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Originally Posted by Father&son56project
Good progress Gregski. A few posts up you mentioned switching to plastic media for that tumbler. Did you try it yet? I am curious because I received one of those tumblers as a gift, and found that it just didn't do much. I switched back to using my hillbilly tumbler* which is loud, but works like a charm.
Stephan
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So glad you followed up Stephan.
Yes I tried tumbling using the blue mystery rocks as I call 'em, ha ha and though they generate some sort of dust in the tumbler bowl I am hugely disappointed with the way they do NOT remove rust, not to my satisfaction anyway. I ran it for like 6 or 8 hours, hewk maybe more, checking on the hardware being cleaned every 2 hours or so but not even turning it off, just shoving my hand in there and pulling out a bit and examining it.
Here were the thoughts going through my head:
1. Maybe I did not waste my life spending upteen hours cleaning all those bolts in the past with a wire wheel, ha ha (4.5" angle grinder wire wheels will run you $20 in the big box stores, and $10 online) I can clean a larger bolt with a wire wheel in a minute or so either in a vice or holding it in vice grips so I can rotate it, don't need 10 hours of tumbling, granted you can feed the "Beast" couple handfuls of bolts at once.
2. How much brand new hardware could I've bought for the $185 I spent on this thing!!! ha ha (reason I did not go this route is that some hardware is irreplaceable and also I do not trust the aftermarket steel, it's junk - I'm looking at you LMC Truck)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Father&son56project
*Hillbilly Tumbler: Bolt an electric palm sander to the bottom of an old paint can. Toss in your cruddy parts and some sand. Hang the paint pan by its handle, turn on the sander, walk away for an hour, return to perfectly clean parts.
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I'm buying what you're selling, got a pic?
The reason I already had the plastic media is because I've done did something similar only using an old quart sized plastic Folgers coffee can attached to a 1/2" heavy duty drill, but it didn't work too well and now I think we can blame this stupid fake media.
LESSONS LEARNED so far...
Even if the tumbler do clean your parts it don't leave them shinny, (think media blasting large panels like fenders, etc.) the parts come out dull, so often times if your end game is Zinc plating you still need to wire wheel these bits to get them nice and smooth
It may be time to roll your own media like Josh did here in this there video [spoiler alert: using quick dry aka cat litter and walnut shells]:
Harbor Freight 18 lb. Vibrating Bowl 1year Review