It's simple construction, a red metal base with a small motor attached by clear round plastic belt to one of two rollers, and a separate rubber tumbling container and its plastic top. Before you use it, go buy SAE 20 electric motor oil, per the manufacturer, at say, an Ace Hardware or Lowe's, and lightly lubricate the two top holes on the motor, and the roller contacts/bearings. Open the rubber drum by removing the metal band, then squeeze the drum's belly to make the white plastic "top" pop out, and pry it out with just your hands, with some twisting and "encouragement." Put in your thumb sized minerals, grit or polishing materials, and fill the drum 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full, then plug it in, and let it go. It's that easy.
Pro-
-cheap if you get a good price on Amazon or wherever-discounts abound for many things...
-Economical-the small motor runs for weeks with each load. Older models have tumbled for decades, if kept oiled, belts changed, and not overloaded
_Pretty fire engine red color
.
Cons-
-All tumblers tumbling are noisy; I've not listened to that many to tell whose is quieter
-This "walks"" around if placed on a flat polished granite surface or even a flat linoleum floor, so "box it in" or put it on a rubber pad, as mine walked 6" in fifteen minutes, and almost fell off my counter!
-My tumbler is very much off balance or off level, in that the rubber drum quickly moves way to the motor's side, and I need to "shim" up that side to even out the wear
-Not as solidly constructed as Lortone or others, and less expensive. You get what you pay for.
-Plastic top may wear from abrasion in a few years of heavy use, just put a round truck's rubber tire patch on its inside when you get the tumbler, and it's protected for decades!
FYI-While these are made for tumbling rocks/minerals, they do a great job on marinating steaks, in a pinch! Put the steak and marinade in a freezer baggie with a sized good air pocket, seal it, and let it tumble for 20-40 minutes. You get better marination than if it was just left overnight in the fridge. Using a vacuum tumbling adds nothing to the marinade, its a marketing gimmick to sell expensive (high profit) vacuum tumblers for meat and poultry. USDA studies found it actually is the tumbling alone, not the vacuum and tumbling, that does the trick. People still charge double the price of this, for pricey food tumblers with a gimmicky vacuum!
Hopefully your tumbler will work well for years.
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My sole use of this tumbler is for cleaning cartridge brass for reloading. You'll notice I say "clean" rather than polish. While the stainless media does get the brass polished it's the clean part that I'm most interested in. After tumbling 10,000 cases I feel I'm ready to review this and I couldn't be more happy. Unlike dry tumbling, using this tumbler with stainless media and a little lemishine + dawn mixed in you get truly CLEAN cases. Yea, your walnut or corn media might get the outside shiny but if you compare the inside (the part that really matters) of the cases there's no contest.For the machine itself... I processed 10k cases in 2 weeks time and had no issues whatsoever. It ran warm as advertised but no hiccups at all. As you should with all machines and tools, keep it properly lubricated and check on belt alignment prior to firing it up. I've run this near it's maximum 12lb capacity quite a bit and there was only one time I had to give the drum a little nudge to get it going. In truth, I was probably over the 12lb limit on that particular run.
The drum isn't as big or fancy as the big brother 15lb version but when I bought this from Amazon it was considerably less expensive than that model and I'm not usually tumbling large quantities of brass. If you push it you can easily do 500 pcs of 9mm or 40 in there and I've even done 500 .45's but that was probably more than you SHOULD do. With .223 cases the max you're going to get in there and get good cleaning is about 200-250. Remember to buy yourself a decapping die and pop the primers out before tumbling so you get sparkling clean primer pockets!
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This is by far the best tumbler we have ever heard of. It is very quiet and is turning out big batches of jewelry ready gems.It seems to be built with knowledge of the need for longevity.Honest reviews on Model A-R12 Rock Tumbler
I use the Thumlers Tumbler A-R12 without problem. It works really good and has great quality. The bin is sturdy rubber so it is quite quiet. This tumbler is very large also. There have only been a couple of long pieces I could not fit.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Model A-R12 Rock Tumbler
This review asked me to rate a "toy". This at least in my use is not a toy but a tool and a good one. Used with Stainless Steel media it will clean the inside, outside and primer pocket of any type of brass to be reloaded in just six hours using water, Dawn and Lemi Shine. You will need a hand tumble seperator to remove the media and do the final rinse before drying. I can clean around 200 .308 at a time. This is a great tool. See: Stainlesstumblingmedia.com
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