Vibratory Tumbler and Chrome Tools

[Corndoggeh]

Has anyone tried to polish/clean chrome tools that have some surface rust/dull finish using a vibratory tumbler? For those who did, how did it turn out? I was thinking of using 1mm ceramic balls to clean surface rust off of wrenches/sockets/pliers without having to be at a bench grinding catching wires into my gut. Is there a better shape/material to use than ceramic? Seems like stainless steel would be too aggressive, I've never used a tumbler before FYI so advice would be appreciated.

 

[Ray-CA]

Crushed walnut shells with rouge.

Ray

 

[930dreamer]

I clean my balls with one- Pachinko balls that is.

 

[BBDartCA]

Walnut shells plus a couple squirts of rubbing compound. Works pretty good.

 

[Corndoggeh]

Would walnut shells take care of rust as well or do I need something else; say a rusted non-chrome wrench that I want to remove rust and polish? Would I use something more aggressive like ceramic, stainless steel, or maybe some coal slag from my sandblaster for the rust removal and then the walnut for polish?

 

[plinker]

Would walnut shells take care of rust as well or do I need something else; say a rusted non-chrome wrench that I want to remove rust and polish? Would I use something more aggressive like ceramic, stainless steel, or maybe some coal slag from my sandblaster for the rust removal and then the walnut for polish?

Corn cob is better for polishing then walnut shell IME. Walnut shell does a good job of cleaning brass with some Flitz added to it. It may take more time to clean rust, but I'd try that first as it's fairly inexpensive as far a media goes.

Stainless media (pins) works really good on tarnished brass but the specfic method I'm familiar with is wet (water) tumbling with the stainless, so it may not apply/work as well for hand tools.

 

[PCMusicGuy]

Walnut shells do not really remove rust. You would need something a bit stronger than that. I would look into ceramic media.