Home Brewed vibratory finisher

[Unabiker]

I manufacture a growing line of dirt bike protection products....radiator guards, skid plates, etc. using a CNC router as my main workhorse.
My volume has gotten to the point where I spend half my waking hours deburring stuff. As we all know, deburring sucks. Here's what I'm doing about it.

Web research led me to vibratory tub finishers, like the BurrKing, etc. These machines have a big tub which holds a finishing media and the parts to be finished. There is a mechanism attached to the tub which shakes the hell out of the tub and all within it. These machines usualy have a sprayer and recirculation system to wash the media as it runs as well.
A machine with a tub in the 6-7 cubic foot range seems to be selling for around $5000 new.

So what I needed was a tub, a base and something to shake the hell out of it.

I made the base out of 2"x3" mild steel tubing. Just a simple box, aprox 3'L x 2'W x 15" tall. It's got a couple cross members to provide a mounting location for the motor.

For the tub, I got a plastic 55 gal barrel laid over on it's side. I cut it open so that the barrel is like a big blue trough.

To support the tub, I made a cradle out of 2"x2" angle, 1.5" box and a bit of 1.5" flat mild steel. The cradle has 4 ribs that hug the barrel. The ribs are attached to a rectangular frame that has the same outter dimesions as the base. It all sort of looks like a nuclear beer keg.

The cradle/tub assembly sits on top of the base, supported by 8 springs. I'm using 4 pieces of angle iron bolted to the outter corners of the base to act as guides to prevent the cradle/tub assembly from bouncing off of the springs.

To shake the hell out of it, I am using a 1" steel axle supported by 4 pillow block bearing bolted to the bottom of the cradle. The axle has 2 aluminum weights at either end, and a drive pulley in the middle. It's all driven by a 220v (221, whatever it takes) motor sourced off of an old air compressor.
I'm using plastic media, v-cylindrical shaped that I got from McMaster Carr. Right now, I'm just using water. I may throw in some mild soap just to see what it does.

I need to sink some anchors and bolt this thing to the floor. With 150 lbs of sand bags on the base, sitting on a rubber mat and a carpet, it walks 3' in 30 minutes. I would imagine the finishing time should decrease if it was bolted down as well.

It's pretty loud to operate at this point. I think the bolting to the floor will help this a bit. Improving the guide system should help too. I need to get a better material for the guide surfaces. I'm using some thin plywood glued to the inside of a piece of angle. The plywood rubs against the cradle's frame to keep it centered over the springs. I think I am going to try some Delrin strips in place of the plywood, and bolt them in place instead of glue. I think I can close up the gap between the cradle and the slider surface as well. Less friction and less distance for the cradle to travel before it hits a slider should cut down on some of the racket. I'm giving some serious consideration to building an enclosure to put around this thing to try to control the noise as well.

There are a couple different variables to play with. I can change the frequency of the shake by changing out pulleys on the motor or the axle. I can change the size of the shake by adding or removing weight from the axle. I could also change the springs to provide more or less action. I could also probably affect the movement pattern inside the tub by playing around with different rate springs in different locations on the base.
In addition, there are lots of different media and washes to try. I will most likely be sticking to the media from McMaster Carr for the time being. 50lbs of media is around $135 shipped. My tub could hold 400 lbs if I filled it all the way up. Kind of an expensive variable to be playing with.

With 50 lbs of media and 2 gallons of water in the tub, the crappiest aluminum part I had in the scrap bin took about 45 minutes to get all the burrs knocked off and finished to a reasonably even finish. The media flows around inside the tub, carrying the part around with it. The water gets agitated enough that I don't think I need a circulation pump, not until I run a bigger load of media anyway.

Pics will follow soon.

[mxtras]

Gotta have pics.

Have somewhere that I could look at your products?

Scott

[Bloy2004]

yeh! pictures! I'm interested in one of these for all sorts of uses...maybe a smaller tub though...

[JavaDog]

Sounds very interesting, with a much lower cost to build than the "pro" machines!

I second (third?) the request for pictures!

[gustavus]

Fellow I met a long time ago had a de-burring tumbler he made by turning an old farm tractor tire inside out, running it on two rollers one being powered up from a small electric motor. Took up very little shop space as it is verticle, cost next to nothing to make and last a life time. Be sure to use tractor tires with directional tread, not turf savers or backhoe.

[Kool Parts]

Unabiker,
Sounds like your pretty close. Run a bolt through the middle of the springs, to adjust tension, and for safety.
Also bolt to the floor, it does make a lot of difference.
Drill some small holes (1/16) in one end for a drain. Then use a swamp cooler pump and hose to spray a little water over the top. Too much water completely changes (dampens) the effect on the de-burring action. You can put the pump in the bucket under the drain and change water when necessary (once a day). If you are just de-burring then Simple green or Dawn to the mix will really help by flushing the sludge. But you want a top to bottom flushing action.
I made a sound barrier out of 2 inch insulation board glued together, and raised straight up with rope when I need to load unload.
Gary

[JavaDog]

Originally Posted by gustavus Fellow I met a long time ago had a de-burring tumbler he made by turning an old farm tractor tire inside out, running it on two rollers one being powered up from a small electric motor. Took up very little shop space as it is verticle, cost next to nothing to make and last a life time. Be sure to use tractor tires with directional tread, not turf savers or backhoe.

Hey, that is a neat idea! Bet you could get away with a smaller tires (large truck tire? Mudder?) with agressive tread too.

Wonder if that design would have much of a problem with multiple parts smacking into each other though?

[Sytech]

Unabiker

The Commercial Vibration systems have the box sections filled with sand this acts as an antenuator for the sound

[l u k e]

How many RPM do you think your running?

OR, motor rmp and pully sizes?

[sc7500]

Greetings All - SC7500, The Mad Coater here, first post / reply;

I owned and operated a large ceramic coating facility in NorCal for over 10 years. In that time we built or bought and used several different types of vibratory polishers to finish polishable ceramic coated headers, milled aluminum parts, and other types of polishable metal.

After building several sizes for specific contract-specific jobs, I settled on a small [7 cubic ft] machine from Mr. Deburr in Goleta, Ca - using MicroBrite ceramic bead and Radiance #41 polishing soap [from Richwood Industries in Huntington Beach, CA] we were able to polish parts in less than 15 minutes time. $7K is about right, paid for it on a lease-to-own thru an agent.

The frequency and RPM is important to final finish; so is the media / soap precentage combination. By now you've discovered that the amount of water in the tank makes a big difference in sound AND performance... Kool Parts' suggestion to drill drains at one end is very good - recirculating / filtering the liquid media is key to consistently good quality product.

I have to tell ya that a factory built machine will get you a decent result FASTER, if only because the frequency experimentation is already done for you... and bolting it to the floor is MANDATORY. Even after building a soundproof booth for the machines [I ended up with 2 - the 7 Cube baby, and a 40 cubic foot monster for finishing race header pairs] you'll most likely end up wearing some sort of hearing protection and pissing off at leat one neighbor !

I hate to mention this, but it can't be avoided; whether you're doing this work at home, or in a shop in the city, there is a potential for pollution. The waste overflow has enough microscopic aluminum and zinc to set off the sewer sniffers in an average environmentally monitored drain... we ended up prefiltering the liquid waste with carbon centered wound water filters to trap 80% of the nasties... the fire marshall said okay. And, natch, hit us with a $500.00 / year permit fee for same.

If you're on a well like I am here at home [I kept the baby machine when I retired, and still finish milled parts] it's a good idea to filter the waste water after pumping it into a settling tank. Once the larger solids settle down, they can be collected into a coffee can, baked into a solid "puck" and tossed into the trash. The liquid can be evapp'd to eliminate any chance of groundwater contam.

I don't know anyone who'd want to poison their own well over 10 years' time !

Hope this helps - I'm available if anyone else has questions.

SC / TMC

[l u k e]

Once the larger solids settle down, they can be collected into a coffee can, baked into a solid "puck" and tossed into the trash.

Great idea!

[Unabiker]

Thanks for all the replys and help!
You can see my products at www.unabiker.com

I've got a drain in the bottom going to a 5 gallon bucket. I have a so-called pump from Harbor Freight, but it doesn't have enough poop to lift a 3/8" dia collum of water to the spray bar. Gotta get a bigger pump and it should work. My spray bar is a 1/4" copper tube, currently with the end plugged and 1 tiny hole drilled in it for the water to spray out of. I figure I'll drill some more holes after I see how the first works.

I'm assuming my motor is turning at 1740 rpm or there abouts. It's a single phase motor from a 5hp air compressor. The drive pulley is 3", the driven pulley is 5". That should give me about 1000 rpm at the axle.

The neighbors should be ok with the racket. They were going to put a metal stamping line in the unit next door to me. That being said, I like the idea of a big foam box to drop over it. I'm probably going to put in in my store room, just to add one more layer of sound deadening.

I like the filtering and evaporating idea for the goo disposal. As dry as my shop is, it should not take long at all to evaporate a few gallons of water. Especialy when the heat is on.

I hope to have some more time tomorrow to get it moved into the store room and bolted to the floor. I've got a ton of stuff I need to deburr.

Here are some pics: