Hey, Brother! Have you heard the good news about our savior C3PO? Wait, not C3PO, but... Tom! As in: Tom's Tumbler!
I've been using one for a couple months now, and let me tell you, they're the real deal. Similar to a trimbag, but a little easier on the buds. This is what I was messing with that I mentioned a while back, and let me tell you it's saved me time, aches, pains, and sanity.
It sped up my process a ridiculous amount. Like from a full plant/day (12ish hours, not 24) down to about 90 minutes/plant, but spread across two days.
Chop plant, clip the big fans. Hang as usual to dry, but let it get a bit drier than with a wet trim. Crispy leaves, pushing around 56%-58% RH or so (if they were sealed up in a jar) kind of feel to it. This is the lower range of curing, and you want to stay just above it without going over. Mine have been taking about 2 weeks to get to this stage, and 2 of the 5 could have probably went maybe a hair longer even.
Once dry, buck down and into the tumbler. Bout 10 minutes later, give or take, out come your nicely trimmed buds.
The model I'm using is their smallest one (TTT-1600 manual crank), and will run 1/2lb-1lb per batch, give or take. Depends on size, density, etc. You fill it to about 2" below the axle and go. They have larger models that can handle more, and come standard with a small motor to do the turning.
I wasn't sure if I would like it or not, but took the $400 risk and that was that. I have found it does better with denser buds (overall in the batch) than fluffier sativa buds. They still work, but you may have a little cleanup to do. I found this out on a super lemon haze. The buds weren't really airy, but you know how sativas can be. Kinda more fluffy than a denser nug of a hybrid or indica.
I looked at others, but they either shave the buds or were a bitch to clean/maintain (looking at you, trimpro, lol) and would be a pain.
This is just a tumbler. No shaving, no giant ass mess you have to clean up. It's all contained in a bag under the trimmer.
Here's a quick vid:
It really, really needs crispy leaves. That's the whole premise of the trimmer. Crispy leaves, tumble the buds on themselves, out come trimmed buds.
Where I'm not 100% comfortable yet is how dry. Twice I thought it was alright, and it didn't get as nice of a trim as it should have. (So I cured it, and let the rest that was left crisp up that way and run it again later.) Where I'm sketchy is the bottom RH% for curing, and how this plays into that. Don't wanna blow the cure, that's for sure.
However, the results when I've gotten the dry right (3 of 5 so far, plant #6 just went into drying today) have been really good. It doesn't slice your buds and make them all uniform on the outside. So the buds still retain their given shape, but they're a tick cleaner than a hand trim. I'm sure you've seen this with the trimbag, so no real surprise there.
Anyway, thought you might find it interesting and worth looking into. I think something like that could cut your 4-day adventure into 2 days, and each of those 2 days being more manageable than each of the 4 are now.
You're up there once a week as is, so on one of those trips you can make it an overnight and buck it all down and run it. I say overnight as that's a lot of stuff to buck down, trimmed or not.
Thanks Jim!