Parts tumbler aggregate ?

[woodchucker]

I wanted to find a fast way to deburr parts that are hard to do with a file. So I made a parts tumbler out of an old air compressor tank I had. I tried the harbor freight ceramic but it seems too fine and took hours to make any noticeable difference, So then I tried crushed stone but that is so heavy I have really speed the machine up to get it to move at all. Any recommendations on that media would have a fast aggressive cut? Thanks

The ceramic was too fine? You sure your not taking the plastic triangles. The ceramic gives me pretty fast work. I sometimes add soap and water to it. mine is the small HF vibratory tumbler.

 

[Bi11Hudson]

For most of my deburring projects, some wood, some metal, I have used a Horrible Fright cement mixer. The smallest, electric powered one. It's about useless for cement work, but with various media is quite good at deburring. I turn it on and go do something else for the rest of the day. For media, it depends a lot on what I have handy. For smoother work, I generally use industrial grade sand blasting media. Essentially large grain silica. Clean mason's sand works almost as well. There are times I am looking for a finer finish. Corn cob media, glass beads, any number of precision blasting media that give the finish I am looking for.

The cement mixer was cheap, the second one I bought. The first one was modified to fit a Catagory 1 three point on a small tractor and used the PTO to drive it. The other one is "as designed" with the electric motor intact. Less than $75 either time. The electric one has never been used for any wet material, it's nice and shiney inside. Well. . . surface rust which probably is an aid to the media.

A supply house that specializes in sand blasting media usually stocks 50 and 100 pound bags of most media. Then there is Amazon, which has smaller bags of the more common stuff. WWGrainger used to stock it, but they tend to be a little more costly. The most recent I acquired was from Amazon, about as fine as baking soda, for a small model builder's airbrush size blasting gun. The larger stuff I acquired in 100 pound bags a while back. Not sure of the price now, I bought it for other purposes before I got the second cement moxer.

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