Anyone here doing it? I was thinking about getting one of those rock polishing kits and trying it out. Some of my small aluminum parts I've made would look nice all polished up! But, doing the whole process with a Dremel tool is a bit of a pain and terribly messy.
As you can tell by my name I am also into guns, I reload. In reloading we use what is called a case tumbler, it shines the brass (brass casing). It uses a walnut hull material and works very well in polishing all small machined parts. I have used it on brass, copper, aluminum and steel parts.
I had a large tumble polisher (about the size of a cement mixer) and would polish intake manifolds, carb parts, heads, basicly anything aluminum and they would come out looking great. But the finish is more of a satin look as opposed to the high luster look that you can achive with polishing tools and compounds.
hotrodsnguns - Do you use the vibrating type of tumbler or the rotating drum type? I did a quick search on tumblers and found a big price difference between the rotating drum and vibrating types. The drum types are the cheapest, but will they hold up over the long term?
The case tumblers reloaders use work very good for cleaning and polishing small parts. You don't get a real high luster like you do from a buffing wheel, but it's a good start. The vibrating type works a lot better than the roll type. Dillon Precision sells some nice ones, but you can get them for a lot less money from other sources. Also, avoid using amonia-bazed cleaners/polishers.
I use tumblers to polish stainless steel and titanium body jewelry when time isn't a priority. It takes about a week to get 316LVM SS from mill finish to mirror polish using tumblers. Also, you need to use more than 1 step. I use a vibratory tumbler (A heavy duty version of the one that reloaders use to polish brass) for the coarse cut, with silicon carbide pyramid-shaped media. For all of the subsequent steps I use a rotary tumbler; after the coarse cut, they go into an abrasive impregnated, cone shaped plastic media, then they go into a stainless steel burnishing media, and then finally they go into cob meal treated with chromium oxide (very similar to the stuff reloaders use). Using this slow 4 step process, the finish is as good as I can get with a buffer. At least I don't have to sit and hand polish jewelry all day; I HATE hand polishing stuff!!! (I thought it was fun for the first 2 years, the last 7 have not been as fun! )
[ QUOTE ] hotrodsnguns - Do you use the vibrating type of tumbler or the rotating drum type? I did a quick search on tumblers and found a big price difference between the rotating drum and vibrating types. The drum types are the cheapest, but will they hold up over the long term? [/ QUOTE ] Mine is a Dillion Presion vibrating type. Over 10 years old and used a lot with no problems. I use a polishing agent in the walnut material and the shine is very good.
[ QUOTE ] Mine is a Dillion Presion vibrating type. [/ QUOTE ] How big is your Dillon tumbler? I found they make a model CV-2001 and a CV-500. The info says the CV-2001 is REALLY big (12.5 quarts) and the CV-500 is a little smaller. I'd like to be able to put a 8"X4"x2" part in the tumbler. But, I cannot find any info on the physical dimensions of the bowls anywhere.
Honestly, for something THAT big, you'd need the 12.5 qt bowl (Maybe even larger!), OR a rotary tumbler.
I know this is an old thead but picked this up today with the idea of making a tumble polisher out if it. I imagine I will have to line it with rubber or something to keep the parts from beating against the steel sides. Any othe tips? Sent from my SM-G920T using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
If you are doing small parts they will be mixed in with your media, as its all going the same speed in the drum so it is no different than them hitting the outside of your rotating drum
I have a tumbler that I don't use as much as I would like because of the high cost of media. Anyone here have source for reasonably priced media?
We used a hexagon shaped parts tumbler for small aluminum parts. It was lined with some (urethane ?) rubber which never caused a problem coming loose.. Media was ceramic "pyramids" with soapy water added. It leaves a "satiny" finish as others have noted. Tho' nothing objectionable. A company we worked with used a large vibratory finisher with good results. Here's some info worth reading; http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/finishing-guides/choosing-the-right-system.htm
I was surprised at the cost of the media you need. I bought the round plastic tumbler from Amazon, Advertised as a cleaner for small gun parts and re loaders. I bought the media from Harbor Freight. The tumbler I have just vibrates. I put what I need cleaned in and turn it on and let it run 24 hours. Didn't want to clean things like oil pan bolts one at a time and the piramid shaped plastic meadia worked great, then I put in other bolts. I also have walnut shell media, but have never used it. Have put in some small painted parts in, it will clean them, but only takes part of the paint off.
When I worked in the nuclear weapons test program, we had all the stainless tubing and parts "electropolished" - almost looked plated and had to be super clean as we pumped these lines to incredibly low vacuum numbers. The process is basically reverse plating, in that it uses electrodes in an electrolytic solution to remove any kind of impurities in the stainless. On my hot rod stuff now I've got both a tumbler and a vibratory cleaner - it just takes quite a while to get a nice finish, but you can be doing other things while the tumblers work.
built my own for about $200 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-week-polishing-aluminum.994523/
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