SO, I love my HF Tumblers, but hate the original Drums and how hard that flimsy metal is to open. Here is my solution
Ok, so this is a pretty easy project and you won’t use those drums that came with the tumbler after you use these
So here is a list of material all can be bought at Home Depot or Lowes
1. 4 inch wide PVC pipe you need a 9 inch piece, so depending on how many you want to make is what you need to buy. A 2 foot section is about 12 bucks, but and 8 foot section isn’t that much more if you want to make a few
2. An Oatey 4 inch Gripper Plug ( red cap in picture) – about 4 bucks this will come with a wing nut- you’ll need to replace the wing nut with a 9/16 nut – about 10 cents
3. A 4in PVC knock out test cap- about 50 cents
4. Blue goo for PVC
5. Skateboard/ grip tape – I found a roll of like 20 feet for 5 bucks on amazon, but they sell it at HD/lowes as well
The PVC pipe needs to be cut to 9 inches. You’ll need to blue goo the test cap into one end. Then remove the wing nut off the Oatey gripper and replace with the 9/16 nut so you can use a socket wrench to tighten and loosen the gripper plug for filling/draining. The wing nut will also get in the way of spinning action on the tumbler. Then take a strip of grip tape and wrap it around the entire diameter of the pipe. I place mine about 1/3 up from the bottom. This pvc is too smooth to spin on the rods without this. Load it up with brass, pins, water soap and lemi shine, and rachet down the Oatey cap until its good and snug.
Here is a Picture of the 3 I made. I have 2 tumblers, so I made a third drum so I can load one up when the other two are tumbling then just drop in on when I go to drain the other