HokieMojo,

LJ Bogdanovich built a DIY version shown on this project page

Good Luck!

Be Careful!

Herb

 

Hi,
I have a rock tumbler ( a small one) and i tried to get my wooden pieces smooth , this way i don't have to sand it one by one with a sanding sponge…
I Left it for couples hours with enough space on it and is NOT WORKING…
I used regular SAND :not working, STEEL SHOT: not working, WALNUT SHELL: not working.
I did not add any liquid or water.

Maybe my tumbler is not enough powerful?
If anyone had success with this kind of experimentation let me know!
Otherwise i will send my small pieces one by one with a sanding sponge..

Thanks!

 

My father used to make peach pit rings and little wooden trinkets when I was a kid and I remember him having one of the vibrating tumblers from Harbor Freight that he wood put these in to make glass smooth. He had it for quite some time,

 

After hand-sanding 1000+ small blocks on a recent project, I did some research into "tumble sanders." They are out there, but I'm not sure how they all work.

I'm tempted to buy an old clothes dryer, throw in some blocks, some scraps of sandpaper, and set it on air tumble for 30 minutes or so. I also looked at portable concrete mixers. Unfortunately, the local hardware store is liquidating their rental tools and I didn't want to pop $200+ for one on speculation that it might work. Next time, I'll seriously check into the back room of the appliance stores.

 

I am currently tumbling some wooden sunglass frames. I started with some barley berries. Like rice, but they seem to be a bit stronger. Ive been told that this will work better than white aluminum oxide. I had a few pair tumbled in whith AO but the problem was that it ate the dark speckle grain of mahogany and walnut much faster than it at the heart wood.

Ill let you guys know how it goes. Im using a tumbler similar to the HF tumbler. not a rotary one like Kramer Industries uses. They ran the first couple for me.

Cheers.
C

 

barley berries did nothing in 45 minutes

 

Not mine but I happened to see this the other day, a DIY wood tumbler.

 

I'm wondering if this might be a use for the rotisserie motor that came with my grill and has never been used. I just put it in the wood shop thinking "I might need this someday".

 

I have done this for small parts for the original tree swing. They were small interlocking stacking men.we used shingle granuals for the medium and it worked terific in a vibratory drum from HF.

 

Did you see this post - http://lumberjocks.com/projects/69912 ?
I thought there were some other posts like this but didn't make them a favorite.

 

I've also heard of people using small pieces of abrasive or sandpaper in loose as an abrasive. Good look. The random tumbling of the part along with the loose small pieces of sandpaper does the work.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

 

REO can you tell me where you got the shingle media? How long did you tumble? Thanks!

 

I am going to try this method on birch plywood. When we use the CNC router, cutting small letters, the edges often comes out a bit rough, and it is a nightmare to sand like 50 small letteres by hand. We bought som sanding sand, and are going to make a home made tumbler. but it sounds like sand isnt the answer.

Great to see that others had the same thought.

Cheers

 

We hand carve jewelry in various woods and then hand sand and hand polish them. The hand sanding is the monotonous part. Has anyone come up with a machine and media which would produce a smooth surface on the wood to some degree at least. Hopefully this would reduce the amount of hand sanding needed.

Much appreciate any suggestions folks.

 

I tried this with a toy rock tumbler. It worked fine for tumbling rocks. I lined the drum with 60 grit paper. It eventually worked, but it ran for several weeks (I think it was 3 weeks).

There are some projects posted on LJs a few years ago that used a drill motor in bottom of a coffee can with sandpaper lining. The higher speeds worked much better.

 

tumbler

I built one of these but it has two disks to run on a rock tumbler. My media is a bunch of one-inch squares of 220 grit sandpaper, mixed with walnut shell grit. The grit keeps the pieces from knocking into each other, and the sandpaper is a lot more aggressive than the grit, but 220 just rounds the edges. Harder wood takes a bit of a polish after a few hours (maple, ebony, yellow pine). Softer wood never really gets silky smooth, but my aim is to soften the edges as the result is blocks for kids. KEVA or KAPLA blocks in poplar get finished in a couple of hours in a small (six inch diameter barrel), three or four hours in the larger octagonal barrel. The barrel with grit and sandpaper runs very quietly. The small barrel with just sandpaper was loud enough to need a silencing dome (cardboard box).

 

1906 popular mechanics p. 145 has an article on tumbling table legs. 6’ long drum, 3’ diameter, 36rpm tumbled with pieces of sandpaper for a couple of hours.
I’m sanding blocks in 220 sandpaper octagonal drum rubber lined 24 hours to make hard wood child safe.

 

I use a brass tumbler with ceramic media
It works great for taking the sharp edges of little pieces