My Midway 1292 tumbler may be down for the count. It just up and quit the other day. I'm not giving up on finding a motor for it but the bowl is worn through in some spots, maybe fixable, maybe not.
I bought a Lyman 1200 Auto-Flo *** last fall. Between taking longer to do a smaller batch than the Midway the drain out the bottom "feature" amounted to having to stand there and babysit the thing for several minutes and then STILL have to dump the cases in a sifter to get the media out of them. I gave it to my son after I told him it was a *** and he still wanted it.
Anyhow, Thumler's Tumblers, the barrel kind, are pretty much the standard in the rock polishing hobby. No feedback anywhere that I can find on their vibratory model. Does anyone have one? How does it work, what is the noise level like?
They are expensive but bigger than normal. The Lyman wasn't cheap but it was junk, IMO so it lost on both ends. Anyone have the Lyman 2500 Magnum without the Auto-Flo? Those are available for a pretty reasonable price but if they don't work any better than the one I just wasted money on they are not worth a nickle.
The Eastwood Company has a BIG tumbler, 15" diameter bowl rated for 18 lb. loads. I have some other Eastwood tools and while generally expensive they also seem to work as intended and last long.
I've got to do something, I'm not going back to my little Thumlers barrel (actually a 1 qt. can (: ) tumbler except as a last resort.
I just realized I posted this in the wrong forum. MOds, can one of you move this over to "Reloading Equipment?