About the Lortone tumbler
by Myrna
(Louisiana)
I am in the process of purchasing a tumbler and have found your article very helpful but do have a question. I would like to tumble a brass cuff roughly 2" wide and some smaller 16 gauge wire bracelets and would like to know if the 3A Lortone is large enough. I would most likely tumble large bracelets individually or possibly 2 at the same time if they fit. Would the 3A be large enough for this job?
Stacy's Answer:
Hi Myrna!
The 3A tumbler barrel should be wide enough for the items you've described. You need to consider that not only does the jewelry item need to fit in the barrel, but there has to be enough room or space around it to allow the shot access it's surfaces so that the tumbling action can polish it. You also do not want to overload the barrel weight wise. If you're needing to tumbling numerous heavy items, you may be better off with the 4C size instead which had a barrel 6 inches wide.
A larger barrel can tumble both larger items and bigger quantities of them. But, they also require more shot than the smaller barrels. I use 2-3 pounds of Stainless steel shot in the 4C barrel depending upon what I have in there with it. Keep in mind that the maximum weight capacity of the rubber barrel of the Lortone 3A is 3 lbs including media and materials being processed. The 4C has a 4 pound capacity.
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