Hi All,
Just picked this tumbler up at a plant closing (they made the hooks and stuff you find in hardware stores). Looks like it was built in the plant-it is a nice design-easy to build. If anyone wants dimensions and such let me know. Real time saver. Overall length is about 6 feet-it'll take a 4 foot piece of material. Best part is I got it for $100.

Id say that was a great score, looks like a perfect blacksmiths tumbler

Is the inner drum lined with anything?
Phil

Nope. The outer drum used to be lined with some sort of foam to keep the noise down.

Great score!!!...you're going to have to build a bigger shop soon. Tumblers are useful tools...beats grinding

Bigger shop soon???? You obviously haven't been in my shop-I need a bigger shop NOW. I keep getting more toys-gotta stop now-no more room to stuff them. There's enough room for me to get around all the equipment and that's about it. A buddy of mine said they should start a new show for and about me-Tool Hoarders :lol: :lol: :lol:
P.S. That nice big swage block and stand has a prominent place in the shop. You ought to come up and check the shop out-call me and come visit.

thats a sweetie!!!! grats on your find!!! the shop i got my hammer outta had a sweet one as well...but i know it had to be a loud one when it ran.. the tumbler body was made out of cast iron panels(with a 5hp 550volt motor)...

That is a good score! I painted the inside of my tumbler with Rhino liner I got at a garage sale in gallon cans.

I glued felt to the outside of the LA Abrasion tumbler in the Soils Lab some years ago and it did a terrific job of quieting it. The LA Abrasion test puts a weighed sample of aggregate in a big tumbler with a flange to make the sample hit the far side of the drum perpendicularly with about 20 lbs hard steel balls. This was to determine how well grade and subgrade aggregates would hold up under traffic.

The LA Abrasion machine was so loud it made people's ears ring in other buildings and only got run after hours. The felt deadened it enough it was only annoyingly loud and not dangerous so we had to run tests during hours. <sigh>

Anywho, felt worked really REALLY well.

Frosty The Lucky.

So . . .the outer barrel is for noise damping?

Are there bearings mounted inside of the outer container?

I've seen them lined with conveyor belt for damping, but it still sounded like a battalion of the ghosts of christmas past having a mardi gras parade on sherman tanks.

What media do people commonly use?
The only one I've seen had bits of steel and small drops, cut up rebar, etc in it. The finish was great and beats the hell out of a wire wheel, but the noise was insane. I'd love to build one, but noise damping has to be shorted for my location first. What do people use for quieting their tumblers?

Mine is lined with conveyor belt and I always add some sand, it reduces noise and helps with cleaning .
PS. Nice score

I think the outer barrel is for two things. Noise dampening and dust control, And, yes, there are bearings mounted on the inside of the outer container. The guy I talked to when I got it said it wasn't too loud with the liner in it. I think "not too loud" is a very relative term. I worked in a machine shop for a while, and the tumbler room was next to the water jet I ran-you could hear the tumblers over the jet, so "not too loud" doesn't impress me much. I'm going to line it with spray foam before I run it and see what happens.

IMNSHO, air compressors, tumblers, and other such machines benefit by having their own space, preferably an outside closet under the eaves. A dog house or micro shed lined with scrap foam and old carpet works wonders for preserving your mental health, and keeps the neighbors from showing up with pitchforks and torches.