The Best (and biggest) Rock Tumbler EVER!

[Dirt Nuker]

This is awesome for my 500th post.

This is a project I've been tossing around in my head for a while. I wanted to clean my coins like everybody else, but I just couldn't bear doing it all a handful of coins at a time. Too many coins, too much wear and tear on the machine and way too much time to clean them all.

I sorted a year's worth of clad and pennies (about $200 worth) and put it into two large pretzel containers. One for pennies, one for nickels, dimes and quarters. I used a load of Teflon tape on the lid. Too much water made it leak.

Off to the garage. I dug into my wood scrap bucket and made up this frame.

Now for the power. Let's see.....what could I use to turn about ten pounds of coins, water and fish gravel. I know.....my old treadmill! I clamped the frame to the treadmill making sure there was enough clearance for the belt to run. The frame also fits the container so it doesn't move too far left or right.

Here's a look from the top down:

No comes the hard part. I had to adjust the speed of the treadmill so it would turn properly but not too fast and not too slow that it lost the friction to properly turn. 1.1mph was the sweet spot. Here's a link to my contraption in action:

Click To See The Best Rock Tumbler EVER!!

 

[hawgdawg]

pretty clever,,

 

[1948-SilverDime]

Outside the box

Thinking outside the box. I like it! I like you used what you had on hand.

SD

 

[penguineman]

pretty cool, does it seem to do ok?? as far as cleaning? I've been playing around with a old tumbler I have here and trying to find the best amount of coins verses aquarium rock and water mixture I had to many earlier and it just didn't do real well once you get it down to about 10-12 coins your ok

 

[mlitty]

Very impressed.
Ingenious.

 

[davidlhyde63366]

treadmill

Good use for all those unused treadmills sitting around collecting dust.

 

[DIGGER27]

I like it...but it is too civilized and not "Rednecky" enough...
Like this one...

 

[TheStelt]

I like it...but it is too civilized and not "Rednecky" enough...
Like this one...

Just use duct tape instead of screws and clamps!!

 

[Dirt Nuker]

Well....my contraption needs a little tweaking. I did about three pounds of pennies in one batch. I used about two cups of aquarium gravel and a squirt of dish soap in the slurry. Overall I thought it did ok. On the shiny stuff the results weren't as good as I had hoped. I think I didn't use enough soap. The dirt was cleaned off just fine, but many coins didn't shine up as I would have hoped. When I do another batch at the end of the season, I'll try a new formula for cleaning but the mechanics will stay the same. In the meantime I need to work on a better way to seal the container. I had to use alot of teflon tape on the plastic container's threads. I think duct tape would be better.

 

[predrunner]

What a great idea. You would think you could use one gallon paint cans. You could put tape on the outside so it would grip better. You could run as many cans at once as you'd want. Also the paint cans should be totally waterproof.

 

[skeeterbait]

Now that's a kick ass tumbler! !

 

[predrunner]

I stole your idea but I did it real redneck. This was my trial run which I ran for 10 minutes. Most the coins came clean enough to run through the change machine at the bank. After this I ran 4 bottles at once for 30 minutes, two with pennies and the other two with nickels,dimes, and quarters. I didn't use any gravel at all. I just put a couple squirts of handsoap in with each bottle. I'm sure the gravel would clean them better and faster but it is easier not using it.

http://youtu.be/ZzZVU4SCpzk