I need a rock tumbler with a see-thru barrel. Where can I find one?

I already tried looking on eBay and Froogle. So far, all rock tumblers
I've seen are opaque. A rock tumbler with a barrel that he can see
through is what a good friend of mine wants as a wedding gift.

If you see photos of four different-colored glass containers with "rock
tumbler" occurring in their search results, those are misleading; they
are just glass containers without a lid and tumbling machine. If you
read into them, you'll see what I mean.

Therefore, a little help please?

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 02:35:42 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry
wrote:

I already tried looking on eBay and Froogle. So far, all rock tumblers
I've seen are opaque. A rock tumbler with a barrel that he can see
through is what a good friend of mine wants as a wedding gift.

If you see photos of four different-colored glass containers with "rock
tumbler" occurring in their search results, those are misleading; they
are just glass containers without a lid and tumbling machine. If you
read into them, you'll see what I mean.

Therefore, a little help please?


Most rotary type rock tumblers I've seen over the last 35 years or so, have used
either some sort of rubber barrel, or a metal or plastic barrel with a rubber
liner. The rubber is always opaque, most often black. While there are rotary
tumblers, a little more high end, that use translucent white plastics for their
barrel and are marketed more for metal finishing using steel shot, these still
are not "see through", being transluscent white, not clear.

If you really need to be able to see the rocks while they are moving in the
tumbler, you need to consider a vibratory type, not a rotary type. These use
usually donut shaped open toped contaners which don't absolutely need to be
covered while in use (though they usually are run with a cover, since without,
you can make a bit of a mess of the surroundings with spattered slurry). If you
like, you could make a plexiglass cover for one of these. Some, like the
vibrasonic brand, also a vibratory tumbler, use a more rectangular shaped bin,
that spatters less, and is easier to run with the top open. The vibratory
tumblers process rock a lot faster than the rotary types, but are also generally
a good deal more costly.

Peter

When put fingers to keys it was 10/23/06 5:35 AM...

I already tried looking on eBay and Froogle. So far, all rock tumblers
I've seen are opaque. A rock tumbler with a barrel that he can see
through is what a good friend of mine wants as a wedding gift.

If you see photos of four different-colored glass containers with "rock
tumbler" occurring in their search results, those are misleading; they
are just glass containers without a lid and tumbling machine. If you
read into them, you'll see what I mean.

Therefore, a little help please?

It doesn't even sound possible or practicable.

IF you found a see-thru barrel, it would only remain that way for a half
hour or less. The first grit is coarse and would abrade the plastic or
glass very quickly to a state of translucency instead of transparency.
Even if you got a barrel made of diamond, and it stayed transparent for
a while, you wouldn't be able to _see_ anything anyway. The whole inside
of the thing gets covered with a slurry of abrasive and fine rock-dust.

I suggest you get him a smoke shifter instead.
http://www.smokeshifter.com
They have left-handed ones too.

- CW

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:35:47 GMT, wrote:

I already tried looking on eBay and Froogle. So far, all rock tumblers
I've seen are opaque. A rock tumbler with a barrel that he can see
through is what a good friend of mine wants as a wedding gift.

If you see photos of four different-colored glass containers with "rock
tumbler" occurring in their search results, those are misleading; they
are just glass containers without a lid and tumbling machine. If you
read into them, you'll see what I mean.

Therefore, a little help please?

The barrel on a barrel-type tumbler wouldn't stay transparent for long
if it were actually used. Somewhat longer if it were made of clear
corundum, I suppose, but I've never seen sapphire barrels for sale :-)

If the idea is to watch the tumbling action, Peter's suggestion of a
vibratory tumbler is probably your only option. If it's to be actually
used for tumbling, a vibratory model is better for most things anyway.

--
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ