Lortone Rock tumbler

[conlaodh]

Got ME a Lortone rock tumbler on Craiglist for $15 and only had to travel 1 1/2 blocks to pick it up.
It all seems to work good, holds water and motor sounds A1.
All I need know is some recipes to cook some dirty clad coins and instructions on how to tumble rocks as my seven year girl old is a rock hound.
Can any one recommend a rock tumbling book?

 

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[Nashoba]

What a sweet deal you got there! Looks lilke a pretty large tumbler to me. As far as stones go, you will, wothout doubt, follow bit of a learning curve. Clad is pretty simple. I use a medium grit and look at it about every 15 minutes.
Great find though!

~Nash~

 

[extractor]

Olny 15 bucks Great deal

 

[Historyhound]

For dirty clad, I use cat litter in my tumbler. A few hours in there and they're bright and shiny.

 

[Nashoba]

For dirty clad, I use cat litter in my tumbler. A few hours in there and they're bright and shiny.

Now THERE is a money saver for sure!
HH
~Nash~

 

[TrashFinder]

I have a Harbor Freight $40 tumbler. I played around with different things and here is the formula I came up with: Use almost any bath tub scum spray bottle type cleaner - 50 pennies at a time. Just enough cleaner to cover the coins. Then - use parakeet type gravel (small sandy stuff that is sharp edged). It only takes a table spoon or so of it with the cleaner. Seal it up as directed and let it run a few hours. Then, pour off the sludge into a cup (save it for the next run), take the tumbler canister outside to a hose or outside faucet and run a good stream into the can, and the sand will wash up and out. (DO NOT USE A SINK WITH A SEWER DRAIN AS THE GRAVEL WILL SETTLE IN A TRAP, OR MAY SETTLE IN THE SEWER LINES!) Be sure to mix it up while doing that. Dump the coins out on a towel and lay out to dry. They will mostly be shining. Sharp edges will still be on the cons! The thing that is oppressive are the clad pennies look dark but, if you look closely, it is the Zinc holes that make them look dark, but they are clean holes!

 

[Tigger]

check the Rock/Gem forum on here for tumbling techniques, or you can probably google it. I don't have a great tumbler yet (you got a great deal!), so am still collecting. Two big things to remember - all the rocks in the batch need to be the same hardness (google "hardness scale"), and you must rinse the grit off thoroughly between grit changes. If you have a Rock/gem club in your area, I really encourage you to check it out, they may have field trips, can help with ID and tumbling, polishing tips.... good luck!

 

[randazzo1]

I use the same model. Its excellent. You can order 4 step grits from lortone. Never did the clad thing.