Drum Speed ?

[tred1956]

HI,
Have been working on a wet tumbler. Making it from a treadmill. Have a 15 & a 9 inch piece of 8 inch pvc schedule 80 pipe to use for drums. My questions are. How many pounds of pins should I use in each drum? What size pins do you recommend? What RPMS should I turn 8 inch drums? Should be easy to change as it is dc motor and will be wired to be variable. Been playing with it with a 12 volt lithium drill battery and am getting 34 RPMS with it. Also have several feet of 6 inch schedule 40 pvc. If I decide to make smaller drums, what RPM should 6 inch drums turn?

CLICK PICTURE TO SEE VIDEO. STLL A LONG WAY TO GO BUT, GETTING THERE.

http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo96/tred1956/th_video-2015-03-31-15-35-50_zpstovmhecs.mp4 (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo96/tred1956/video-2015-03-31-15-35-50_zpstovmhecs.mp4)

Thanks in advance
Doug

[tred1956]

Video added

[Artful]

40-60 rpm is suggested for wet pin tumbling depending upon drum size
Tumbler capacity is usually specified in pounds. The Thumler's Model B tumbler in has a 15 pound capacity. This might sound like a lot, but the 15 pound capacity includes everything - water, media, and brass - that goes into the tumbler. With a gallon of water (8 pounds) and 5 pounds of media, there is room for only 2 pounds of brass. This translates to about 140 .223 cases.

So I would sort how much water your pipe can hold and start subtracting for brass and pins.

You might check out other similar tumbler designs

https://www.facebook.com/BiggdawgTumblers

http://ingunowners.com/forums/ammunition-reloading/284542-diy-wet-media-tumbler-pic-heavy.html


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIo_NsAknyo

[jmorris]

I made mine direct drive, motor was $35 on eBay, uses a 12.7 gallon 100 lb chlorine buckets.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/reloading/SST/DSC02490.jpg

Will do around 3000 45 acp cases in a single batch.

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv5/qvideo/IMG_20130727_144639_090_zpsd9095290.jpg


I built some really big ones for a local business. They put 15 gallons of brass in each drum, they use a gantry with electric hoist to load and unload them.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZOYjmAnO0

[EDG]

You should be able to calbulate the speed of a tumbling drum based on the surface feet per minute of the drum OD.
This surface feet per minute for effective tumbling should be the same regardless of the drum diamter. A 12" diameter drum would only have to turn 1/2 the rpms of a 6" drum.