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Tips
Tips

Small Parts Tumbler

John Loftus

Darth Vader
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In my quest to make easy work of refinishing fasteners and brackets with the Copy Cad/Zinc plating system, I have borrowed a vibratory tumbler from a friend. He bought this thing at a yard sale and has never used it. I searched around and found sources for media that can be used (Eastwood carries the tumblers and media) but wondering if anyone here has a tumbler and can share some tips.

Cheers,
John
 
Never used a tumbler, sounds pretty effortless. I always used a coffee can with a bunch of holes in it in a blast cabinet. I'd love to hear how the tumbler works out.
Sorry I'm not any help.
 
Might talk to someone with a rock/gem shop. Tumblers are used to polish stones, and the stores usually have the various grades of grit and the plastic beads to cushion the items while being tumbled. FWIW
 
To give the tumbler a try, I degreased some hardware (let it soak in lacquer thinner overnight) and then put them in the tumbler with dry 30 grit sand. I have heard some add water and other abrasive additives to speed things up but just wanted to keep it simple. After about 8 hours in the tumbler I dumped the parts through a sifting basket. Most of the parts are clean enough for zinc/cad plating. Some will need minor cleanup with glass bead and/or wire wheel but this does appear to be a good method for small parts. Here are a few pictures showing the results. Still looking for tips! Thanks, John

tumbler parts 1 tumbler parts 2
 
Hey John,

Is your tumbler a commerical unit or a home brew ?
What is the capacity/volume ?

Do you have any pictures of it ?

Tim
 
[ QUOTE ]
Sure, here is his contact information,

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Patton! I just emailed him and hopefully I will have some info to share soon.
 
Hi John,

Sorry I haven't been back to you sooner, but we've been on the road RVing.

Thanks for the info on the tumbler. I am again restoring my 66 Mustang GT Fastback and have a BUNCH of hardware to clean and re-plate/paint.

I've got a blast cabinet using AlO2, but was looking for something more "batch" (read - LESS standing up) oriented.

I had a buddy who made a tumbler from a 5 gallon plastic bucket tilted on an angle with rollers under it on a frame made from unistrut.

I just wondered what you were using.

Thanks again.

Tim
 
I have used a cheap ($20) rock tumbler from a hobby store to get the rust and grime off of the small parts on my '60 Bugeye. I have used whatever media came with the tumbler, mixed with a little water and one drop of dishwashing detergent. Tumbling overnight seems to do the trick. It works great on nuts, bolts and screws and, if you don't overdo it, it leaves enough of the original plating on the fasteners to keep them from rusting. (At least none of the parts I have tumbled have rusted in the past year or so.)
 
o.k. a little update.

After corresponding with the carb rebuilder, he said he used the green triangle media for cutting rust and walnut shells to polish the parts. I know I can get the green triangle media from Eastwood but being cheap I keep using the 30 grit sand for initial cleaning (after degreasing with simple green or lacquer thinner). I searched around for walnut shell media and found out that they sell it as "reptile litter" i.e. to line the cage floor for pet lizards and snakes. So I dropped in to the local Petsmart store and found a 10 lb bag of Desert Blend Lizard Litter on sale for $8.00. This stuff works really well in the tumbler although it does take quite a while. I usually run the sand for 10 hours and the walnut shells for 20 hours. Oh well, it only costs .50 a day to run and I'm not in a big hurry. The only problem with the ground walnut shells is that it can get packed into small holes, even the slots of the phillip head screws and needs to be picked out before plating. Anyway, here are some photos of parts after the walnut shell polishing and before plating. These parts will need to be plated ... I don't think there is any plating left after all the polishing.

https://www.loftusdesign.net/polish1.jpg
https://www.loftusdesign.net/polish2.jpg
https://www.loftusdesign.net/polish3.jpg

Cheers,
John
 
Hi Patton,

I'm not positive but I think the vibratory tumbler will cut faster but with the low price on the Harbor Freight rotary tumbler it would be interesting to give it a try.

I just experiment with the time, taking a look at the parts every few hours at the beginning to see if the parts are getting a uniform clean appearance. Once it gets to that appearance, I take the parts out. Some parts or certain areas on the parts don't clean up completely and I finish them up quickly with glass bead or wire wheel.

I have found a small amount of metal filings in the sand media (when using a magnet to find little parts that pass through the sifting basket) but haven't noticed parts with excessive wear. The recessed and inside areas, like the roots of the threads are the slowest to get cleaned up so I think it would take many days of tumbling to cause wear problems. The walnut shell media seems to just polish, not remove metal, so the longer time doesn't seem to harm the parts at all.

Cheers,
John
 
[ QUOTE ]

What shouldn't go in there?


[/ QUOTE ]

I asked Grant about carb parts and he said he doesn't put in any small parts that have 'dead ends' because they are too hard to clean out.

I'm planning to rebuild my carbs too but the larger parts won't fit in my small parts tumbler. I will probably just use the bead blaster on those and see how it comes out.

Cheers,
John
 
The same topic just was brought up on another list that I am on. One suggestion was to make a tumbler out of an old ice cream maker with the paddles removed and tilted on its side. I thought that was a good idea.

Also, here is a link to plans in pdf for building your own rotary tumbler https://www.acc.umu.se/~widmark/bigtumbler.pdf - from this page https://www.acc.umu.se/~widmark/lwtrumld.html

Here is a site on how to make a viabratory tumbler...
https://home.speedsoft.com/theashes/tumbler/tumbler.html

Finally, here is a VERY detailed site (rock oriented) about tumblers.

https://www.agatehouse.co.uk/lapid2.htm
 
In case anyone is interested, I invested my $20 in the Harbor Freight small tumbler, plus a bag of the "brass polishing" medium, and over the weekend stuck a few dirty old nuts, bolts, washers and studs with perhaps a tablespoonful of the stuff and let it run for 24 hours. I am astonished. Most of the parts came out looking better than new, with a polished shine but no apparent wear of threads. Now I need to try on something that matters.

Ken G, 1925 Rover 16/50 (San Francisco)
 
Thanks you all. . these threads have been very helpful. I've been looking all day at different forums trying to compare vibratory vs. rotary tumblers. There are some folks who talk about tumbling the parts first and then plating in zinc. I'm mostly interested in cleaning dirty/rusty bolts and what not but am a tight wad and want to find the most cost effective route. Do you think the "brass polishing" media would do the trick? If you have any photos of the brass polished parts please post!!
 
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