{"id":5282,"date":"2009-08-23T03:08:49","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T10:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=5282"},"modified":"2012-03-15T09:45:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T16:45:14","slug":"gravity-lortone-tumbler-beads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/gravity-lortone-tumbler-beads\/5282\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Gravity to Help Your Lortone Tumbler Perform Better with Beads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lortone<\/p>\n

“I tend to save my baked beads now until I have a tumbler full and then tumble sand it.” ~Tina-H<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of you have started to use a rock tumbler for polishing your polymer clay beads. This is great time saver that will help to<\/span> minimize the amount of hand sanding required to get professional looking polymer clay beads<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today I wanted to share a little tip for using gravity to help your rock tumbler perform better when working with relatively light weight beads made from polymer clay.
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Rock polishers such as the Lortone Rock Tumbler in the photo above, are designed to tumble polish rocks and stones. With a full load of rocks, polishing grit and water, the weight can be quite heavy. In fact, my small Lortone tumbler is made to hold up to 3 lbs of weight.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way the machine turns the barrel, is by the barrel sitting on a rotating rod. With the weight of the rocks and substrate, the rubber barrel sits snuggly on the rods and it rotates nicely.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, when using a tumbler for polishing polymer clay beads, the weight of the beads is often too light to get the rod to grip the rubber barrel and it doesn’t turn very well. Even when you add river rock as your polishing substrate<\/a> as I do, the weight may still not be heavy enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

To compensate for the lack of weight, gravity can come to your assistance. Prop one side of your tumbler up on a book or two until the drum rotates easily (like in the picture above). Make sure that the motor driven rod is the one positioned lower than the free spinning rod. Tilting your machine the other way will likely cause your barrel to stop spinning altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you make a lot of small polymer clay beads and find hand sanding them too much of a chore, look into getting a rock tumbler for yourself. I think you’ll like it!<\/span><\/p>\n

Other Related Relate Rock Tumbler Articles:<\/span><\/p>\n