I have a few thousand parts I need to deburr and slightly round the edges. I'm thinking of building a tumbler. Does anyone have any experience with them? Can they put a slight round to the edges of mild steel or do they just work for deburring?
I made a rough one to do a one off job. I was given 500 or so odd shaped dooverberries to machine cut out of 20mm plate. They arrived with oxy slag glued to them. I just got a bit of 12 inch pipe about the same length,welded an end to it. Half filled it with the bits,capped it and set it going slow in the lathe for a couple of hours. They came out spotless. It could be done better with motor and reduction and a bit more finesse than what I used. If I get more of these jobs I will make something up .
The only tumblers I'm familiar with is the ones I pour my scotch into.
Does it round off the corners of the steel itself or just take the slag off? Do you consider yourself fairly proficient with them kind of tumblers:stirthepot
Yes it did round them off a bit. It would depend on how long you tumbled for.
If the parts require a called out radius than the tumbler idea may not work. Tumbling works wonders removing any high spots, but expecting that process to create uniform radii will be a crap shoot depending on the tolerances called out, if any. Also, any sharp corners will see a doubling of the material removal as they will be subjected to abrasion from multiple sides. So if the 'corners of the box' need to be held to the same radius as the edges than tumbling won't work as desired. Having said that, if the parts just need a softening of the edges, in other words the print has a call out that says "break all sharp edges" than tumbling should do the job. Generally, a vibratory deburrer is used for that process and can be tailored to match the desired softening of the edges by the aggresiveness of the media used. You should be able to do the same thing in your tumbler by choosing a media that will accomplish the desired outcome of roundness versus time spent tumbling. And if you have the parts and the tumbler experimenting would be a good thing.
Pick up a used cement mixer. No not the big truck-mounted ones...well, I guess you could use it...I mean the week-end homeowner ones that TSC/HF/etc. carries. Get a motorized one, or add a motor to it. I like the can in the lathe idea! Andrew
Its 3/4 inch round rod pieces I need fixed up so the the corner "problem" wouldn't be a problem.
Is there a call out on the finish and do you need the diameters to hold a tight tolorence?
Need a lot more information Abguy, like what Shenandoah is asking about. I have an industrial machine and I can tell you that it is going to take some time if you want more than just the sharp edges taken off.
No parameter on the finish because the part gets painted yet. The pieces are getting bent into hooks for tire chains so they want the sharp edges off so no one injures themselves when hanging tire chains on them. Because they are just hooks for tire chains, diameter tolerance is nothing to be concerned about unless they start to get too badly deformed
So are these already bent when you get them? If they are and you try to tumble them they could just end up in a big rats nest where some get smoothed and other are left virtually untouched. A vibratory deburrer won't have that problem and that's why they're used for these types of situations. You may want to source the job to a local guy if you can't find a cheap unit for yourself if you go that route.
I was planning on doing them before bending them.
If these are NOT being cut and bent on a single operation these will be the most expensive hooks one could imagine.
We're planning on building a tumbler so I'll keep you posted how things go. We got a drum about 41 in by 60 in 1/2 wall. I read somewhere that tumbling is usually done at 30-60 rpm. That sound right to you all?