cool Pro, and it is exactly the same as the NG Pro with a different sticker on the front, so I will be very interested in seeing your review of you decide to review the NG Pro.
Mine has been working well so far. It's been going almost non-stop since September 2020. As others have mentioned already, it has 3 speeds, but after watching many tumbling videos on Youtube, I'd say the slowest speed it still quite a bit faster than any other tumbler I have seen. I only use it at the slowest speed.
I have had some pretty decent results, even with the starter selection of rocks they shipped with the tumbler. The instructions that come with the tumbler are overly simplistic (1 week with each of the grits). My take so far is that as long as people take the time to learn tumbling techniques and buy good grits and other supplies like ceramic filler, they can get some pretty decent results with this tumbler.
I definitely plan to graduate to a better tumbler at some point, but for now it serves my hobby needs quite well.
I am looking forward to your review!
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