I bought a vibratory tumbler recently. It had been used to finish and deburr jewellery but I want it to strip and clean manky old car parts - especially rusty stuff. The first few days of using it didn't go well. The machine is great but the media can be expensive and like anything, you need to get the technique right. I used the media that came with the machine:
With and without water and soap. Then I also tried cat litter, dry, but it's very dusty and absorbant so not great.
And today I threw in a few rusty bits of metal for an hour just to see how the glass would work: That bolt on the left came out of a Japanese wheel where it had been since the 70s.
And that is a pic of a few items that came out, after only an hour. You can see the cleanliness of the Japanese bolt - the script is visible on the head, and that big bolt next to the pliers was completely covered in rust. Pliers had surface rust.
Anyway, the glass works, mixed with a bit of water and some Hammerite rust remover solvent stuff. Here's the video of it in action - noise cos it's running off a generator:
I use 15lb capacity tumblers like this guy every day
with green pyramid media or a ceramic equivalent. They are designed to clean the threads of nuts and bolts.
The results are spectacular. This batch started out looking just like yours, perhaps a bit worse.
Take a bunch of grimey rusty curse word like this
Chuck it into the bowl with degreaser and water
And return 24 hours later
We have a few bigger tumblers for large items.
The finish it leaves on aluminium is perfect
It isn't a fast process but it does it's thing while I am off doing other stuff or down the pub or asleep so it saves a lot of labor.
The larger tumblers are more aggressive and much faster but being so large you would lose small nuts and bolts in them so are reserved for larger items. This oil pan is off a Ford 200ci six cylinder and is almost 2 feet long
The best thing about these tools is when we send the cleaned and polished hardware out for zinc plating it comes back looking fantastic, much better than sandblasting or wire wheeling like we were doing.
got 2 of these myself, smaller ones that I use for cleaning brass bits, again they work well on small car bits. I use different media in each machine, 1 is course and gets the gunk off the other polishes the cases so they come out nice and bright.
We use one of these at work, I think it's great but the guys who bought it thought it would clean rusty steel pressings up with the pyramids in half an hour, then they could polish them up with walnut shells after that in another half an hour, all to save a few quid sending stuff out for blasting and zinc plate. Obviously it takes hours to even touch steel, and the stuff just goes rusty again unless you protect it.
It seems to work great on non-ferrous - ally, brass etc, just don't put both aly and brass/copper in at the same time, or you end up copper plating the aly. I'll suggest we use some of the glass media if it's a bit more aggressive - you seem to have had good results.
Wish you posted this 4 months ago, TYCO the place I worked was moved to France - And we had huge Tumblers (We called them Barrellers) We had every type of stone, Large pyramids (for the Brass work) Small ceramic beads for small ally stuff, and every sort of medium square ceramic, round cermic, All went in the skip. Knew I should have saved them dammit The soap was some really high nasty stuff, it could clear oil off a drive just by pouring a bit of neat stuff on it. it was mainly water with about 10 percent soap. Cant remember the name of it - but it came in 10 gallon drums. If we ran out of it, we used Barrels of Jizer for a temporary fix did the same kinda thing. All I know if you just use water, it makes the part cruddy. You need some viscosity
Have you had any more time to play about with this?
I'm thinking about one for my own project.
My plan is to strip all the suspension off the Datsun, put the smaller parts in the tumbler, then reassable it. It's not going to be a perfect solution - bigger parts wont fit or may take days, power coating and sending it all away to a metal shop may be a better idea. But I'll have a go first.
At the moment though I am busy fitting electrics into the garage and stripping my old race car (boo) so the Datsun will be a winter project, or maybe a spring project at this rate!
In theory the DIY tumblers look great but when you see the proper industrial machine in action you can see that the choice of motor, materials, etc to get the balance right, and the media moving about correctly, is worth paying for. When they come up for sale they aren't that expensive but they don't turn up very often. Mine is a bit of a beast but when you see it in action it looks great.
In theory the DIY tumblers look great but when you see the proper industrial machine in action you can see that the choice of motor, materials, etc to get the balance right, and the media moving about correctly, is worth paying for. When they come up for sale they aren't that expensive but they don't turn up very often. Mine is a bit of a beast but when you see it in action it looks great.
Charlie
Yeah thats the thing, couldnt find a used one for sale lol. The tyre seems a great idea for the tank, not sure how effective they would be though - tempted to knock one up once I have had a clear out.
Those pyramid-y things are probably hand made.
