Homemade bowl tumbler, media for Al polishing

[bob1112]

OK, I guess a two stepper here. First, wondering if anyone here has built a large bowl type tumbler? We are looking at this style because it is my understanding they work better for polishing with the higher frequency and low amplitudes. We are looking at taking a plastic 55gal drum, chopping in half, and mounting just like the small bowl tumblers. I also thought this type was MUCH quieter as well.??? We need a fast polish with a very light deburr on corners of Al parts.

This brings me to my next question--Media!! Wow, there are a bunch and we have tried the walnut shell beads so far. They do pretty good for a high polish but they don't deburr or scrub AT ALL. Are we asking too much? Hoping there are slightly more abrasive products that can be wetted, or soaps or something to help us out. We produce racing parts so shiny sells. The more pop the better but we also don't want this to take 2 days per run. I am hoping for 2-3 hours for most parts and up to a day for special parts.

Hoping we have some media experts here that can shed some light on the media questions. Also, we are considering making two or more tumblers to step the proccess if that can help speed progress. thanks

Brandon

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Ever tried ball bearings?

[bob1112]

Ball bearings as a media?? No. Have you? Does this actually work?

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Didn't use it myself, saw it at a tool show. I don't think you would call it an abrasive media, more like burnishing or peening smooth. I believe there was some kind of liquid to prevent corosion or electrolysis between disimilar metals. (light oil?)

[vladdy]

In the basement I have a smaller [2 gal cap] vibratory tumbler, use walnut shells with rouge or tripoli for polishing brass rifle cases... very quiet, nice finish, leave on overnight, amybe 10 hours total..
In the shop I have an old tumbler style polisher, a square box about 2' cubed, with lots of 1/8 holes in it.. It just rotates slowly, maybe 5 or 6 rpm, for deburring steel and aluminum, it runs semi submersed in a varsol tank and uses what looks like 3/8 long pieces of 1/4 rod...leaves a matt finish on aluminum, steel gets a bit of a polish, takes around 24 hours to do a 50lb lot of smaller pieces of steel, maybe 12 for aluminum..
It origionally came from a engine rebuilder that used it to clean up small parts, especially cleaning carbon deposits off valves..

enjoy..