Finally, something really cool to do with
old tires, wear them from the inside out, too.
These tires will give many more miles on this tumbler set up.
This tumbler has been on a back burner
for a few months now, waiting on parts, the bearings were the hardest for me to
scrounge, I found them on worn out machines and they were still good enough for
this duty. I also found that taking a
little extra time allowed me to really think things through; assembly went
well. No hurries, no worries. The entire unit is made from salvaged
materials, reconstructed. Ehhhhhhh
....Stimulating.
The RR ties were cut in half and about 2
feet are buried in the ground to make good long term posts. Notice the radiator hose sheathing on the
long shaft, the tires run better that way.
This is a key point really, and I got my hose out of a junked schoolbus,
there was 80 feet of it running to the various heaters in the back. The only real problem I have is adjusting the
water levels of each tire load, because splash will wet the heater hose
sheathing on the shaft and there is slippage of the tire. On some of the loads I keep an almost muddy
consistency in the slurry to avoid a lot of splash.
This version of my latest tumbler ran fine
before being fastened down even, and I
am kind of proud of the balance. I could
turn the shaft with tires on it easily with my fingers. My 1" steel shaft was half of a drive shaft
from a junked windmill dumped in the desert.
It was cut with an angle grinder fitted with a metal blade. It took some sanding to get it smooth enough
to accept the bearings and other hardware, but it worked.
The motor got strapped to the ground after
it was balanced a bit more. Stakes and
kevlar, yum. The motor is a 115vac 1/3hp
1725 rpm which is a good strong motor.
The shaft speed is stepped down with a large pulley, and a very small
pulley on the motor. 30-60 RPM max. Slower is better. I am using a 10" pulley on the shaft and am searching for a
12" now to slow my rotation down a little more. The pulley at the motor is a 1&1/2",
and could be slightly smaller too.
The bearings were only lightly nailed to
the top of the posts, Just to eep them from moving, because I will need to get
at the tires and do maintenance on occassion.
Ease of maintenance is worth planning for, these large machines really
produce but also take a beating over time.
Everything needs to be adjustable, and balance is what lasts....once
something wears and the system gets out of balance it starts to lose
efficiency, leading to break down if not addressed. The more quickly a problem is addressed the
easier it is to remedy, and the less adverse wear on the parts around it. A good shop tool is the laser type
temperature pistol which has come down in price a lot. You aim it about 8" away from whatever
you want a temp measurement on, and it does it very accurately. A hot spot detector. Invaluable when working on machinery of all
types.
This is the third of these tumblers I have
built, the other two were single tire experiments and for materials like glass
and shell, and even metals (WORKS VERY WELL FOR METALS), they are really
aggressive. For agates and quartz things
they work well too but require harder grits than quartz sand, and it takes
longer of course. To actually polish
materials different tumblers need to be made and dedicated to different grits,
because grit contamination is a sure thing with these unless care is taken to
avoid it. There is usually a fair amount
of splash and I constantly add water to my loads during their tumbling
processes.
These tire tumblers are also great for
cleaning most kinds of mine run materials used in lapidary endeavors, and they
can be employed as ball mills to pulverise rock. I only run my tumbler when I can be there to
supervise, and this rig will grind about 60-80 pounds fully charged, which
means around 10-15 pounds per tire.
Thanks for checking this out. Good Luck.
