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First test of my newly finished DIY stainless tumbler.

The tumbler was made from a £40 treadmill sourced from eBay. A quick 'Cut & Shut' and the exercise machine is transformed into a tumbler.

The goal was to increase capacity from the 100 rounds of .308 that my Thumler tumbler can handle. The first test cleaned 500 cases, but a welcome side-effect was that it took barely an hour and a half, compared with three hours in the Thumler, so effectively a 10-fold increase in throughput. By using a jumbo cat litter sifter for initial media separation the separation and rinsing took no longer than it did previously.

Ok, so the tumbler may have only cost £40, but the drum (from 'C&M Topline') was quite expensive as were the pins. Drums can be made cheaply from pipe with added agitators. I had to buy 15 lbs of pins from the USA; apparently they are made in Germany, but I haven't been able to find a direct source.

For the tumbler itself I looked for a treadmill with the smallest & simplest control panel (but watch out for 'manual' treadmills, i.e. unpowered!), and also for something small with a basic box-section frame to simplify fabrication.

https://www.youtube.com/v/UBrlz8Q0UkE

Ingenious use of a treadmill

I know it's a bit late but I use these pins from Amazon, don't know how they compare price wise to the ones from the US when import duty and shipping are taken into account

old_n07 wrote:don't know how they compare price wise to the ones from the US when import duty and shipping are taken into account

I'm trying to forget how much I had to spend on pins! but I think these aren't too much different. I remember looking at some metric pins, but I wasn't 100% sure how they behave in case mouths, primer pockets, and how easily they would separate. Good to know that they work. What case sizes do you use them with?

Mainly .308, 6.5 and 357 but I have cleaned 338 and .50 with them as well, the only time I have issues is with resized 6.5 brass as the odd pin can get stuck in the neck (6 or 7 cases out of a batch of 100) but with fired brass there is no issue

Well done me son, that is thinking on a grand scale!

Good thinking there. The other day I noticed they are replacing a big water main near me, I wonder if they will have a spare offcut of pipe to make a drum. It looked like about 12" in diameter

tfb wrote:Good thinking there. The other day I noticed they are replacing a big water main near me, I wonder if they will have a spare offcut of pipe to make a drum. It looked like about 12" in diameter

how would you seal the ends?

might be easier / cheaper getting a blue drum like in the background of the vid, or one of those waste type ones for caravans?

bradaz11 wrote:how would you seal the ends?

might be easier / cheaper getting a blue drum like in the background of the vid, or one of those waste type ones for caravans?

Here are some drums home-made from pipe:


https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/1308 ... nt-1473699


https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/1308 ... nt=2150375

I got some pins from Spud.....they're a magnetic s/steel 6.5mm x 1.2mm in size, and they get everything down to 223 as clean as a whistle, including primer pockets.
Your pipe drum looks really good, but won't the exposed ends of the bolts holding the vanes in place cause damage to the cases?.
I'm going to make one up along similar lines, but using nylon nuts and bolts.

Pete

Pete wrote:Your pipe drum looks really good, but won't the exposed ends of the bolts holding the vanes in place cause damage to the cases?.
I'm going to make one up along similar lines, but using nylon nuts and bolts.

The pipe drums aren't mine; they were just to illustrate how other people do it. I share your concern about the protrusions.
I imagine sealing the bolt holes is not easy, so I wonder whether nylon bolts can have enough clamping force.
Such a long drum must need a metric ****load of pins.