Help with tumbler

[moonman29]

Well I got this 5 lb Harbor Freight tumbler for Christmas and finally got around to using it. I got the Resin Media for Rust cutting and put a rusty carburetor base in for my trial run. I let it run for a total of 5 hours and I see no progress. I know i will have to leave it longer but shouldn't it be cleaner that it was before? What am I doing wrong? Or is the piece too rusty? One thing I did notice is that the media feels moist and sticky. Is this that way it should be? I will attach some pics *** soon as i resize them…..ok, here are the pictures. The two with the carb assemble are before the tumbling. The other to pictures are after the tumbling.

 

[trigged]

Depends on the grit size, but it should be a wee bit cleaner. Is it a wet media?

 

[RossABQ]

Was it just rusty or was it covered in the typical goo that carbs gather?

 

[moonman29]

No, the carb bases were not dirty or oily….they were just very rusty. This tumbler is not the wet type. This one is for dry use only.

 

[CD1]

try dry walnut media

 

[1950mercury]

try dry walnut media

I would think that would be almost useless on rusty metal.

I tried a tumbler on some Stromberg 97's with different media and it didn't do a whole lot.
I found the ultra sonic cleaner was much better.

Best way I've found to clean those 94 bases short of bead blasting is use citric acid powder. Buy it at the grocery store buy the canning jars/supplies its like 2 bucks. Use a heaping table spoon per quart of hot water and let it soak for 24 hours or longer depending on how rusty. You can do this with or without a ultra sonic cleaner. I've rebuilt countless 94's and 97's look at my aviator

 

[larry_g]

I spent a lot of time with vibratory feeder bowls and a couple of things to check. One, is the unit sitting on a solid table or floor. The motor on those is of limited horsepower and if your loosing some into the table then you need to fix that. Two, Each bowl is tuned for the load that it carries. If you look around the machine you may find some adjusting fasteners that you can tweek to put he bowl into maximum resonance. They are usually on the spring.

That said you are asking a lot of that small of a unit. It is more designed to do a few nuts and bolts. For the size part you have I would expect to use a machine 3-4 times that size. If the part is not moving and rolling quite a bit then its to big for the bowl.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Worsedog]

I think Larry hit it nail square here. That size bowl is great for shell casing sized parts. As heavy as that carb base is I bet the appropriate size tumbler would be the size of a clothes washer.

 

[ledhore]

Ultrasonic cleaner is what worked for my carb.

 

[moonman29]

Thanks for the info. maybe your right, I may be asking too much of that little tumbler. I will give is a try with small part, bolts, nuts, etc and see how those work.

 

[dodge610]

One note your media should be dry if its a dry media you bought could of collected codensation. If so get rid of it.

 

[moonman29]

Like I said, that media felt like it had moisture in it......it was clumpy and it would stick together. If I lay it out like in a cooking sheet and leave it in the sun a few days, will it dry out? After all, I do live in the desert and we have NO problem drying things out. I would hate to get ride of it, I just bought that media a few days ago.

 

[srmofo]

HF abrasives ****. Try buying some media from a reputable source