Tumblers & Media

derf said:
https://www.harborfreight.com/catal...e,f,EAFeatured+Weight,f,Sale+Rank,f&q=tumbler
This is what you want for aluminum, the little green pyramids. You must run it wet or it will turn black and glaze over. I use water and ivory dish soap in a recirculating pump.
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I use the same system but got it from Eastwood about ten years ago (mine's the 5 lb. size). About $20 more than Harbor Freight, but it's lasted a long time. No complaints. Does a great job. Throw in the parts, turn it on, go do something else, come back, and it's done. The only issue might be size capacity. They make larger sizes, but for my purposes (mainly nuts/bolts/small parts when dismantling an old car) the size I bought was fine.

Regards,
Terry
 
jbolt said:
Is the ceramic media harsh on aluminum? Do you run wet with soap or detergent?
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It leaves a nice matt finish. I run it wet, no soap. I rigged up a water supply with a needle valve on it that connects to the garden hose. Drilled & tapped a 1/8 NPT hole near the top of the drum and used a push on tube connector. Just dribble in a bit of water. and let it run out the drain.
 
While we are on the subject- what other cheap (read free...) sources of media do you use with success? I have heard about using broken ceramic tile? Any other ideas?
Robert
 
Basically the recirculating pump is just a Harbor Freight pond pump (like 15 bucks). The bowl has an inlet towards the top that is a 1/4 pipe thread, and a drain hole of the same size. The water is pumped through the top inlet regulated by a petcock and it drains out the bottom hose into a 5 gal. bucket. The bucket has an overflow tube about 2" from the top. The overflow runs back into the originating bucket where the pump is. By draining into a separate bucket first, the solids will fall to the bottom, and the cleaner liquid overflows to the pump bucket.
 
derf said:
Basically the recirculating pump is just a Harbor Freight pond pump (like 15 bucks). The bowl has an inlet towards the top that is a 1/4 pipe thread, and a drain hole of the same size. The water is pumped through the top inlet regulated by a petcock and it drains out the bottom hose into a 5 gal. bucket. The bucket has an overflow tube about 2" from the top. The overflow runs back into the originating bucket where the pump is. By draining into a separate bucket first, the solids will fall to the bottom, and the cleaner liquid overflows to the pump bucket.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the explanation.
 
I use a drum tumbler and broken carbide saw blade chips for my media .
 
I ended up getting the HF 18 lb unit using a 25% off coupon. Pleasantly surprised on how quiet it is. It didn't burn to the ground in under two hours of use like some of the reviews suggest so it appears to be a decent tool. I tried their green plastic media and the ceramic media. The ceramic media is too large for the size of the parts. The green seems to be working okay. I'm not sure what to expect on time but it took about 16 hours to get close to the finish I'm looking for. I'll have to explore some higher quality media in the future. I will say it did a fantastic job of deburing the edges.
 
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