Kitiki Rotary Tumbler Kit 3.

The Kitiki Rotary Tumbler Kit 3 is a studio tumbler, ideal for polishing jewellery and metals. It's very popular for putting a final lustre onto metals and anything made from Art Clay metal clay, bronze clay, copper clay, and PMC silver clay.

You can also create attractive finishes on brass, bronze, coins, copper, fingerprint keepsakes. glass, gold, jewellery, metals, minerals, model parts, rocks, shells, silver, small treasures, and stones. And there are diverse archeological, engineering, geological, and home-hobby applications.

It consists of an electric motor base, a 950cc rubber barrel, 1000gms of mixed-shape rust-resistant stainless-steel shot, and 225cc of barrelling compound to keep the drum and your work clean. It used to be called the Evans Junior Tumbler.

The tumbler is available as a complete ready-to-go kit or as the separate parts. If you're checking prices, don't confuse, for example, the cost of the electric motor base with the full kit: base, mixed shot, cleaner, UK VAT, and UK mainland delivery.

The Kitiki Rotary Tumbler Kit 3.

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The Kitiki Rotary Tumbler Kit 3

The Kitiki Rotary Tumbler Kit 3 With Two Drums.

The Kitiki Plastic Drum.

The Kitiki Rubber Drum.

The Kitiki Magnetic Polisher.

Kitiki Rotary Tumblers For Jewellery, Art Clay, PMC, and Metals.

This comprehensive internet resource lets you research and compare tumblers in your own time. There's a lot to read, but you'll make the right choice instead of an expensive mistake. The section about rubber drums is very important.

If you want a smaller tumbler for jewellery and metals, look at Rotary Tumbler Kit 1. For glass, rocks, and stones, look at Rotary Tumbler Kit 4 or the smaller Rotary Tumbler Kit 2.

If you want to polish delicate, filigree, or low-profile pieces, a magnetic polisher is better, quicker, quieter, and simpler to fill and empty than a rotary tumbler. To learn more, use the magnetic-1 link below the menu bar near the top of the page.

The Kitiki Rotary Tumbler Kit 3.

The kit consists of an electric motor base, a 950cc rubber barrel, 1000gms of mixed-shape rust-resistant stainless-steel shot, and 225cc of barrelling compound to keep the drum and your work clean. It used to be called the Evans Junior Tumbler.

The motor is rated at 230V 30W, so can use a regular mains socket. It's fully-enclosed inside a vented aluminium case rather than, as with some tumblers, exposed and at the end: so it's less prone to damage and the tumbler takes up less space.

The whole tumbler measures 195mm x 105mm x 200mm high, weighs less than 2kg, and comes with a 1.8 metre cable ending in a UK 3-pin plug. Plastic feet stop the tumbler body scratching your work-top, or creeping across and falling off.

The rubber barrel revolves on two rubber rollers, one of which is turned by the motor. Two roller-balls, one at either end, act as drum end-stops. The nylon-reinforced toothed drive belt can be adjusted if it eventually needs tightening, although it's intended to be loose.

As you can see in the photo, the 950cc rubber drum uses the full width of the tumbler body, but you can use two smaller 510cc drums at the same time.

Although the 950cc drum is often called a full-size or 3.0lb drum, it actually holds 950cc of water, about 950gm, and 950gm is about 2.09lb. So, if you see these drums described elsewhere as 3.0lbs, they're not.

All the tumblers and polishers have been engineered and comprehensively tested for the UK, the EU, and most other countries. They're CE Marked and comply with EU safety standards.

The instructions for all the tumblers and polishers can be printed here, using the instructions link below the menu bar near the top of the page.

The Kitiki Rubber Drum.

Plastic drums are available as an economy option. Unfortunately, they're fiddlesome to open and close, noisy in use, and sometimes leak. And, if the end caps aren't pushed on all the way, the drum doesn't turn properly and can fall off the rollers.

To make the lid easier to push on, it needs to stand in hot water. When it's on, the drum needs to be squeezed to expel as much air as possible because, during prolonged tumbling, the air warms up and expands and can cause the drum to leak.

To make the lid easier to pull off, the whole drum needs to stand in hot water. Prising it off is a good way to break your nails and there's a slight risk that it will suddenly come off and you'll spill your work, shot or grit, and soapy water.

If you have to work in the same room, plastic drums are very noisy: especially as some glass, rocks, and stones might need to tumble for days, or even weeks.

Rubber drums are better, quieter, and don't leak. They're simpler to fill and empty than plastic drums as they use a different lid mechanism: at one end there's an inner metal lid, a rubber sealing ring, an outer metal lid, and a retaining wing-nut.

The 950cc rubber drum is better, quieter, and simpler to fill and empty than the broadly equivalent plastic drum. However, it's frequently and misleadingly sold on the net as a 3.0lb drum. It's not: it holds 950cc of water, about 950gms, so it's a 2.09lb drum.

The Kitiki Tumbler Kit 1.

The internet is packed full with inaccuracies: accidental or intentional. There are unsubstantiated claims that whatever is being sold is the best, the newest, or the cheapest, and it's being sold by the largest dealer or the premier distributor. This comprehensive internet resource helps you make the right choice instead of an expensive mistake.

A 3.0lb drum is often described as holding 3.0lbs of stones. However, unless there are standard stones somewhere, this is plainly far from accurate. Similarly, a 1400gm drum holds 1400gms of something, but what?

The usual way to measure a container's capacity is by its volume, in cubic centimetres or litres. However, since 1cc of pure water weighs 1gm, the weight of water could be used instead.

The 950cc rubber drum is better, quieter, and simpler to fill and empty than the broadly equivalent plastic drum. However, it's frequently and misleadingly sold on the net as a 3.0lb drum. 950cc of water weighs about 950gm, or 2.09lbs.

The mixed-shapes shot is made of expensive, rust-resistant, stainless-steel: not regular steel or medium-carbon steel that will rust quickly. Also, as it's magnetic, it's much easier to pick up if you spill it. Shot that's cheaper on the net, including VAT and delivery, is almost certainly not the best quality and will corrode before long.

The kit includes two 250gm bags of four ball-sizes and one planetoid-size, and two 250gm bags of four pin-sizes and two rod-sizes. Although most people use the whole lot, some specialist work might look better if it's polished with one type of shot rather than a mix. So having it bagged separately is convenient.

The shot is a tested and reliable mix designed to deal with the diverse range of contours on jewellery. It's made in the same factory that makes our pliers, cutters, polishers, small kilns, and other tools.

Although it's rust-resistant steel, don't leave it lying around wet: either leave it immersed in the tumbler mix of water and cleaner, or rinse it and dry it carefully. No steel-based products are rust-proof as anyone who's found a bike in a canal will have seen.

If you need to replace the shot, don't economise and buy plain or mixed steel: unless you're meticulous about cleaning and drying it every time, it'll soon rust, make a mess, and ruin your work.

The cleaner, often called barrelling compound, comes in a 225cc white plastic screw-top pot for convenience and safety: not a plastic bag, and not a pot that can't be closed properly once the seal has been broken. It's a special cleaner and corrosion inhibitor not just some general detergent.

Although the cleaner pot is filled to the brim during packing, powders settle and it may not look quite full when you open it. It's plainly much easier to fill a pot with a fixed volume than to measure out a fixed weight every time. If you want more than 225cc, 1000cc pots are in the on-line shop.

Tumbled Beach Glass.

If you've already bought Kit 3 for jewellery and metals, but now want to smooth and polish glass, rocks, and stones, you'll need a grit pack with 400gms of 80 grit, 400gms of 220 grit, and 400gms of 400 grit, 100 gms of zinc oxide polish, and one pack of plastic pellets.

However, grits and polish are a bit like sandy toothpaste, and cleaning out a drum completely, storing the grit, and swapping back to shot is messy and tedious. So I wouldn't recommend using the same single drum for grits and shot as one stray grit particle in the shot will scratch your work.

You could use two barrels: one for the grits and one for shot, marked so that you don't mix them up. But, budget constraints aside, it's much better to use four smaller drums for the three grit grades and the polish, and one larger drum one for the shot. It makes cleaning and storing easier, especially as the three grits look similar and the polish must be kept grit-free.

If you haven't bought a tumbler yet, it makes sense to buy the larger kit 3 or kit 4 tumbler body, rather than kit 1 or kit 2, so that you can use two small drums, with different abrasives, at the same time: or one shot and one abrasive.

A Cherry Heaven Internet Resource.

This internet resource is provided by Cherry Heaven, an international distributor, on-line shop, and support centre for kilns, materials, tools, and tumblers. It's not a bead, ceramics, crafts, glass, or metal-clay home-business, selling a few things to a market niche.

As it's on-line, there isn't a paper catalogue or a price list. However, you can mail or call a technician about kilns, power supplies, public area safety, a special project, business ideas, home diagnostics, repairs, or reselling opportunities.

Cherry Heaven Limited, 14 West Street, Corfe Castle, BH20 5HD, Dorset, England.

Cherry Heaven is a shop in Corfe Castle village, in Dorset, South-West England. The surrounding countryside includes green farmland, dramatic heritage cliffs, pretty stone cottages, historic buildings, sandy beaches, protected coves, open heathland, hill-top panoramic views, and peaceful villages. And lively seaside resorts. To look at some photos, use the dorset link on the front page.

Cherry Heaven is an EU distributor for US-made Paragon Kilns, and has been commended for an outstanding performance as one of Paragon's top-selling distributors over 2007 to : a pleasing outcome since the UK is only one third the area of Texas and one fortieth the area of the US.

Paragon Industries Incorporated, 2011 South Town East Boulevard, Mesquite, Texas, 75149-1122, USA.

Paragon Industries started as a family business in 1948. It's now the world's leading manufacturer of electric kilns and furnaces, and has built over 420,000. The 4,400 square metre site, in Mesquite, Texas, USA, has over 70 full-time staff. A new 1,700 square metre warehouse is under construction.

During manufacture, every kiln is checked at every stage by a technician and signed-off before shipping. They're simply but robustly engineered, and you're buying a comprehensive, versatile, safe, low-cost kiln: a kiln with a future.

Paragon kilns conform to the demanding UL 499 standard in the US, and are CE Marked for the EU. Paragon is Greek for Model Of Perfection.

The Kitiki Studio's Classes And Courses.

The Kitiki Studio provides an Art Clay educational programme, as classes, masterclasses, workshops, and Art Clay Level 1 and Level 2 certification courses through partners. I can recommend teachers so, if you're interested, mail or call.

On-Line Shopping At Cherry Heaven.

The on-line shop link is below the menu bar near the top of the page, on the right: you won't have to create an account, register, log on, look up your membership number, remember a password, sign up, join a club, or agree to be emailed. And the total won't be more than you expected because VAT and UK-mainland delivery are included.

Discounts, Trade Prices, And Business Opportunities.