Product Description
You'll love this Beach metal barrelling machine if you want a fast way to polish up metal.
It’s perfect for metal clay like Art Clay, PMC, and Copper and Bronze Clay, as well as cast or milled sterling silver, copper and bronze. This tumbler is British made and consists of a high-quality motor and a 2lb plastic barrel with vanes. The vanes help speed up metal polishing.
The 2lb motor and barrel makes it great for a smaller home studio, where you want to polish up smaller amounts of work. Before moving to a larger tumbler we used this machine in our metal clay classes. They could be around 10 students who each made between 1-3 items (usually little charms and pendants), and the size was perfect. If you do a lot of work, or want to polish heavier loads, we recommend you choose one of our 3lb or 5lb Barrelling Machines.
Tumble polishing is the the easiest way to give your silver pieces a beautiful shine. Just put your silver in the tumbler together with water and steel shot, and leave for anything between 1-6 hours, and they'll come out lovely and shiny. To give you a complete kit (suitable for tumbling silver or metal) you need to add some stainless steel shot, and barrelling compound.
The vanes in the barrel helps to move your pieces around, so they polish faster. We used to use this size barrel in our metal clay classes, which were up to 10-12 students who each made between 1-3 items (usually earrings and pendants), and the size was perfect.
The smaller 1.5lb barrel also fits on this tumbler motor body. We offer extra barrels in plastic or rubber; plastic is much easier to keep clean, whilst rubber is easier to open and close and are quieter - so you can mix 'n' match them as you like.
A little note on polishing - this tumbler is designed to polish or burnish your pieces. If you use it with stainless steel shot and water it is not an abrasive - so it will not remove scratches. If you have any scratches you need to put in a little work and remove these by hand before you tumble. Tumbling will round off and smooth out the scratches slightly, but it will not remove them.
Content:
- British built tumbler motor - UK 3-pin plug, 220/240V
- 2lb Plastic Barrel with vanes
Size of barrel: 9cm L x 10.3cm inner diameter, 12cm outer diameter
Some notes on maintenance:
- NEVER try to remove or replace the plastic barrel lid without warming it up first. Set it in a bowl of hot water for 30-50 seconds before using. Remember to "burp" the lid before tumbling - if you don't know what this is, have a look at the video above.
- Every week, unplug the tumbler and put a drop of oil on the steel shaft of the roller where they pass through the bearing blocks. This is a great oil for that.
- Every month, put a drop of oil on the motor shaft, where it protrudes through the side of the machine (use engine grade oil for this).
* Includes a 5 year manufacturer’s warranty from the date of purchase. This requires you to register your purchase with the manufacturer at www.beachlapidary.co.uk *
