Vibratory tumbler

Anyone know of a good brand? So many bad reviews.

Have you used one to clean hardware and small brackets?

Bas review's are due to most being made cheap in China.
As,far as ones that shake I have 2 an old Lyman and RCBS.
They both have 50 50 mix of corn cob and walnut media.
But have a Thumbs Thumber Model B USA made as well that has a hexagon barrel that is way better. I tumble bit wet and dry with different media's.
What size parts are you looking to clean and what are they made of?

Vibratory finishing is what I do. But most of the stuff I do is on the industrial level. Normally for a job like that I use steel pins. They are good at "picking out" the dirt and grease. But most home level machines can't handle the weight of steel media. And pins are very expensive. You are probably stuck with using a Harbor Freight type machine and small ceramic media. You will need a soap too for the parts to come out clean.

I sold my Harbor Freight POS as it didn't do what it was supposed to. I would like a good unit, so I am following this thread. I have 6-5 gallon buckets full of factory hardware that was in my garage fire, I would like to clean it and keep it, Chinesium bolts are garbage nowadays...

Hammond roto-finish, industrial machines, they do have some small "bench top" units, depends on what your looking to do and how much you want to spend....

And what was that?

Seems to me, if it works, and its only for small non industrial jobs, how unsatisfactory could it be? It just shakes, right?

That is a sincere question.

The HF units are barely useable. I've had customers run parts for 24 hours that I thought was a 15-30 minute job. But all my knowledge is in the high grade stuff. These machines have much more power. And some can handle the weight of steel media for burnishing. Sometimes you can pickup a name brand machine on ebay for $1,000. I'll be retiring in 2 months and I'm trying to decide what to take home for my shop after a lifetime of vibratory finisher sales.

A rotary tumbler like the Thumbler's is going to be the easiest to use with the SS pin media which does a great job cleaning. The common vibratory can't handle the weight, as has been mentioned, until you get into very expensive units. You can make a rotary tumbler with basic tools. tons of examples on the web. I have a few fender bolts and washers in mine right now. I've used a variety of scrap bolts, nuts, and screws for media before I got another batch of SS pins and it worked good but didn't get in the tightest spots like the pins do.
I do have a couple Midway brand tumblers and they are OK for a few small parts but the corn media is slooooooow to clean with.

I bought a Hornady bullet brass cleaner, put some diesel fuel and BBs in it and used it for years to clean nuts, bolts and other small parts, worked just fine surprisingly.

I don't get what the weight does or has on these tumblers. The one I have the basket is oscillated on rubber cushions. All the motor does is spinning an offset weight to make the basket oscillate. The motor is on its own and knows nothing about the weight in the basket.

i bought a fairly large one and drove 8hrs return to get it. bought media and tried it. ran it for 24hrs. relisted it and sent if back to the same area it came from. In 5 minutes i can do more with my blaster than this one did in 24hrs.
i think if you wanted to make a 5-10g investment in a pro one and had nothing but time on your hands and love to watch things vibrate it would be the fun toy for you. i can do more with my blaster in 95% less time than a tumbler can.

I've had pretty good luck getting small stuff clean with liquid rust remover or even vinegar and usually wire wheel anything that can easily be done that way.
I had a bench top sand blasting cabinet ordered hoping to do a bit with that and the order got cancelled so now I'm back to my old ways again.

How good or bad are the vibratory tumblers from Eastwood ??

https://www.eastwood.com/autobody/buffing/vibratory-tumblers.html

(that silhouette of the car at the bottom of the page with "subscribe" looks familiar, sure looks like a Mopar to me )

Mike

My first two failed. They sent a third which I have never used. They said I was the only one with problems. Both were replaced at no charge but they said the third one would be the last one that would be under warranty.So buyer beware.

I've done a few thousand small parts and fasteners with just vinegar and hand wire brushing. The hand wire brushing is very effective if you make a few ultra simple work holding jigs from scrap wood and wear a leather glove. The jigs were mostly just a groove or similar in a board, and most of the holding was my gloved left hand. Yes, it is tedious, so I did a dozen or two at a time in about a half hour most days for a few months.

Those were before. These are after.

If the fasteners aren't going to be painted, this is what waxing will do for you on phosphated fasteners and small parts.

kudos for trying.

Is however a big factor in the end finished product, the media used?

Interesting topic. I have an HF one, but have not used it yet. Not feeling particularly optimistic after reading all this.



Nice work. What did you use for the phosphate coating? Not familiar with the waxing process.

Yes, the "basket" sits on springs/rubber cushions. But even on a medium size machine (20 cubic foot) the steel media weighs 6,000 lbs. So the media in the machine weighs as much as 2 cars. It takes a lot of power to shake that back and forth 1,200 times per minute.

Yes, the motor is on it's own and attached to nothing else. But it does know about the weight in the basket. Also the machine must be built a lot stronger to handle the horsepower necessary.

My thinking, there are a few constants and a few variables in a "typical" vibrator system. The motor (excitor) hp and speed is fixed, the weight of the container is fixed, the imbalance weight and geometry is fixed, and the suspension/damping system is fixed. A;ll these constants determine a fixed oscillation resonance frequency of the unit. The variables are the weight ( I suspect size here doesn't matter much here) of the item(s) being processed, the weight of the media, the weight and viscosity of any process lubricant, and time. Combined Weight directly effects the frequency of the process, heavier being a lower frequency (meaning weight matters, how much is dependent mainly on available hp to overcome the above factors), based on the factors noted above. Condition, shape, etc of the parts being processed and the media and its size would be the last considerations. Did I miss anything?

Reminds of car tuning, everything effects everything else.

The only thing that you normally adjust is the amount of weights on the motor. If you are using steel media at 300 lbs per cubic foot you will have to have more weights on the motor than if you were using ceramic media at 85 lbs per cu ft.

My point is the basket and motor are totally independent. Neither knows what the other is doing. Unless I change the motors operation by making it work harder it should not be affected by basket weight. The only difference I can relate to is time. More material the longer the run time for desired results. Unless I can physically load the motor which I can not the basket weight should have no affect on the motors life.

I don't think that changes in weight will affect frequency as that is a function of motor/drive speed. But I do think that more mass means more inertia. For a given amount of energy being supplied to the "tub" by the drive, as mass (and inertia) increases the less the tub will move with each cycle with the corresponding reduction in cleaning peformance.

So....as the mass (inertia) increases you have to supply more energy and you do that with more offset weight.

I didn't put the BBs in for weight, they just bounce all around gently removing rust and dirt. I could throw all my transmission bolts and small parts and such in and an hour later they would all be clean and rust free it they weren't too bad, in the mean time I could re-build clutch packs and stuff and all the little things would be ready to start putting it back together when I am done with the other parts.

Eastwood was another relatively cheap one with many bad reviews. I guess what interested me in this tool is the price of the cheap ones.
If a good one is over $1000. I will continue to sand blast and brush my parts. Mostly bolts and brackets.

I can understand how moving or adding weight would make the motor work harder. However on mine you are changing nothing to make the motor work harder. It just spins and causes the bowl to jiggle.

The main thing I think you are overlooking above is these systems are not free weights, ie no friction, no dampening. They are sprung in one fashion or another, and as the weight/load increases, in most cases the damping/rates will increase, and start to burden the system if the motor becomes further loaded.

Another aspect I did not address earlier, is the heavier the media, the greater gravity/compressive force it transits onto the part being processed, and I also did not mention there maybe and likely, 2nd order and higher harmonics at play in these systems, that might factor into the process. Trying to calculate and predict those in advance would require a lot more information and I suspect a lot of run time on a super computer, or just 10? minutes. of real world testing

With a cyclically applied force, inertia due to mass is dampening . Want to reduce vibration? Add mass. A simple analogy would be one person trying to rock a heavy car in neutral. Can't budge it, not enough energy. But a crowd of people trying to rock it.....success, more energy. Lighter car...less mass....fewer people needed.

Not sure what he uses but I've had good results with Black Oxide solution from Caswel Plating. It blackens the hardware but it doesn't protect it from rust. You need to seal the fasteners after they are darkened. I've used RPM from ECS but lately I've been using Johnson's Paste wax. Heat the part with a heat gun or torch and brush on the wax.

I have a Harbor Freight tumbler. I think they say you're supposed to use them "dry" but I didn't have good luck with it "dry". I like to use it with a little EvapoRust or a degreaser. With heavily rusted fasteners, the tumbler + EvapoRust seems to get the job done quicker then just dipping them in EvapoRust. With small grimy fasteners, sometimes it can be easier to tumble them with the degreaser instead of trying to clean them individually. Make sure you keep an eye on the tumbler though. My Harbor Freight tumblers motor locked up once. If I hadn't caught it, things might have gone bad. I was able to free it up so now I only use it when I'm out in the garage and can keep an eye on it.

You got sound advice within the first response (340SIX); Lyman of RCBS. Look at the reviews of the Lyman Pro 1200.

Basically speaking you never do vibratory finishing dry. (An exception is using cob or walnut shells to polish.) The water and vibratory compound is what keeps the parts and media clean.

I use this for black oxide. And they have a great YouTube video.

https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-...uing-chemicals/oxpho-blue--prod1072.aspx

With a cyclically applied force, inertia due to mass is dampening . Want to reduce vibration? Add mass. A simple analogy would be one person trying to rock a heavy car in neutral. Can't budge it, not enough energy. But a crowd of people trying to rock it.....success, more energy. Lighter car...less mass....fewer people needed.

I am seeing two opposing views here you are sharing, so to the main contention here, in simple terms, mass matters.

I would think those vibratory units would operate near their “resonant frequency” to shake more.

In a simple system the resonant frequency is the square root of K divided by M
K= the spring rate
M = mass of the tub, media, parts, liquid

Birtley Engineering centrifuges work on a similar principle to discharge the dried product without gears.

This same principle made the “Galloping Gertie” bridge collapse at a particular wind speed.
When you see STOP signs wiggling right-left right left in hurricane winds it is the same principle.

A reasonable enough assumption, except if so, the end result might also be the same as the bridge you mentioned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance

With the simple Harbor Freight class of vibratory tumbler
there is probably an “Optimum Shake Mass”
where vibration stroke is highest because it is near resonant frequency.

The input frequency is the speed of vibrator motor (assuming it drives one single crank weight)
and needs to converted to units of Hertz, cycles per second.
3600 rpm is cycles per minute and should be converted to cycles per second so
3600/60 = 60 Hertz

1800 rpm would be 30 Hertz,
etc

Spring rate is calculated similar to engine valve spring rate measurement
but needs to be in units of Newtons per Meter
instead of LBS per inch.

Be careful if you choose to use “American” style units of LBS
because a “Pound” is a unit of Force, not a mass.
You have to know when to
divide Pounds by 32.2 feet per second per second, the acceleration of Gravity in the American units system
to convert to the seldom heard of “Poundals” of mass for use in math equations.
If you did not go to Engineering School prior to year 1980 you will probably make a mistake.

Stick with kilograms, meters and seconds.

Just as an example,
Let us say the motor is 1800 rpm, (30 Hertz)
The bowl and lid of the vibratory polisher weighs 250 grams.
If you add 750 grams of parts to this 250 gram bowel, the springs beneath compress 2 mm.

K the Spring Rate is (.250 KG + .750 KG) divided by ( 2/1000 meters)

( 1 KG divided by 0.002 meters)
= 500 KG per Meter

The simple Resonance equation is

Omega = SQUARE ROOT [K/M ]

30 Hertz = SR [ 500/ M]
30 x 30 = 500/M
900 = 500 /M
M = 500/900
Mass that creates resonance is 0.555 of a Kilogram
This is the mass of the parts plus bowl
Subtract the .250 KG mass of the bowl to find the mass of parts
only 305 grams of the sum of media plus parts can be cleaned at maximum shake.

The above numbers are just guesses for example of the math.
Each vibratory cleaner spring rate, masses and true operating rpm of motor under load would have to be measured by its owner.

[Not disputing your above math/calculations, but the big variable in this application is the additional mass beyond the machine, which has been already been mentioned. It is a composite of liquid, media, parts being processed, and it is conformable and is free to move. I don't see how its resonate frequency contribution can be easily assessed and factored in. For those on the sidelines, the shortcoming of using mass only in the calculations might be similar to proclaiming equal mass amounts of glass and lead have same the resonant frequency.

I ha e the Eastwood unit and it’s been great for me. I use their media and let it run quite a bit and it’s cleaned up some pretty nasty pieces I’ve thrown at it. No complaints from me but I know some have had a few issues. The parts come out clean, polished and rust free. I do clean them first to remove any first, grease etc..

I agree, great product

link for cleaning media

https://www.brownells.com/reloading/case-cleaning/tumbling-media-additives/index.htm

if you live in coal mine country most cleaning plants buy tons of very finely ground magnetite and you can literally scoop up handfulls