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9:56 pm
May 13, 2010
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Thanks Grant, I have been planning on making a tumbler to fill with sharp bits of scrap to clean up forgings. Many of the tools and tongs I am making are 3' -4' long and that would take a huge vibratory machine. Currently lot of the stuff I am delivering with scale from heat treat or forging on it. I sometimes take a wire wheel to stuff but it is dangerous and time consuming. A guy I used to work with was always saying "if you can't make it right make it pretty" even for industrial forgings particularly tools I think looking "pretty" helps customers feel they are getting quality.
10:45 pm
March 18, 2010
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You really need something more aggressive than a vibratory machine. A wheelabrator would be best, but a tumbler will do fine. Don't you have any foundry friends with wheelabrators? No small foundries? Blast cabinets work well too.
“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot,
but then there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence,
transform a yellow spot into the sun.” ~ Pablo Picasso ~
2:55 am
May 13, 2010
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The two shops with wheelabrators that would run stuff for me are both 45 min away. I prefer the peened look you get from a wheelabrator or tumbler to the look you get from sandblasting, my heat treater sometimes beadblasts things after heattreating and it sometimes seems to accentuate hammer marks.
11:16 am
March 26, 2010
Offline1:23 am
Grant;1076 wrote: Hard to believe I've made 1/4 million of these pieces! 'Bout 300 pieces here.
[Image Can Not Be Found] The one on top is the upset piece I started with.
The tong on top looks like the Hofi beginning of his power hammer tongs. I once watched
Tom Clark make those at his shop using the combo dies. Pretty slick, and well thought out overall.
JE
5:17 pm
NWBA Member
August 1, 2010
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When I look up that term on the web I get a company that burns waste for power (part of the waste management conglomerate) and shops that have them, but no description of what they are (or where you would get one, or how they're different from vibratory debur, or???)
6:40 pm
March 18, 2010
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Same company I guess, but they've expanded their product offering. We always called them "Wheelabrators", but I guess the call them "Tumblast" machines. They have a chamber with a loop of rubber or steel belting that slow tumbles the work while an overhead shotwheel throws grit or shot it the work.
Here's a link: Wheelabrator Tumblast Machine
“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot,
but then there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence,
transform a yellow spot into the sun.” ~ Pablo Picasso ~
7:36 pm
NWBA Member
August 1, 2010
Offline
Thanks - very helpful link, which includes a good video.
The thing looks and works like the offspring of a vibratory deburr machine and a blasting cabinet. (May have come first for all I know.)
Couldn't one generally achieve the same effect with a vibratory deburr machine of enough power/energy, the right media, and a long enough run time? The tumblast seems like a big batch industrial affair.
8:20 pm
NWBA Member
April 22, 2010
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For what a wheelabrator does, a vibratory machine would not do the job.
They use wheelabrators for HEAVY deburring and finishing, at high speed, and high volume.
I was in a shop a while ago that does custom cast iron streetlight poles- and, fresh from the foundry, every one gets the big lumps knocked off with an angle grinder, and then gets sent thru the wheelabrator.
These are 12' to 24' poles, often with the arms already attached.
A vibratory tumbler would have to be the size of an olympic swimming pool to do that, and it would take a week to do what a wheelabrator does in 5 minutes.
Same thing with structural steel, which is often wheelabrated, then primed, after being cut to size and punched, but before being sent out to be assembled into a skyscraper.
A wheelabrator can have an 80 foot beam fed thru it.
Vibratory is slow, and relatively speaking, gentle. Works ok for aluminum, but wont do much for steel. I have a vibratory machine, it wont take the plasma slag off a freshly cut piece if you leave it in all week.
Many smiths use tumblers, instead- which are just revolving cylinders, and use things like punchouts from ironworkers or old nuts and bolts for a media.
This is much more aggressive than a vibratory machine, and will knock off mill scale and round off corners, depending on how long you leave it in.
8:43 pm
March 18, 2010
Offline
I get pretty good results from my vibratory machine, but I have it filled with steel "grit" and punchings and cut-offs. I run 20 - 25 tongs through in five minutes, but I'm just knocking off the loose scale pretty much. It will grind down to bare metal in an hour, but won't take off much in the way of burrs.
“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot,
but then there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence,
transform a yellow spot into the sun.” ~ Pablo Picasso ~
1:37 pm
May 13, 2010
Offline
The foundry I started my apprenticeship at had 2 wheelibrators that they shotblasted locomotive frames in. These were table units, the frame went in on a rotating table that rode on tracks. They also had a unit that they hung train sideframes and bolsters from hooks which then ran through the cabinet so the castings could be blasted. I have been told that careful use of a table wheelibrator can be used to straighten warped iron castings. All the steel shot peens the one side of the casting which will bend it.
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