Tumble cleaning brass the cheap way: an old clothes dryer?

[Russel Nash]

Yeah, what do you think?

You probably could get a used clothes dryer that has something wrong with it for free.

Get in there and disconnect the heating elements and the blower.

Maybe put a couple pieces of **** metal over an holes or vents in the drum.

Maybe put a couple of bricks under the front of it to keep it tilted back.

Plug it and and set the timer.... voila! a really poor man's brass tumbler.

What say you?

[mikenbarb]

Great idea! A apartment size would be great and it might be better if you can hook up some kind of rheostat to controll the drum speed. The only hard thing is closing off the holes good and possibly making the tumbler fins smaller so they dont mess the brass up.

[briang]

I've heard of guys putting the brass and media in old pant legs and throwing that in there dryer.

[RayinNH]

Russel, I guess it would work if you have a lot of room to store the thing and not a lot of cash. I think a better idea would be to salvage the motor and pulleys and get a big plastic jug that restaurants get mayonnaise in, and cobble together a tumbler, similar to a rock polisher...Ray

[Calamity Jake]

My first brass tumbler (about 1982) was a used electric home ice cream maker, I made paddles out of ¾X¾ oak strips long enough to fit inside and allow the lid to fit, I used short sheet metal screws thru the outside to mount the paddles 120° apart.
Fill 1/3 full with crushed walnut add cases, turn it on and lay it on its side.
Worked good for many years. I still have it just incase my vibrater goes belly up.

[Russel Nash]

There is a guy here on the forums.... I forgot his screenname now, but he was getting huge pallet loads of once fired brass, sorting them, then tumbling them and then selling off the brass.

He bought a Kobalt brand concrete mixer from Lowe's. It has a plastic drum. It is not the typical mixer you normally think of with the metal paddles that like hod carriers use.

But that Kobalt brand concrete mixer is $300. :(

So I got this crazy idea of using a clothes dryer.

At least where I live, the suburbs east of St. Louis, at least a few times a year the municipalities will have a big trash pick up day or two each year.

I have always seen some big appliance sitting out by the curb. I bet a guy could pick up a beater of used a clothes dryer and convert it over to a brass tumbler.

Anywhooo...just a crazy thought that had popped into my head.

[mooman76]

You don't have to go to all that troble with the drier. Double bag the brass in 2 pillow case and turn the drier to no heat. It makes a heck of a racket but does the job. Would probably take allot longer if you what it real good. I used rice until I got my tumbler. It didn't come out nice and shiny but it did come out clean.

[Clark]

When I was a kid I knew who had stink foot.
They either had the sneakers on the roof, or I could hear the sneakers in the dryer as I drove by.