KYBOY Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 Im just curious, Ive heard of guys using tumblers or even cement mixers loaded with media of some kind to remove forge scale..Seems like it would save a lot of time if your doing a large order instead of doing one piece at a time with a wire brush.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 A friend from texas used to use a small cement mixer and used lots of small pieces of metal including nuts bolts etc with some small rocks to clean forge scale,,i spect it got a bit noisy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dablacksmith Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 ya i use a homemade tumbler and have used a small cement mixer that has been slightly reworked also... its almost mandatory if you do alot of smaller stuff..highly reccomend tho they are noisy so make a sound deadening enclosure... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 We use a concrete mixer with commercial media. We also got some soap that is added to the water it that inhibits rust. Two reasons it works for us: We do it very seldom, and we make a few hunderd parts at a time. The biggest problem is having to empty it every time and seperate the media from the metal. It has to be spread out to dry, otherwise it rust. It takes me about two hours to empty the mixer and sort out the 200 pieces of metal. And you need space to spread it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry H Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 In a place i worked when I was younger, they used a tumbler with no media, it worked like a dream just letting the parts clean each other.......however, it was real noisy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdaleh Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 i use an 18 pound hopper one from HF with comercal media works great to take off scale and debur stuff .make my neigbor come over and ask whats going on though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 Former employer had a couple tumblers. Thousands of parts ran through them (eh, loud ? ). This process takes time. Lot of time. Light er up and forget about it for at least an hour. My own shop does a fair bit of production work. Depending on the need, care in forging (unless gas which is another case in itself) and good brush takes care of most issues. I have small tumbler for light work (mostly polishing rather than de-scale). Hot vinegar will indeed remove forge scale but it takes a bit of time as well. Care in fire control and placement of forgings IN the fire will make a difference. Butcher brush along with a standard brush will do most of the time. Yes, large orders can be done in tumblers. Depends on your own needs, floor space and what YOU need. I would not discourage building one or accessing an old mixer (I have one). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Emig Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 I picked one up and love it-think I posted pics in the tool section. The place I got it from used 3/8 square drops-I chucked in a bunch of nuts and bolts. Love it-no more wire wheel to prep for paint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judson Yaggy Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 I know a few smiths that do production runs of smaller items, think door hardware or craft shop nick nacks. They use dry tumblers, home made out of plastic drums, things like ironworker punch outs or small saw drops for media. They hook a shop vac to the pipe/axle to remove dust. Not fast but turn it on and walk away. One guy at the last hammer-in told me he puts on his finish in the same tumbler, soak a dryer sheet in the ubiquitous turpentine/linseed/beeswax finish, toss into the tumbler, run till all looks good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yesteryearforge Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 I have a plastic cement mixer ( 75 % off at tractor supply ) is quieter than a metal one I use common gravel / used cardide lathe tool inserts / sand blasting sand mixture. Just plug it in and let er go ( of course it is located outside ) Works well for large qtys. of small parts that are going to get painted . Dont really care for the finish if left unpainted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 Well not considering the dangers of the wire wheel, the tumbler is working while you are doing other stuff so it's like having an extra working in your shop. (and is particularly good for the folks who love to forge but hate to finish...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KYBOY Posted July 9, 2012 Author Share Posted July 9, 2012 Wire wheels (Whirlybirds as some of us call them) are dangerous..Almost as bad as buffers..I have persoanlly saw one man get his arm skinned by a large two handed grinder with a whirlybird when it jumped over a weld and walked right up his arm..Then my buddy had to have a piece of wire off one removed from his pupil..Which was really his fault since he wasnt wearing eyes when he did it...Your really gambling with your sight using a whirlybird without eyes.. Ive cut out, dug out and pulled out more wire out of my belly than I can remember.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin K Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 Tumblers do remove scale pretty quickly- which you can do by other means, as has been pointed out; however, I really like the "burnished" finish they leave on the work. As far as space requirements, I mounted my made from an air compressor tank tumbler underneath a table I already was using, so it doesn't take up any extra room in my small shop. As far as noise, it seems that the size media used makes a big difference. When I ran it with smaller stuff, mainly little bolts and spring pins, it kind of went "slush-slush"... not super quiet, but you could hold a normal conversation in the same room. Last week, I sorted out the small stuff and now am running mainly 3/4" - 1" punch slugs, and its really, really loud. I suspect that the full-er it is, the quieter it will run, too. Just turn it on when you leave the shop and let it run when you're not there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KYBOY Posted July 10, 2012 Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 Ive been thinking of making one..The tumbler barrel is no problem..Though Im trying to decide on the easiest way to have it run sloooowwww... I have a 14" pulley, I know that if i use a 1 3/4" pulley on a 1750rpm motor that it will give me about 215 rpms but thats still a bit fast..Im guessing another set of pulleys for a kind of jack shaft set up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John McPherson Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Lots of ways to do this. Truck tires upright between two rollers, re-purposed cement mixer, old water tank skewered on a pipe axle covered with carpet on the outside. Low speed or geared down motor. Putting it in a soundproofed cabinet helps maintain sanity. Dumping the finished contents into a chicken wire bottom box speeds up the process of media separation. One of my acquaintances buys barrels of new horseshoes and "antiques" them by putting them in a cement mixer with gravel. He then spot welds them into gun racks, hat racks and mirror frames and such. Very big on the 'horsey' circuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JNewman Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 It was one of the tools I planned on making for years but I found one on kijiji dirt cheap. The one I have is an old air tank with a door cut in it, a gear box and a chain drive. It turns about 40-50rpm and I have a bunch of sharp scraps of steel that I have hot cut off work and a handful of wood screws in it as media. It works well for knocking scale or welding slag off work. The tumbler came with a bunch of commercial polishing media in it and it just polished the scale rather than removing most of it. I would like to get some aggressive steel grit or ironworker punchings for it to get into corners a little better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Over the years I have sourced several geared speed reducers for scrap rate at the local scrap yard (and sometimes cheaper at the fleamarket---heavy stuff the dealer doesn't want to have to take home!) Add in a pulley reduction too and you are good to go (commercial dryers have awesomely large pulleys for instance...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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