Vibratory Tumbler Getting Started
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2018
- This will be a series of videos showing rocks being polished/tumbled in a vibratory tumbler.
In this video I get the batch started in 120/220 grit. I'll be moving on to pre-polish in the next video.
The next video in this series is here: • Vibratory Rock Tumbler...
I also did a series on rotary tumblers it starts here:
• Rock Tumbling Step 1 R...
Your little camera ham!!!!! Adorable 🤣
Thank you for the video. I'm about to order the same machine (smaller) but wasn't sure how to use it. Your video gave me confident. And btw, you son is so cute.
Thank you and best wishes with your new Thumlers! :)
Your son looks so sweet! Great to have a father-son hobby
Thanks man
This is exactly what I needed. Thank you for the information too about the shape they produce without Rotary tumbling
Thanks for the video, your right, there are not many videos on vibratory tumblers. Glad you included your son in the video and the hobby :-)
Both of you did a very good job of explaining how it's done. I am a newbie tumbler an I am considering buying vibratory one.
Thank you! I love my vibe - though now I am using a LotO not the Thumlers in this video.
Same here newbie rock tumbler in a rotary tumbler.
THANK YOU for creating this series! Very helpful and informative, and well done. I've recently started rotary tumbling, and am considering a vibratory tumbler. Your videos provide an excellent sense of what the process entails which I couldn't get by reading the "how to" guides.
Thank you! Glad it was helpful!!
Very informative video. Shout out to your Lil helper lol he's great. Reminds me of my youngest son. Anyhow I am a newbie rotary tumbler but looking to expand to vibratory tumbling. Your tumbler is HUGE. I recently bought a bigger tumbler to tumble more rocks at a time. Happy tumbling!
Hi Ed, I want to thank you for posting these videos... especially the first one. I recently started tumbling with a Thumler 15B and just put in my first batch in the V10 vibrating. One thing I have never seen in all the literature I read about the V10, is that your rocks do not necessarily turn that grey color right away. I thought I had done something wrong so ran to TH-cam and found your video. Albeit the big 18 pound unit...the fact that you had to wait a bit for yours to get that "grey coating"... made me NOT try to add more water or grit! A new guy like me was thinking I messed up. I let it run for a couple hours and it turned out just fine with my 6 ounces of 120/220 and light water. So I was relieved to see your video. Thank you!
Glad it helped!!! Best of luck moving forward!! :)
I've always enjoyed rocks. Completely new to the hobby and just acquired a UV18 from an auction, with only one thought "I could polish rocks with that" with no idea on where to start. Don't have a rotary, so I might just skip that step and see where it gets me. Thanks for all the videos. Just finished binge watching them all :P
Great video! Ur boy made my day!
Hello 👋
You can use it to clean pellets, and slugs. I just leave it in the tumbler with water, and dawn dish soap for a minute. Works great all the factory material that come off the slugs will blow your mind.
Use a callander to filter most of the water out. Then you can dump the rocks right in.
I was amazed at the amount of grit you used in this batch of stones. Here in the UK Grit is so expensive. The amount you used, I think you said 8ozs, would cost around £10 - £15, multiply that by 3 stages and it makes stone polishing completely non viable. I have 2 vibro machines and 3 tumblers, but I'm very much an amateur. In the tumblers it is recommended to use 2 desert spoons of grit for 3 lbs of stones , and just 1 desert spoon in a vibrator machine. Obviously using more grit in each stage will get better results, mine are not brilliant. I can only think that grits are far less expensive in the US than here in the UK. Very much enjoyed the videos and I learned a lot.
I’m very much an amateur as well so take what I say with a grain of salt but I think you only really need a lot of stage one grit. It might take more than a one week run for the first tumbling stage more like 2 or 3 weeks for me replacing the grit once a week and checking on the rocks. All other stages I just run once so I don’t need as much grit for those. So I just buy stage one grit in bulk (much cheaper in bulk) 10 lbs of stage 1 cost around 40 usd. Hopefully this helps and it’s the same in the Uk for bulk :)
Great video and tips
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you so much for this video! My aunt just gave the kids a rock Tumblr a stumbler is Tumblr model a R one and it looks very vintage and I have no idea what to do with it I’m trying to figure out about powders and grits and I can’t find hardly anything online so we really appreciate this video!
Thank you very much for creating this series, I have a second hand vibratory tumbler that I've been holding onto for some time and unsure how to use as it came with no instructions, so I really appreciate the videos. =)
Thanks so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm probably going to start a new series in the next month or so. It takes forever to get enough rocks through step 1 in the rotary to have enough to fill the vibratory.
You two are legends. I just started hounding 2 months ago and I have plenty of material to work with...just not sure what size I want. I'm thinking bout a 10 pounder
the harbor freight 15 pound tumbler is a great buy and works great also
It is a great video. It doesn't look like you have the amount of slurry needed when you first start the tumbler. I would have added a little more of the grit until they stones were all coated so that all you see is the grit.
Thanks you for this video. I just started my first batch with my new tumbler (same model) and I was off to the races in no time flat. Slurry looks good, stones are moving well. Great job!
Sweet!! Best of luck with it!
Thank you!
was that like over a third cup of grit?
could you please tell me would this unit work if their was only two or three large rocks in the container with the cutting media
I think that with the vibratory it is actually very important that it is filled. If I had two or three large rocks I would put them in and then fill with smaller rocks and ceramic media to get enough to fill it up. I actually bought a smaller vibratory (LotO) and stop using this one mainly because it took me forever to get enough rocks to fill it. Hope this helps! -Ed
Well I guess I can't post a picture. But I've have done 2 batches with the same Vibrating tumbler you have. I have ended up with a good polish on almost all my stones. But in both batches larger pieces of petrified wood have gotten road rash and one developed really bad cracks. Some larger pieces looked fine and took a good polish. They all looked great coming out of course grit in my rotating tumbler. The worst stage was polish. I'm at a loss.
Hmmm. I have some pet wood I got from Arizona and I was working on getting enough of it ready to put into the Thumler UV18. If you are using the same one I have you know it takes a lot of rocks to fill it. I had noticed that a lot of my pet wood came out with fissures. I was having a hard time getting it smooth. I kind of think I'd need a saw to cut it down. (If I keep it in step 1 that long there might not be much left.) I've used an angle grinder to cut some rocks, but I do that sparingly... it's not a very clean cut and even wearing a respirator I worry about breathing rock dust. (Not good) Maybe try running a batch through all 4 stages in the rotary? It could be that it just works better in the rotary. One additional thought: I got a LotO vibe and I'm using it almost exclusively now and I'm generally running about 50/50 between rocks and ceramic media (mixing large and small ceramic). I've been getting some excellent results. In the back of my mind I was thinking that if I fire up the thumler again I'll go with much more ceramic.
@@edcctf Well I've been using a rotatary for about 3 years and have never had this issue. I just recently bought the vibrating tumbler to speed things up. I haven't had issue with any agates or chalcedony. Only a handful of the petrified wood. The bowl is plenty full. And it's only large to medium pieces but some of those are fine. 1 piece is kinda like a triangle and it polished 2 sides and chewed the other side up. And again they looked great coming out of course grit. Could just be some rocks dont like the vibrations. Thanks for your time.
Hi, I have the UV 10 thumlers vibratory tumbler, the inside of my bowl was textured with bumps and it had good action , after about 7 days of using it the action is not so good and the inside of the bowl is now pretty smooth. Has this happened to you and is it normal?
Mine was pretty smooth from the start. I will say that typically, as it tumbles the slurry will thicken and the rocks don't tumble as quickly. You add water to keep it going, but for me, generally, by about 3 days it's done.
I'm new to this. Do you have to use a rotary tumbler first? I got the Thumblers UV 10 for Christmas but not a rotary.
Yes. The step 1 grit is too rough for a vibratory and will ruin your bowl. You've got to get step 1 done in a rotary. I actually switched to a smaller vibratory (a LotO) because it took me months to get enough through step 1 to fill the UV18.
@@edcctf so helpful
@@samjackowskiwins Thank you!!
You can just use the vibratory skipping step 1 (the coarse grit )..but your rocks may have edges and pits..but will be shiny. If you don't need round perfect stones but want them to shine. You could try it and see what you think.
Is there a reason why you can't / don't do stage 1 with the vibratory tumbler?
From what I understand the more abrasive grit combined with the sharper rocks would wear out your bowl very quickly. I had one lady tell me she does step 1 in a vibe, but she uses I think 120 grit. (I use 60) To me those bowls are too expensive to risk it. I just do step 1 in the rotaries and move on to the vibe for steps 2, 3 and 4.
Where did you find how much grit to add to the vibrating tumbler
I use the same recipe that Michigan Rocks uses. He gets some great results and it hasn't let me down yet!
@@edcctf I went through his videos and didn’t see any info unless I looked wrong. So you you use 8oz of grit per batch. How big is your rock vibrator?
@@davemcauliffe5387 I can't remember which video I got his recipe from, but here it is:
Step 2: Two tablespoons of fine grit. (I use 120/220)
Step 3: One half teaspoon of pre-polish and one tablespoon of borax powder.
Step 4: One half teaspoon of polish and one tablespoon of borax powder.
Remember these are vibratory recipes and you can't do step 1 in a vibratory tumbler. I use ballpark one tablespoon per pound in my rotary for step one and I use graded 60 grit. (You could also use 60/90 grit.)
If you watch my videos hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'm going to run a batch in my thumlers vibratory. Remember that the recipe above is for a LotO with a 4.5 lb capacity. When I run the Thumlers it has an 18 lb capacity. (4x bigger) I'm going to quadruple the recipe above.
Hope this helps!!
Ed
Why don't you use the plastic media that is small? Or small rocks if you have them. Thanks
I used small ceramic media with the Thumlers and it just tended to stick to the inside wall of the tumbler. I didn't feel that was doing me any good. I suspect the plastic would do the same, though I haven't tried it. I do try to vary the size of the rocks and put some small ones in. I've been using a LotO tumbler (vibratory) and with it I have been using large and small ceramic media and a higher proportion than I did in the Thumlers.
Don't use plastic media in a vibratory tumbler because it dampens the vibrations. Use ceramic media instead.
I've never tried plastic media in a vibe, I'm really not even a fan in the rotary. I've gotten good results in a rotary just using ceramic when the need arises.
Is that an actual rock tumbler, or a case tumbler being used for rocks? The only reason I ask is because every time I seek "vibratory rock tumblers" online, I get a lot of case tumblers that look almost identical to some other rock tumblers I've seen. I'm trying to keep a tight budget, so I want to find the right kind and get the best buy. I welcome your tips.
This is an actual rock tumbler. On Thumler tumblers if you get a case tumbler the same size the band color will be different. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I have seen others say that the case tumblers won't work for rocks. I'm suspecting that the motor may not be strong enough for that much weight and/or the bowl just isn't thick enough.
From what I understand about these is that a rock tumbler vibrates at a lower speed than a shell casing tumbler, The motor is what makes it different.
they are one and the same. the degree of polishing is dependent on the medium you use, brass needs a fine mdeium such as crushed walnut shell
The blue stripe on bowl signifies rock use. The yellow striped ones for not rocks 😎
At least for me, when I first heard my vibratory tumbler I thought I would be in trouble with my wife but like magic when I started to add the grit the noise was damped considerably.
I've switched over to a LotO tumbler now. It is much quieter than the Thumler. It's also 1/4 the capacity which in my case has turned out to be a good thing. It was taking me months to get enough rocks ready to fill the thumler. Best of luck with yours!!!
@@edcctf I got the 10 lb Thumler (from your advice about the 18 lb); so it's not too bad getting enough rocks. As for the Lot-o, I would have gotten that one but I'm a little too old to deal with the cement block.
Great video! I’m curious about your “ no Amish” sign…
That was a gift from a friend of mine from an inside joke years and years ago. When I started making videos I forgot that it was down there. I took it down now. lol
@@edcctf lol.
That sign. No Amishism? 🙃