Deburring parts

Guys I need your input on this one. Right now we glass bead our parts to deburr them but it's killing us. What are my alternatives here with out spending 6 grand on a second hand tumbler. Can I build one of these in house? Thanks Bob L

What types of parts? What are you making them with? If in a CNC mill or lathe, what is keeping you from deburring in the machines?

Or, are you blending/smoothing, and not really deburring?

Regards.

Mike

Even if your parts are so large that a used tumbler was 6K, it would still pay for itself in short order compared to blasting them one at a time...

You can find C&M 3FT^3 tumblers for a lot less than 6k- they're only 3K brand new...

If you need long, you can fab a barrel tumbler pretty easy.

+1 for the C&M Topline Mr. Deburr. They've been building them for 40 years for a reason.

How big are your parts? If they are small you can try an 18 lbs tumbler from HF or others, but you'll be replacing it at least annually. And when you buy the Mr DeBurr you'll wish you did that first.

MC Parts Kid said:

Guys I need your input on this one. Right now we glass bead our parts to deburr them but it's killing us. What are my alternatives here with out spending 6 grand on a second hand tumbler. Can I build one of these in house? Thanks Bob L

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These people appear to be (somewhat) local to you:
Vibratory Finishing Machines | Tumbling Machinery | Deburring Equipment

How are you blasting now ?
This looks like you could make it act like a handheld one does (if that's how your doing it now):
BL5135: GUYSON #T40 ROTARY BLAST SYSTEM - McKean Machinery Sales, Inc

MC Parts Kid said:

Can I build one of these in house?

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Don't even think about that. You will have more time/money/labor in that than you can imagine. Get a real machine and enjoy it.

Unless the volume or parts is tiny don't waste your time on a 18lb tumbler, they work but you are talking 4-6 lbs of parts at best and run times of around 4+ hours.. Also the HF ones only last about 200 hours of operation with ceramic and the bowl wears through and from what I know there are no replacements.

I had a shop-tuff 1.25 cu foot machine for about 8 years. It ran alright but it was pretty small, I would say it is about the smallest machine that vaguely fits professional use.. We did have the bearings wear out and had to order new ones on ebay, and a motor fan a belt and a few of the support springs also wore out.. Also lost the timer to lightning, googled the part number and got a replacement for $1.85 on ebay, the timer is used in microwaves.

Recently went to a Kalamazoo industries kvf3. It is a 3.3 cu ft machine and has a higher weight capacity of 500 lbs. We have been running it for two months and really like it. It is less aggressive than the shop tuff, but the parts are less prone to get damaged in the larger drum.. It is also less obnoxiously loud than the shop tuff.. Note I did not say it is quiet, I said "less obnoxiously loud". You can talk standing next to it without shouting, with the shop tuff it was more of a ear plugs then over ear protectors, and still get a headache from the sound coming in through your eyes.

I process steel parts only, I'm running 3/8"x5/8" ACT DF media from vibra finish. Running 20 gallons of RO water with a mix of VF-100 and VF-RI-8B which is a rust inhibitor for my steel parts, all the media is ordered in from CM topline.. I did have to go to the hardware store to come up with a fitting to get the drain into my shop built water process system.

We are processing the waste water with rm-10 flocculant, using a cordless drill and a mixer wand in a 30 gallon conical tank, once the water separates we drain the water through a 7"x18" 100 micron felt bag which are available on ebay.. The water can be reused for several days but try to change water before it smells like mold, the VF-100 mostly stays in the water, but the RM-10 flocculant removes the VF-RI-8B rust inhibitor, also steel parts deplete the inhibitor with use. When you change water it should discharged after cleaning into a sewer as it will contain some nitrates from the rust inhibitor.

Not relevant to the question asked, but for the HF 18lb tumbler, you can buy a new bowl from Eastwood for 36$. It ends up fitting perfectly.

Matt

I started off like you, and gradually got larger tumblers. I ended up using a decent sized rotary from Diamond Pacific that I got from MSC years ago. The last few years I added the 3 cubic foot Mr Deburr vibratory tank, and it's great. Too bad you are so far away. I need to get rid of a used 6.5 cu feet from MR Deburr. Ended up with it in a trade, and just too big for us.

I was heading down the path of getting a smaller deburr machine and after researching several threads here on the topic I stepped up and got the 3cuft Mr Deburr. I also purchased the center divider so I have plastic and ceramic media running at the same time. My only gripe about the unit is it doesn't come with an on/off switch and accessory outlet for the pump.

I looked hard at the Mr deburr, the devideder is a great feature. I liked the Kalamazoo with its enclosed design which keeps some of the racket inside the machine. The drain on the Mr deburr is a little better thought out. the Kalamazoo has a fabricated tank in the bottom of the machine that holds about 5-7 gallons but it's difficult to get out and realistically if your running 500 lbs of parts and media you need more like 20 gallons of water not 5-7.. With the Mr deburr you can use a cut off drum as a tank, with the Kalamazoo the drain is a little on the short side so you end up having to use a shorter fatter tank.

We ended up installing a couple extra switches to control the pump and also to turn the tumbler off without changing the timer.

just getting started? a Homer pail with media and liquid can be slowly rotated on a lathe. it can also be sat on a paint shaker if you can find one cheap enuf. important point is once you learn how it works, requires little attention. and many big shops will give away used media, as long as you have the time to wait for the results.

If you are trying to be cheap, there's always the used cement mixer.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

If you are trying to be cheap, there's always the used cement mixer.

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That's what we did years ago. We ordered some parts from a water jet, and they had burrs.
I got a cement mixer and put a 6???? gallon bucket in it.
We addded aquarium gravel, and let it run.

I tried the cement mixer around 7-8 years ago. It worked worse than a harbor freight 18 lb, run times for mild burrs in the cement mixer averaged around 40+ hours for any appreciable removal, 80+ hours for complete removal. My shoptuff 1.25 cu.ft was around 2 hours, and my KI KVF3 3.3 cu.ft is taking about 2.5 hours but doing about three times more than the shoptuff. The cement mixer did the most part damage.

The cement mixer as a tumbler is something of a myth in my opinion.. The parts and rock mostly stay stationary on the side of the drum unless you can adjust the rotation speed to the point that it drops, but you don't really get the right motion.

I've found a simple logic question. Why would multiple companies all make specialized machines if a cheap and commonly available cement mixer worked just as good? Why does the barrel of a tumbler need to be three inches of rubber material if a cement mixer can be paper thin metal or fairly thin plastic?

Reasons are that a tumbler exerts massively higher pressure on the parts, and has massively higher abrasion.

MC Parts Kid said:

Guys I need your input on this one. Right now we glass bead our parts to deburr them but it's killing us. What are my alternatives here with out spending 6 grand on a second hand tumbler. Can I build one of these in house? Thanks Bob L

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I may be wrong, but i think glass bead is way too gentle to deburr stuff. I like the finish they leave, but really you should not use glass bead at above 40psi unless you want the beads to turn into crushed glass, but then why not just buy crushed glass?
If you have good size compressor you can try large grit silicon carbide to debur and then smooth out with glass bead. For large quantity of small parts a tumbler or a shaker is the way to go. Keep in mind that tumblers have a tendency to round off edges of the parts, while shakers will preserve the edges. For small quantity of larger parts a wire wheel or a bristle wheel may work if you already have a buffer set up.

csspecs said:

I've found a simple logic question. Why would multiple companies all make specialized machines if a cheap and commonly available cement mixer worked just as good?

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I never meant to say it was better, but if the comparison is to Harbor Freight, well ...

Back to the subject, thanks for this thread, I found out a relative works in a place that makes various types of tumblers. Prices are good and the photos look okay. If they ever let us out of the house again I'll go look.

The ones that looked kind of cool have a stationary bowl, but on the bottom is a ribbed urethane disk. The disk spins, which throws the media and parts up the bowl, where they fall over back down into the middle to start again, like a wave. Sounds quieter than the vibrating kind, which I hate listening to.

They also have sizes from small to pretty damn big. 15 gallon (middle of the lineup) size is about five grand, the smallest one about $500. And they are made out of actual steel instead of recycled tin cans ...

I want to be clear that I am not trying to be mean to anyone. And I want to be clear that I actually have done all of this stuff in the last decade so my memory is clear and I'm not making up stories because I'm bored.

When I say the 18 lb harbor freight tumbler worked better, that is to say a cement mixer works extremely poorly.. two to four days of continuous operation to debur parts is unacceptable.. I want this myth to die because it wastes time and money because on it's face it seems logical.. but like I said they don't really work well. If you run a normal mixer with the blades it beats the parts badly. If you remove the blades it does nothing. If you install smaller rubber blades and tune it just right it will be a crappy tumbler. I tried it because someone suggested it to me and I can say it's a waste of time and money.

Same goes for river rock aquarium gravel and any suggestion involving sand.. it either doesn't work or works very poorly. Rock vs engineered abrasives is like commercial aluminum oxide abrasive sheets vs sand paper made from printer paper school paste and sand from your yard.. sure the home brewed solution will do something but it's not going to be fast or effective. Sand covered paper is not sandpaper

Manufactured abrasives work great because they are uniformly abrasive they wear slowly but remain abrasive until gone. They also contain a lot of abrasive particles by weight so they work faster while not making a huge amount of waste to process.

Same goes for the liquid compounds sold for tumblers. People will suggest mill coolant, diesel fuel, kerosene, baby oil, soap, motor oil, paint thinner, Windex.. basically everything but the commercially available good made specifically for this task. The commercial product works better faster cheaper and is not currently known to cause cancer. And it's not flammable.

I'm sure someone will be along to say how great their cement mixer with a 50/50 blend of river rock and sand works provided they use dawn dish soap mixed with kerosene and Diesel fuel to keep the dust down. And they filter the used kerosene with a sock and it's been working great for 70 years..

But I can say from experience that It does not work very well.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

I never meant to say it was better, but if the comparison is to Harbor Freight, well ...

Back to the subject, thanks for this thread, I found out a relative works in a place that makes various types of tumblers. Prices are good and the photos look okay. If they ever let us out of the house again I'll go look.

The ones that looked kind of cool have a stationary bowl, but on the bottom is a ribbed urethane disk. The disk spins, which throws the media and parts up the bowl, where they fall over back down into the middle to start again, like a wave. Sounds quieter than the vibrating kind, which I hate listening to.

They also have sizes from small to pretty damn big. 15 gallon (middle of the lineup) size is about five grand, the smallest one about $500. And they are made out of actual steel instead of recycled tin cans ...

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