such a wasted opportunity!

Sigh... my mum told me this morning she would buy me a barrel polisher for my birthday, but she's missed the freepost weekend (by, oh, 8 hours), and postage is going to be £25. So we're rethinking....boo.

(I just realised that made me sound horribly entitled and brattish - not what I meant at all - I'm delighted that she's buying me a barrel polisher - I just can't bear her to have to spend an unneccessary £25 on me - seems a waste of money when there will be another freepost event along at some point)

There will be another free post soon, so why not hang on for then, birthday presents are nice on the day, but £25 is worth waiting for, imho.

oh yes, I definitely agree - that's what I meant by 'we're rethinking'.

Without being discourteous to our hosts, you could save a great deal more than just the £25 by buying elsewhere. There are some things that are really NOT good value at Cookson's and tools of this sort are amongst them. Quite apart from anything, postage should never be more than £10, unless you're talking about over 30kg in weight.

Palmer's sell the superb Lortone tumbler for just over £110 delivered.

You beat me to it, George! I saw this a few weeks ago when I was checking out US suppliers. My current one is on it's last legs and I will definitely get a replacement from Palmers. They're only charging £3.50 for postage.

On a not quite related point, I contacted Lortone directly about my tumbler problems. They got back to me quick enough and asked all the usual questions. After a few emails the guy said "I don't know what it is" and that was that! About as impressive as a trouser cough in a headwind.

Not impressed with their customer service Lesley. My Lortone is several years old, and is on for many hours of every day, and I've never had a problem with it at all. They should be making a bit more effort for you IMO.

I'm not alone, George. I found some for sale on Amazon US and there were lots of customer comments describing similar problems to mine. They were also mainly complaining about Lortone for poor service.

I'm going to keep propping mine up until it literally falls over, and then get a new one. I notice The PMC Studio don't sell them any more but they now stock replacement motors. Not exactly guaranteed to inspire confidence.