An old free to me Lortone rock tumbler.

[waco]

The wife and I bought a large Thumbler's Tumbler a few years back for polishing rocks. Last year a buddy from work was cleaning out his shop and came across an old kinda beat up Lortone tumbler. "would you like this for tumbling brass?" Why not?

So it came home with me. I took it apart and cleaned it up a bit. Lots of rust and what not. It seemed to work well enough.

Fast forward to tonight. I'm in the shop painting new steel targets and while waiting for primer to flash off I spot the Ol gal in the corner.
I have a big bag of old milsurp .308 brass that were pull downs. Still have live primers in them. Super grimy, grungy, and a bit green.
I thought, what the heck.

I grabbed a drum and put roughly a teaspoon of Lemishine in it along with a tiny squirt of Dawn dish soap and just a drizzle of Nu Finish car polish for good measure.

Plugged her in and away we go. I'll let it run for a few hours and post results later. Oh yeah. I have never wet tumbled before and do not have any SS pins on hand.
This is kind of an experiment to see how well the brass will get clean without the pins.

 

[Ian]

Free is good. What you have is likely better than most of the stuff out there today.

On the outside it will get clean in short order. The inside, not so much. It generally takes about two hours to get the primer pockets completely clean when using pins.

 

[waco]

Like I said. Pins are on my to get list. This was just a test run to see how well it will clean up VERY nasty range brass.

 

[waco]

Ian. The motor seems a bit weak to me? It does not turn quit as fast as my Thumbler.
That being said. Free is free....

 

[Brad]

The FA wet tumbler spins pretty slow. Might be why it takes so long? It does keep the brass from beating itself to death.
Slow is good.

 

[Ian]

I know at least one person who uses spent primers instead if pins. The anvils and cups seem to do a good job, but I never tried it because I got an sstm kit with the pins and all and never looked back.

 

[Ian]

+1 Brad, slow is good. If the shells slam into each other it accelerates the wear. It should be more like a slow stir.

 

[fiver]

like a roll, so things slide over themselves.
the pins work just like the walnut stuff does, it minutely scratches the surface over and over again like soft non organized sandpaper.

 

[Wasalmonslayer]

Just so you know pins are not a necessity they just help the inside come clean.
I usually just tumble sans pins for brass that is not grungy.
Just a couple tablespoons wash and wax and let em roll.
It will surprise you how clean they will be!

 

[fiver]

they do come pretty clean.
I was washing my [range brass especially] de-primed cases in just a gallon jug with hot water and lemi-shine for a long time before I bought a pin tumbler.
hot-hot water and a lot of swishing/shaking and a good hot water rinse got more gunk out of the cases than I ever thought was in them.

 

[Winelover]

The Tumblers Tumbler, nowadays, is available two ways. They now offer a fast model. My 40 year old "B" only came one speed and still does a fine job, today.

 

[M3845708Bama]

Ian. The motor seems a bit weak to me? It does not turn quit as fast as my Thumbler.
That being said. Free is free....

The proper rpm for a 10 to 12” tumbler is 28 to 32 rpm based on some design standards I found for ball mills. The design is for dry tumbling so the media cascades back on to itself at the 11 o’clock position. It still works great for wet tumbling of ss pins. The tumbler should give many years of service and replacement parts are readily available. Good find!

 

[Paul Gauthier]

I have an R40 Lortone tumbler, great machine, I've had it for about 6 years and up until 6 months ago I only used with dry media and it does a great job. I then got into SS pins and it does an even better job. Just you know Lortone tumblers are expensive so you got a great deal. I paid $125 for mine, used of course. Never thought I would like stainless tumbling because it's wet but I will only do it in the winter when I have my coal stove going so I can dry the brass easily on the stove.

 

[fiver]

I run mine through a wet then dry process.
about 1.5 hours in each one and they are ready to go into the gun room.

 

[waco]

Well I forgot to turn mine off last night so it ran for about 20 hours...
Oh they are clean!

 

[358156 hp]

When you're ready to try pins, the best deal I've found is at Bullseye Reloading:http://www.bullseye-reloading.com/Pellet-Pins-Size-Information.html They also explain the difference in pin sizes. I've sent a few high volume commercial reloader there for pins and they came away impressed as well. You've already discovered that if you just want the outsides of the cases shiny then pins are not necessary. I recommend RCBS' case separator, filled with water to separate the pins from the cases. As mentioned in another thread, the surface tension of the water is what holds the pins in the cases, they drop out readily if the case is held under water.

 

[freebullet]

I have pins & a motor, ain't built the tumbler part yet.

Nice re-find waco.

 

[waco]

When you're ready to try pins, the best deal I've found is at Bullseye Reloading:http://www.bullseye-reloading.com/Pellet-Pins-Size-Information.html They also explain the difference in pin sizes. I've sent a few high volume commercial reloader there for pins and they came away impressed as well. You've already discovered that if you just want the outsides of the cases shiny then pins are not necessary. I recommend RCBS' case separator, filled with water to separate the pins from the cases. As mentioned in another thread, the surface tension of the water is what holds the pins in the cases, they drop out readily if the case is held under water.

Great info 358156 hp. Thank you Sir!

 

[Wasalmonslayer]

I tried these and they work fantastic!!
https://m.facebook.com/southernshinetumblers/
They are very reasonable on the price also.

You just have to run a couple cycles with just dish soap to clean them.
They oil used in making them turns your brass black if you don’t pre clean them.
After a couple rinse cycles with dish soap they work better than anything else I have used.
Including pins.

 

[Brad]

Those look like they clean well and net stick in flash holes. Only problem I can see is that the pins seem to go everywhere, those little bits would be even worse.

I need a rotary separator.