My new HF Tumbler...Love it!

[DIGGER27]

Santa was good to me this year, but he didn't bring me anything MD related.
I suppose it is up to me, so I bought a new camera with my Christmas bonus money, (Panasonic ZS6) and I still had about $80 left over.

A trip to Harbor freight was in order.
Got the 25% off coupon from Devildog2345 on Sunday and took a little drive.
(Thank You Devildog!)

Bought a nice pair of leather digging gloves...they say they are driving gloves...yea, for driving my detector!
One size only, large, but they fit me fine.
$7.99



Also picked up this composite trowel so on occasion I can get the dirt out of a hole and do the wave over thing with my coil or Propointer.
I do not really like sticking my hands in unknown holes..broken glass and sharp rusty metal sometimes lives there.
$1.99




I also needed a Tumbler very badly since my coins come out of the ground here really crusty and dirty.
I have plenty of K55 motors laying around, and I plan on building my own one day, but I am lazy and tired of looking at this jar of dirty money.
If I took it to the bank in out-of-the-ground condition, the tellers would just yell at me, and I already have enough of that from most of the women in my life.

So I got to the store and of course the poor people who had to work on New Years Day did not have a clue, so I walked around till I found them on a shelf in the back.

They had the single 3lb drum for about $49, and the double drum for $89.
What the hell, I treated myself to the double...one for copper, one for clad.
With the discount on the tumbler, the gloves and trowel and sales tax, it came to about $80.



Got home and I threw in some natural looking aquarium gravel I had laying about, a few drops of dish detergent, some water and some coinage in each drum.

The directions say don't overload or under load the drums, so I weighed each one filled and they came in at about 2 1/2 lbs each and started to tumble.

Checked them at about an hour and a bunch of dirty water poured out and the coins looked way cleaner than when they went in.
Probably can put these coins back in circulation at this point.
I reloaded the detergent and water and tumbled for a few more hours and they came out even cleaner.

2 more loads were tumbled for about 6 hours each and came out about the same, so I don't think I will empty the drums and change the water anymore.

Some coins were still dirty, not many, but these were probably the worst ones and I will just throw them in another load to finish them.

This is the money pre cleaning...



and this is the result....
Pennies...



Clad...



I noticed that most of the coins came out with a very dark toning, which I actually like.
Maybe it was the gravel? I thought it had no color...just natural.
Could be my soil does this to them.
Maybe I will take some of the better ones and make a display, or maybe a clock sometime with these.






The drums are rubber, so the process was not very noisy at all.
I kept checking the motor section for overheating, but no issues with that on mine.

Some people report a problem with belts breaking on these Chicago Tools low end units.
Happy to say, no problems with mine after about 18 hours of tumbling.
They also supply about 5 more belts with the unit, and I can always get an o ring from some auto parts store, or RIP says he got some real good ones online here...
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=61674d

As soon as I get through with last years clad, it's off to the bank we go.

Hey, I might even polish a few nice rocks that I find this year.

HH Y'all!

[dogpound]

good job at your money laundrying

[RIP]

Thats the same one I have.I think you'll like it, I'm happy with mine.

[cmbtvet]

I picked up the single drum tumbler for $25 as an open box sale. The tape on one side had split, other than that it was never "opened" or anything removed.

[DIGGER27]

Originally Posted by cmbtvet

I picked up the single drum tumbler for $25 as an open box sale. The tape on one side had split, other than that it was never "opened" or anything removed.

I saw an older post from 2009 that some guy had bought the double drum for under $50.
Inflation, I guess.
Still very happy with this thing.

[sectshun8]

Originally Posted by DIGGER27

I saw an older post from 2009 that some guy had bought the double drum for under $50.
Inflation, I guess.
Still very happy with this thing.

Probly from me I got it for $36, was a special in the flier that week

It's served me well, zero issues and still works great

[RelicHunterNGA]

Originally Posted by dogpound

good job at your money laundrying

lol!

[silver49009]

boy that sure cleans up those coins nice! Being I used to be heavy in the lapidary hobby (cutting and polishing rocks and minerals) I have had these in the past. I thought I saw a pretty cheap vibratory tumber over at HF too.

I know everyone use to be so big on the vibratory. However you are only cleaning up coins so shouldn't be a huge issue.

Thanks for the post.

[flbeachguy]

I love mine too, I also end up with the dark tone on some as well. But they still look better in the "afters"

[Bonesquat]

Dejavu? Lol I got so confused and thought you had posted in the future until I read 2011...Still thinking it was 2011 I had think really hard to remind myself it was 2012....I also kept thinking, "Digger has had a tumbler for a good while now..hmm".

[FAL guy]

The dual drum tumbler is on sale right now for $49.99.

[WildDigger]

I just pick one up today, I got the single drum. I did a tumble on my clad while we went and ate dinner. Checked it when I got home and I am amazed I could read some dates that I could not before. I took out the clean ones rinsed all then put the rest to tumble again... I will do mems tomorrow.

[abynum1]

I got the double tumbler 2 days ago. I haven't cleaned anything yet,but I tested it and man it's quite compared to my hobby lobby tumbler.

[Martin_V3i]

I'm gonna have to be careful about the weight. I've only ran mine for one batch a while back. I now measured the barrel with just the dry gravel, it shows 2 more pounds when I add it to myself on the bathroom scales. The water and the coins added in had to have broken the 3LB limit. Everything still seems to be OK. Lesson learned. Maybe the standard for filling would be less than half full with everything. I have better scales, so I will find out. Besides, I'm not using the same type of gravel next time, and the smaller stuff may be even heavier. martin

[FAL guy]

I just picked up the 3lb model for $30 after they took my 20% off coupon.

[TerryRB]

FAL guy -

I was at the Reno HF store on Monday; all they had out was the single drum units. Asked them if they had the double and a guy brought me one from the back. Had the 20% coupon too, so came out to about $43 with tax - got it running now with a load of clad and one of pennies. Will see how they come out -

Cheers,
TB

[DIGGER27]

Man, you guys have to stop posting these low prices on these things.
I used a coupon but did not wait till it was on sale so I paid more.

Still worth it, though.

Tons of batches run through in the last year and still going strong.
Still on the original belt, too.

[FAL guy]

Originally Posted by TerryRB

FAL guy -

I was at the Reno HF store on Monday; all they had out was the single drum units. Asked them if they had the double and a guy brought me one from the back. Had the 20% coupon too, so came out to about $43 with tax - got it running now with a load of clad and one of pennies. Will see how they come out -

Cheers,
TB

I should have asked for the double. I picked mine up at the Reno store too. Oh well, thanks for the info.

[WildDigger]

Does anyone know why some of the coin gray up after tumbling? I tried to re tumble some to see if it would go away but no dice. Some are very dark.