barrelling machine for cleaning up castings

[ShinyLauren]

Going to get some pyramids and/or cones next week and experiment. I'll take some pictures and let y'all know how it goes.

Need to start finishing castings quicker if I'm ever going to expand and leave my horrible job!

[Muggins2003]

Going to get some pyramids and/or cones next week and experiment. I'll take some pictures and let y'all know how it goes.

Need to start finishing castings quicker if I'm ever going to expand and leave my horrible job!

I'm the same. Let me know how you get on. I'm going to experiment too!

[Patstone]

The chap on the video link that Peter posted uses these radial discs for doing most of the polishing starting with the very coarse and finishing with the very fine.
999 1967

[ajda]

http://www.riogrande.com/Product/EVE-G600-Silicon-Polishing-Media,-Gray/339502?Pos=45[/URL] but it's pretty expensive.

Hi Lauren - sorry not to have responded earlier myself, though I think others have already answered better than I could. I have little experience with casting, except for small, simple shapes in Argentium, which does behave a bit differently to other alloys - I'm not even sure what you mean by the "skin".

Timing is probably dependent on the speed and size of the tumbler, the inside shape of barrels, etc, and probably can only be worked out by experimentation/trial and error with your own kit. My tumbler is quite small and primitive and I use basic plastic barrels with vanes on the inside. I tend to tumble things for an hour or two or three, then check, then repeat until I get to where I want, but sometimes I'll throw caution to the winds and leave it 12 hours or more at a go... Generally I'm probably over-cautious - I've not yet damaged anything or lost significant surface detail by over-tumbling.

I'd be very interested to try out the Rio silicone stuff, if anyone finds it at reasonable prices anywhere, but suspect the best solution might be hand finishing with the radial discs Patstone mentions.

Alan

[Hannah Jackson]

Hi,

I use something similar, but I use the pre-impregnated cones from Rio Grande, so there is no messing about with changing grit etc, just have to change the media. When it is working, it works well, but it is a pain in the a** to get right, i'm still experimenting with mine. According to the guys at Rio, your pieces need to be left running in the barrel tumbler for 12-14 hours PER stage with their abrasive media. There is a good info sheet about it here - http://www.raytechmetalfinishing.com...-finishing.php

The guys at Rio said the Standard Plastic Media Fine(Green) Cones is equivalent to 800 grit, Medium Plastic Media (Blue) is equvalent to 600 grit and then for really really rough castings Ceramic Grinding Media was equivalent to 200-400 grit (Item #: 339416). Although I still haven't got mine to fully work yet.

At the moment, I am doing the rough stuff by hand and with Radial Discs, then just using the Fine Plastic Media & Green Dry Buff Media to pre-polish and polish lots of pieces at once... then I give it a quick final polish by hand with Luxi Orange. When I get it to work, I can see how it could shave hours off of the finishing process.

Rio have a good blog about finishing up castings with abrasives in a tumbler here - http://riograndeblog.com/2013/11/ash...tary-tumblers/

[Dennis]

Thank you for sharing that Hannah. It will be a great step forward for our members. Dennis.

[ShinyLauren]

Thanks Alan, and Hannah that's really helpful! I'll give those documents a read before I buy anything