DIY tumbler/polisher

[gerrymoore]

I'm in the process of rebuilding my 1965 Honda CB72 (in another thread). Lots of very small and not so small bits are very rusty and pitted. Some I hope to zinc plate myself - wait for that thread!! - others I need to either paint or get re-plated.

I've seen some home made tumblers on youtube so decided to make one myself as cleaning the very small parts is difficult by hand.

So..I bought a 3 gallon plastic bucket from toolsation for £1.80, cut out two approx 30cm circles from some 20mm ply I had lying around, drilled 4 holes in the baseplate of my trusty Bosch 1/3rd sander and made use of a big steel funnel I bought for something and never used??

Pictures should be self explanatory.....one circle of ply inside with a bracket to hold down the funnel and the other piece bolted through and the sander screwed to it.

I filled it with some cat litter and plugged the sander into my home made drill controller ( see yet another thread) threw the parts in and left it running on a very slow speed for about 10 hours.

You'll see from the pics that they are not perfect but much better...I think they may need a bit longer or perhaps some coarser litter or maybe pea gravel...I'll need to experiment but for £2 and a few bits I already had I'm quite pleased...........Ive put before and after pics in next post....

 

[gerrymoore]

Here's the before and after on the parts..........

Before

After....

 

[eSCHEn]

I love builds like this, the results are pretty fantastic for what the machine is and I'd be very happy with them!

 

[gordon stephenson]

Looking good Gerry. Amazing what can be done for a little money and a brilliant imagination, Looking forward to further posts,

 

[ibrooks]

I've seen similar done with those big old sweet jars you used to see in the corner shop. Some Velcro on the lid to attach the sander and fill them with the media of your choice, screw the lid on and turn on the sander (it was hung from the rafters with a bungee in the pictures I saw). No holes in the bottom to worry about sealing meant it could also be filled with soapy water for a sort of "ultrasonic" cleaning effect.

I keep meaning to have a go with the biggish plastic tubs that stain removing powder for the washing machine come in from the supermarkets - a "mouse" type sander would be enough to get it all shaking and although you wouldn't fit big things in it would prove the principle and it's free as I've got all the necessary bits (well I might need to buy some sticky backed Velcro).

 

[Parm]

Some real ingenuity there, I like stuff like this

 

[BrianCork]

Very very clever idea, certainly saves a bit of time!

 

[nickk]

for a more aggressive approach try pea gravel /water in a cement mixer for an hour.

 

[rosinante]

When I was working we had industrial machines to do this the media was an abrasive "stone" that was trapezoid in shape, they all used water to some extent,I think a non foaming detergent would help as well, we'll done on the inventiveness inventitifity, are they words? Well you know what I mean,,I have used a wallpaper steamer to heat ,bubble a strong washing powder solution to clean gearbox components ,came out loverly and clean, rinsed while they were still hot self dried no rusting etc,
Cheers
Chris

 

[johnny max]

A friend of mine had a load of old ford bits and pieces.
He put them into an electric mixer a few hand fulls of stone chips.
They came out like they were blasted.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

I have see a cement mixer, bucket vertical, being used.
The parts were added 1 at a time to a mixture of old engine oil, paraffin and a small tub of silicon carbine.
Left to run for a few hours.

Threaded parts were wrapped in duct tape.
the parts came out in a matt finish, as the were coated in oil they stayed fresh for a while. The washed of in a bench top parts washer.

 

[Migmac]

Nice build, very simple but looks effective