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Vibratory Tumbler ?

M

montidale

Member
I have a bunch of bolts that are all rusty that I need to clean up. ive been looking at vibratory tumblers. And then maybe use it also for polishing rocks.
The ones at Harbor freight look pretty cheaply made. Does anyone had any experience with these? And make any recommendations. I have been
using a bead blaster cabinet it is a slow, time consuming process. Then when Im not using it for cleaning bolts and hardware, I can polish some rocks
that the grandkids find.
 
One idea is to soak the bolts in a plastic bucket of vinegar. Check progress every day, and remove bolts as they are ready. Rinse, dry, and lightly coat with oil before returning to storage.

If you keep steel in vinegar too long it will actually eat the metal. This process is cheap and guaranteed to work.
 
Rotating tumbler will do the work way faster.

I have a Extreme Tumblers Rebel 17 and a 5lb harbor freight tmbler. What takes 2 days in the Extreme tumbler will take a week in the harbor freight tumbler.

Here is the key point. What takes a week in the harbor freight tumbler will take... guess how many days in the vibratory tumbler?? I do not know either because I sold mine because it took such a long time to see any difference.
 
I have one of the smaller HF vibratory tumblers. It works for me.
Only thing is you can't put anything of any size at all in the hopper.
I could clean only things 2-3 inches long. Four inches was pushing it.
If the item was too big, it didn't work very good or at all.
Mine seemed to work fairly fast, 5 or so minutes to a load.
 
My HF vibrating cleaner/polisher got so hot I was afraid to leave it unattended.
The rotating tumbler worked better for me,
The cleaning media had to be cleaned off the bolts after use in either.
 

I have wanted to build one.
Wood cradle with casters inverted to up.
A 20 gallon poly drum with screw on lid.
A v-belt or serpentine belt around drum to a low rpm electric motor below drum. Might need to slow it down more.
 
I've put hundreds of hours on a cheap Midway vibratory tumbler. They don't seem to sell it anymore, but you can find several reasonably-priced models on their site.

For serious tumbling, you should go with a rotary tumbler.
Tumblers at Midway
 
The only experience I have with vibratory tumblers is for brass cartridge cases. It is not so much the time involved, as it is what type of polishing media you use. I use crushed walnut shell with a jewelers rouge media. The other I use is plain crushed corn cob media. I think the walnut hull media would do the job for you, but it isn't cheap, and kinda overkill for rusty bolts. Vinegar is cheap.

Gene
 


I clean up many bolts and small parts by tossing them into the bucket of phosphoric acid solution. It dissolves loose rust, and the harder attached rust is converted to inert iron phosphate. Like the coating on very hard bolts.
 
I have a large HF vibrator that I use for that purpose, probably 10 years old. I use the green triangles sold at HF for media it works well.
 
Just put some sand in a cement mixer and let run with the bolts in there it will clean them up. Could also use corn cobs if you rather. I'd just use some washed sand. Then finish the worst ones with something else or pitch them.
 
Well that gives me a few things to consider. I am thinking I will soak them in vinegar to get the big chunks off. Then find a drum Tumbler to polish them up.
 
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