Vibratory Finisher For Polishing Aluminum

[Glacern]

Walnut shells with rouge should work very well in a vibratory tumbler after 12-24 hours.

A decent finish off the machine certainly helps. How are your parts looking after tumbling with the plastic pyramids?

A brief blog entry on tumbling...

[smittys800]

I have been polishing all my parts prior to anodizing for about 2 years now. The key is to have the correct polishing media!!!!
I use a product from C&S sales out of Wisconsin, and trust me, you get chrome looking parts after about 8-12 hours in a Vibratory tumbler, that is after an hour or so in the plastic media to remove machine marks.
Now my problem is a have a bottle neck at the polishing , with 2 of the bench top Tumblers I have, time to step up to a larger machine.
Anybody have any experiance with these type of machines? They are a Chinese import, found them on E-bay, auction number.
180425035398
Don't have the funds for a Sweco,
Take care,
Smitty

[JHCHOPPERS]

Smitty, if you buy this machine, please post your results.

Thanks,
Joel

[smittys800]

I have 2 of the Tumbers that Glacern has, very nice machines, just on the SMALL side, they run for over 6 months 24-7!!!
Have traded a few E-mails with the guy on E-bay, seems like an ok guy. REAL close to pulling the trigger on it!!!
Will keep ya all posted,
Smitty

[Runner4404spd]

i was able to achieve the same finish as on those chess peices in my harbor freight bowl tumbler. i used the little 5lb one and later bought the bigger one. its a three step process. 1 use the green triangles to get a matte finish, this took about 6-8 hours to remove all the tooling marks from the parts. then i followed up with coarse walnut shells dry. no additional rouge or polishing compound. this got them to a brighter more uniform finish. then i followed up with walnut shells and added wenol metal polish to media. the final polishing took about 16 hours to get them really bright and shiny. granted this is not the best approach for production, but just meant to illustrate that it can be done with cheaper non professional equipment. total investment was about $100 including the tumbler with warranty, the green triangle media, and the walnut shells, all purchased at harbor freight. the wenol cost me about $10 and was purchased at an autoparts store. i suspect that really any mag wheel polish will work instead of the wenol

[smittys800]

Originally Posted by JHCHOPPERS Smitty, if you buy this machine, please post your results. Thanks, Joel

Spoke with the guy selling this morning. My main concern, will the machine do WHAT I need it to do... and that is POLISH using the media I have now, which by the way works simply awesome!!!
Anyhow, and this is where I was speechless, he offered to send the machine to me, and try it out for a couple weeks. If I did not like the results, I can send the machine back, and just pay the freight.
Are there really people like that anymore??!!! A mans word is his BOND!
So I took him up on his offer, if the tumbler is anything like the seller, I think I will be getting a fine machine.
Will keep ya ll posted next week.
Also, for those that are looking for an awesome media, check out c&s sales, ask for #20 highlite, nothing I have ever tried comes even close.
Take care,
Smitty

[JHCHOPPERS]

Very nice.... Please take pictures and post your results on that Big Bad Boy

Joel

[smittys800]

Ok,
Here's the low down.
Machine arrived yesterday, got it wired tonight and loaded with media.
PRO'S
Pretty quite so far, sure does move the media in a hurry!!
Easy to move around,
Nice little control panel( but on the cheap side)
Has a media dis-charge port, I think
Liquid Drain
CON'S
NO wiring instuctions
Not able to SOLID mount to the floor easily, will need some work to do that
NO lid
YOU will need 3 phase power to use, not 220 single phase

[BobWarfield]

Cool machine, Smitty.

Some other thoughts:

- As I mentioned before, size matters in this app. Smaller machines take a lot longer.

- I talked to a guy with a machine the size of Smitty's. He was using walnut with rouge and got a nice polish.

- However, he had a trade off of speed versus the parts scratching each other. If he cranked the speed on the vibe, they polished sooner but scratched themselves up by banging against each other. These were Turner's Cubes, so had sharp corners.

- He finally settled on a 4 day run to get a mirror finish. That's a long time.

- I spoke to a machinist who does a lot of vibe work about the water soap thing. It helps largely to keep the residue from the polish from interfering with the polishing action. He was comparing it to loading up of sandpaper. It also keeps the residue from sticking to and dulling the parts.

I've seen various plastic dividers and others ways to keep parts from banging against each other that would be worth looking into. Sorry, no links, but they can't be that hard to track down.

Cheers,

BW

[smittys800]

Agreed on the scratching!!
Since my 2 smaller machines are LUCKY to handle a 10 in part, it does not move, only the media does, so the polishing is less than desired.
Now for the larger machine, I can get 4 10" parts in without a lot of banging.
So, will let it run the night, and see what we have in the morning.
Keep ya all posted!!
Smitty

[MBG]

Okay reading some of your posts it seems I need some type of polishing compound.

I have an ultra vibe 45.. I am trying to polish. I have the walnut shells.

[MBG]

What is rouge?