Would there be any market for this? (tumbler idea)

[joe i]

I'm new here, and am getting started with reloading. I'll soon be casting also. I've been trying to get all the equipment together, and right now I'm stumped on a tumbler. I really like the idea of the SS even though it takes more work, but the really not-cool part for me is the small number of cases that can be done at a time. I have about 1800 9mm cases I've picked up over the years, and it would take me quite a few rounds in a Thumler Model B before I got them all through it.

I'm a self-employed welder/fabricator and have been running this problem through my mind for the last hour or so. After seeing some people's homemade tumbers (some of you are pretty ingenious!), I've come up with an idea of my own which would use standard 5-gallon buckets with no customer-made modifications other than popping the handle off. The drive would be similar to a Thumler drive except that it would work with 5-gallon buckets instead of a purpose-made cylinder.

The bucket could be easily removed from the unit and replaced with another one that was full of another batch of media/cases/water. Switchout would take maybe 15 seconds, if that, and another batch would be going. I don't know if this would be a very big advantage or not, but it is a byproduct of the design.

The customer would basically buy the unit and supply their own 5-gallon bucket, or one could be shipped with it.

I'm curious if you all think there would be a market for something like this, or are there already enough or even too many tumbler designs out there? I'm not sure of cost b/c I haven't priced out the components yet, but it'd be more than a Thumler Model B because all of the drive components would have to be spec'd to handle more weight. And also, since I'm a one-man operation, I don't have the economy of scale that a factory does.

Just wondering.

[Mike W1]

Don't know why I'm thinking this, but I thought I saw a commerically made one some place that uses that bucket idea. But don't ask me where I saw it!

[joe i]

Dang, I hope you're wrong! Stinks to think you have a great idea and then find out you ain't the first...but then again, I'd have to see their drive to see if it's the same as I'm thinking of building.

[para45lda]

I actually considered using my portable concrete mixer for large batches.

Wes

[mac60]

If it was well built and affordable, you might sell a few.

[imashooter2]

Reloaders are a small market to start. The subset of reloaders doing SS tumbling much smaller. The subset of same that need, or want, to tumble 500 rifle cases at a time smaller yet.

Do your market research carefully before you invest a lot of money.

[Ickisrulz]

I would think any tumbler made for the SS wet method could be used for dry media as well. That should be considered. You could compete with the cement mixer people...maybe.

I'm thinking your target customers would be those cleaning lots and lots of brass at once. That would mostly be people that sell it. I'm not sure how many of those there are.

[zuke]

I use a 1 gallon pail as my measuring cup when it come's to pistol caliber's.
I fill it and run them all thru the tumbler at once.
I'm not sure how many are in a gallon,but for your 9mm problem I'd say about 5-6 load's will do it.That's running each load for 4 hour's for the first tumble.

[joe i]

Well, I think I'll build one for myself, and then I'll know the costs and labor involved for production. Then, if it turns out that some people want them, I can build some more.

I did find one guy online with the ultimate cheap 5-gallon bucket tumbler. He just put a sealed bucket full of brass, water, and soap in a propane (so it's powered by 110V vs 220V)clothes dryer with a bad heating element and the fins removed, and let it run for awhile!

[leadman]

If your selling price would be higher than a Thumbler you would be competing with the RCBS unit. I heard these are a very good machine, but pricey.

[30CAL-TEXAN]

I might be interested in something like this. I have been tossing ideas around as well.

I must be one of those few that wind up doing big batches of large rifle brass. I don't shoot competition or sell the stuff but I do feed several very hungry old milsurps and the brass does seem to pile up.

I currently use small ultrasonic cleaners with acidic solutions but I have been reading about the SS media and I am thinking about taking the plunge. I would be interested to see some graphics on your design when you get to that point.:popcorn:

[30CAL-TEXAN]

Oh yea, WELCOME TO CAST BOOLIT HEAVEN!

[joe i]

I would be interested to see some graphics on your design when you get to that point.:popcorn:

Thanks, Texan. By the time I've gotten the graphics complete, it will probably be built and functional. I find that ideas on paper always change during translation to welded steel.

Leadman, it looks like the RCBS would have less capacity than my idea - it claims 150 .30-06 or 300 .38 spl's. I saw one place quote it at $410 - I would hope mine could be sold for less than that but until I source drive components and actually build one there are a lot of things that are up in the air.

[30CAL-TEXAN]

Thanks, Texan. By the time I've gotten the graphics complete, it will probably be built and functional. I find that ideas on paper always change during translation to welded steel.


Pictures work even better!

[jmorris]

I built one that uses 12.2 gallon buckets.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=135223

A market for them? Yes, price and quality will determine how large of a market.

I am interested in how a regular 5 gallon bucket would work. The thumblers has 6 sides to it and I had to add vanes inside my round bucket.

[01SVTvert]

I see the brass just staying in one lump and sliding around the curved side of the bucket with no internal vanes. Sine it won't tumble, it won't clean IMO. Hopefully you are looking into some sort of removable insert that goes into the bucket that holds the vanes.

[joe i]

01SVTvert has it - a removable vaned insert.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Joe I: The formula for finding new prodcuts is to build something that you want, and then show it to others. If there is interest you establish a price (no less than 120% more than it costs to make the product) and put it out there.

The guys above talking about a narrow market are not trying to discourage,,, mearly pointing out reality. However that doesn't mean you can't make a few or even a hundred.

If you cna make a price point that is reasonable but still makes the 120% rule you will make money of everyone sold. if you can't make the 120% rule then stop and just enjoy the one you made for yourself.

Been doing the product thing for many years and if you aren't making 120% over total cost to produce you are losing money. It is better to stop than lose money.

It took me many years to learn the 120% number. You can benefit from my experience right out of the gate.

Good Luck! Hope you make a million! Much better odds than winning the lottery!

Randy

[Digger]

Found a similar unit a few years back ..... had a thread here on it for a while but dropped the pics cause I needed space on the drive .... company name .. Mixall.... or mixall.com .... there pdf. file download is kind of funky right now for what ever reason .
The thought and concept work great .... I can testify to that .....been using off on on for a while .
It would be easy to bolt some vanes of some sort to the inside of the bucket for the turbulence needed but works good with out if the amount of material is not to great.
Designed for five gal buckets but also use a three gal on occasion..... great unit! ... picked it up at a pawn or used tool shop a few years back , can't remember which ...... digger.38370

38371

38372

[jonas302]

Don't forget the cost of enough media to run a 5 gallon pail it might just make you think twice about spending a few days cleaning your brass its not like you are going to shoot it all at once why worry about cleaning it all at once

[justingrosche]

I live with in 10 minutes from Thumblers, and believe it or not, they are not a very large operation at all. The owner( can't remember his name for the life of me) said this was one of the keys to their success. Very low overhead. The building itself looks like a rundown garage. They might employ 6 or 7 at the most.

[jmorris]

Digger that is an interesting, mixer maybe. Does it have a name tag or markings on it?

Jonas, the reason for doing a lot at one time is so you don't have to do it often. You only fire one round at a time but you don't want to clean brass that way.

[Digger]

Went searching with Google ... found this one among others , http://prefloortools.com/flooring-tools/gundlach-m-60-mixal-mixer-with-1-2hp-motor.html
Didn't realize it was so expensive , manufactured by Manufab, but sold by others . works well as it also adjust for angle of the bucket ...
Has two or three different paddle inserts for different types of mixing .
Also a big welcome to the site here with the " boolits" crowd joe i ! ....

Or how about a twist here .... just found another link... Popular Science, 1961 .. Wow ! talk about a price difference , of course that is with out motor I think .
http://books.google.com/books?id=XCEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=mixal+mixers&source=bl&ots=Wquh-BaA3T&sig=bJ45sYXlUmD90tI7Bxlsf1WP5nw&hl=en&ei=ICrkTpnWO4ibiALlluGWBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCTgU#v=onepage&q=mixal%20mixers&f=false

[joe i]

Thanks all for the continued discussion. Wow, you all have found more than I have when it comes to 5-gallon bucket mixers. Looks like I'm the 5,745th small businessman to think there might be a market for such a thing!

Those concrete-type bucket mixers like in Digger's post above mine, are an interesting design, and actually not what I had in mind. I would think that with the bucket at that vertical of an angle, you'd get a lot of segregation in the bucket (media wanting to separate from the cases and stay in the bottom), even with the paddle. It would take a lot of media to make that work, I would think.

My idea was a removable vaned insert that actually fit completely inside the bucket. The insert would be tensioned against the bucket walls so that it would turn with the bucket. You could lock the lid on and run the bucket at a near-horizontal angle, letting you get the most out of its capacity. It was going to be modeled a little after the way an asphalt drum works, with driven bottom rollers. From the pictures it appears the Thumler's design is very similar, although I've never seen one in person.

I do like the idea of a bucket "cage" like the one in Digger's post, but I've had enough experience with creating circles by rolling flat bar stock to know it would absolutely kill me on labor time. And buying lengths of large diameter pipe and sawing them to create the rings would also be expensive and time-consuming. So I like the cage idea as it provides a very positive drive, but if the bucket can sit on driven rollers that would be the most economical way to do it. If the rollers don't provide enough traction to get it going, I would think a spring-loaded adjustable top roller putting downpressure at the base of the bucket (pushing it down onto the driven rollers so they would get traction) would do the trick. The rollers would need to be comparatively large in diameter and be of a semi-soft compound to get traction.

Hope I'm being clear with my explanations. Just thinking out loud here.

[noylj]

Consider: how many cases at one time will you USUALLY be tumbling?
You may have 10,000 cases now, but if you only shoot 200 at each range trip, you only need to clean 200+ at one time.
30 minutes in corn is more than sufficient (if you aren't OCD about cleanliness), so in one day you can do 16 loads easily.
You can even reload while the tumbler is running.
I don't know if anyone NEEDS to tumble 2000 at a time.
Cleaning is one of the least important activities, given that wiping off the case is all that is needed. You don't gain accuracy with cleanliness.

[Sonnypie]

Well, I do SST media with my casings.
One thing about Thumblers Tumblers I have not seen anybody else do yet is the 1/4" thick drum liner.
In my background experience with SRL pumps and piping, that rubber lining adds a lot of life to such a design.
Of course, plastic buckets are really inexpensive. But I don't see them holding up to a great deal of time either.
Maybe an agitator that can be inserted in a regular 5 gallon bucket, then removed to rinse and separate the brass. A removable cage if you will.
Then changing buckets would be less painful than one that has a lot of time invested building it.

All that said, I typically go through 300-400-500 rounds on a range day. I sack my brass in large canvas (money) bags, and begin the cleaning process as soon as I have decapped a load. I rack them in 70's as I decap them (for my 30-06 brass), that's a load.

When I have all my fired brass decapped, and the tumbler is working on a load, I will typically clean and store the firearms.

Then my focus is to process and reload the brass. But all my brass is shiny clean so my dies run clean.
Sometimes I let a load run overnight, so it gets around 6 hours tumbling, instead of my usual 4. Changes take about 10 minutes, and back on the drive.
The cleaned brass gets racked and set in front of a box fan to dry. When I have some batches dry I go on with the neck sizing, then priming, then charging and seating.

With diligence, I can do 500 rounds in a few days. Cleaning alone takes around 30 hours. But mix it up with other operations that maximize your time and you can crank them out.
I'm use to doing my rifle reloading in batches. And I like doing things that way, better focus on the task before me.
My pistol reloading is done progressively. So until I run out of cases I can stay real busy between the two.

Since I don't have 55 gallon barrels of brass to clean, I really have no need to go any larger.

[jmorris]

I don't know if anyone NEEDS to tumble 2000 at a time.


I agree, if you only load 200 at a time. I don't know anyone that NEEDS a progressive that doesn't shoot that much.

if there was one answer for everyone, only one method would exist.


On the other hand, there are enough extra steps in the SS/wet process that make it more time consuming that dry corncobb, its nice to be able to clean thousands at a time.

[cajun shooter]

To say the model B does not clean many cases is incorrect. I clean 200 or so 44-40 cases at a time using ceramic with Dawn and water. The model B is one of just a few designed for wet cleaning.
The statement made that all your brass requires is a wiping off has not done very much reloading.
The primer pocket needs to be cleaned so that a new [primer seats all the way in or it will fail to fire. If shooting black powder as I do your cases require that they be cleaned with water and soap.
The corn cob media and walnut shell media never cleans the inside of the cases.
While working as a range instructor I had to reload all the rounds fired in training. We went through over 100,000 rounds a year and we used a modified cement mixer that had been modified for brass cleaning. It contained baffles inside and would clean 5 gal buckets of cases with no problem.
We also had a case inspection stand for sorting out 357 and any split mouths or cases.
With no more cases than you have, they could all be run in one day with a model B while you are reloading the clean ones. Later David

[W.R.Buchanan]

Digger: Now that thing is cool. it's a paint mixer ,,,Right?

It appears that you can adjust the angle of the bucket too?

Looks like a turn key setup to me.

Randy

[Digger]

Digger: Now that thing is cool. it's a paint mixer ,,,Right?

It appears that you can adjust the angle of the bucket too?

Looks like a turn key setup to me.

Randy

Okay , now you made me go out to the shed , it's been a while since I last used it .... you got my curiosity going ......:smile:
Yes , it is very adjustable .... looking close, the lowest notch gives you 45 degrees and on up from there to vertical how ever, it can rotate down ward to with in 5 or 6 degrees of horizontal .
If one was so inclined , one could grind in a notch or two farther down for a custom setting .....
So far it has been great for washing my brass in the "lemishine" mix and also for washing berm lead as you see in the pic's.
Thinking on it .... it would also be easy to fasten some internal paddles to a regular bucket , throw a lid on and off you go .... :D

digger

[jmorris]

To say the model B does not clean many cases is incorrect. I clean 200 or so 44-40 cases at a time using ceramic with Dawn and water.

In a lot of circles 200 cases won't even cut it for one match. If your loading 100 rounds in 3 minutes, you don't want to spend more time with the cleaning process than you do loading.

[Sonnypie]

Thinking on it .... it would also be easy to fasten some internal paddles to a regular bucket , throw a lid on and off you go .... :D

digger

If one was to find a chlorine bucket (35 pound size, about 5 - 6 gallon) one could likely a-tach some vaney things to the lid.
When when the lid was removed, the vaney things would come out with the lid leaving a bucket with dirty water/soap/lemi-shine, SST media, and glaring like gold cases.
And I betcha it would fit right in that neato bucket mixer machine.

I wonder if that mightent have been a thinset/grout mixer at one time? [smilie=1: