Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had one of these when I was younger, and it was truly a fine product. Unfortunately, like so many other manufactured goods these days, Lortone has cut a few too many corners to save money. The first time I used it, the barrel would not roll correctly unless I placed some manner of "shim" under the motor side of the tumbler. Though I was mildly annoyed, I decided to live with this defect since I already had the barrel filled with grit and stones, and my daughter was anxious to use her new gift. Unfortunately, during the first few days of use the tumbler began to throw the belt at random intervals, necessitating my taking it apart to place the belt back on the pulleys. I noticed that when I took it apart, the metal used for the frame and cover are both extremely thin and low grade (approximately .024", for reference, that's about ½ as thick as a music CD). This flimsy metal was then formed into a frame by some extremely low tolerance process resulting in noticeable misalignments between the motor and drive spindle causing the belt to jump. I remedied this fault by hand bending the metal frame to move the motor into alignment. This worked for a while, but the top cover could not be put back on as it forced the unit back out of alignment. Without a top cover, the unit became an obvious hazard to any curious child's hair, fingers, etc. Positive that I had voided all warranties at this point, I made several reinforcing modifications to this unit, placed it on a high shelf so my children wouldn't lose digits, and enjoyed three full tumbling iterations before the cheap bushings wore out . Vibrations have also taken their toll on the rollers, resulting in the barrel randomly stopping, causing the entire unit to heat up and smell like burning rubber. I'm on my fourth set of rocks right now, nursing the loudly squeaking bushings with oil and making additional bends in the soda-can quality frame, determined to get my money's worth out of this abomination of manufacturing. If you're looking for a rock tumbler, get anything but a Lortone. It couldn't be any worse.