So a while back, I eluded to fact that I was going to make a vibratory polisher for alloy parts. Some of you are scratching your heads asking what the... is a vibratory polishing , let me explain. The process was invented by Chrysler in the 1930's as a way to strengthen gears and engine parts by tumbling parts with physical media and a liquid compound , the process became known as super finishing or mass finishing or isotropic finishing. The problem Chrysler was trying to fix was that some gears would fail, if they looked at the cast gears under a microscope, they could see peaks and troughs in the metal, they determined that these troughs can lead to a failure, so by tumbling the gears with a medium and compound, peaks and troughs were removed or at least minimized thus making the part stronger and less susceptible to breaking. @maelstrom did this process on his FZR400 gearbox. One of the bonus outcomes of this process is a highly polished finish ... shiney smooth. Using the same process but choosing a different type media and compound, you can get similar finishes on wheels and other alloy components. This is what caught my eye and has led me down this path. Watch this video on How wheels are cleaned. I reckon that is a bit of alright so I today I went to the bank and paid a crazy amount of money ( think ZX10 and T500 plus a bit more cash ) to buy my own commercial polisher that can polish up to 30inch wheels and over 1000 kgs of polishing media. Yay Delivery is 6 weeks away. I am focusing on parts polishing rather than mass finishing gears and cranks, I may move to that later, but my customers want their swingarms shiny, not their cranks..... plus all the racing boys can't touch their crank \ rods or they will get disqualified. Kiffstas new toy , it even has a control box So back to my home made project. I have seen a few vids on this process and figured , how hard can in be ? I need a base, a tub , suspension and something to make it shake. One of my customers is a metal fabricator and he made me up a base to use and I have been searching for a tank to use. One of the guys across the road does LPG tank certifications and always has a heap old tanks which he sends to scrap, so I asked him to keep an eye out for me for a larger one. this one arrived in Jan My Base My Tank is 100cm long and 40cm wide. my suspension The next challenge was to add some suspension so I popped into Bunnings and picked up 2 lengths of 20mm threaded rod which were 1.2m long. I cut them down to 30cm long and found a medium strength spring to slide up the rod. I then purchased some rather large washers and nylock bolts to retain them. I am by no means a metal worker and am pretty dangerous with a grinder, so I called my mate who made the stand, he popped down, checked out my idea and said yep I can do that. I ran all the parts up to him yesterday and basically he is going to mount 4 threaded roads per side to the top of the frame, then use a section of 90 degree iron to make a top plate . Once that is done, he is going to cut the top 30% of the tank off and then weld to the top plate to the tank and install a drain. Then use the rod and springs to suspend the tank. I have purchased 2 single phase motors with variable speed control to bolt to each side of the tank. Finally, the tank will be lined with polyurethane so the parts wont get damaged while they are in there. There are loads of unknowns, will the springs be up to the task ? Will the shaker motors be able to give it a big enough shake... I really don't know , but seems like a fun thing to do and try. This tank polisher should be able to polish swingarms, fork legs, triple trees, spoked wheel hubs, Will keep you posted on my progress. Now you can laugh at my sketches Here are some vibratory polished parts
I had planned on buying 2 so some jobs can be done with plastic cone media and the other machine running the ceramic , but they are just too expensive. If all goes to plan, I will eventually buy one like this. So I can do exhausts etc The internal chamber on it is 1.3 meters long and can be segmented so you can do multiple jobs without the parts colliding
I think you're onto it, it may take experimentation as to the amount of unbalance that you need to make it shake Is you've ever peered into a broken mobile phone you'll find the haptic feedback device which makes them buzz when in silent, it's just a severely unbalanced weight on a tiny motor
Looks good. I had looked into this sort of abrasive process and was planning to use a brass case tumbler for small parts at home, but while it does have the advantage of being a dry process, it does have some size limitations that dictates the parts you can fit in. Some interesting (if very expensive) products on this page for anyone interested: https://www.bvproducts.com.au/
Bv make good kit , but it was too dear for me , if I get into mass finishing down the track , then I will buy a BV unit my sparky dropped by and wired up one of my motors , even though it is small, it has quite a kick . I hope 2 of them will be big enough to effectively shake the tub
For some reason I assumed these would be screaming at an ultrasonic frequency. You know, because all good tools have filling rattling capabilities. ugadugga
Blimey this takes me back to the 80's when I worked in a food mixer production factory. I worked in what they called the scurf shop where they had all manner of metal polishing wheels set up and abrasive belts in one section and another section had the wet blasters or vapour blasting as it is known now, also had dry blasting cabinets big enough to fit motorcycle frames in, in the last section they had what was called then the rumblers just massive versions of what Kiffsta is building and they had much smaller ones ideal for wheels and other parts. As well as varying grades of media cones they also had one filled with small ball bearings which gave a really bright finish to alloy but you could not put engine parts that had oil ways in them or the balls would get jammed in them, they called the system with the bearings ball burnishing. Also had degreasing tanks, paint stripping tanks and powder coating section as well. I used to earn more doing bike parts some weeks than I did wages from the factory. I think the detergent fluid used had a code name of L 65 which was good for not staining alloy parts there is another fluid used but that was for steels only as it was too aggressive for alloys. Good luck building your machine Kiffsta and hope it works out well.
Cheers mate , that place sounds like candy land to me . I have seen the finish with the ball bearings and steel tubes , comes up pretty well. I am focusing on alloys so the plastic cone seems best for me. I have been busy cleaning up the shed and disposing of stuff at the scrap yard so I can build a sealed room for my new toys. I am waiting for my machine to arrive before committing to another 2 bowl tumblers , I want some smaller single phase machines for small jobs pretty excited
Cool, it’s back from the welder time to line the tank , buy a bung and fit the motors If it all goes to ****, then I have a kick arse bbq grill
Good news, I received notification that my big commercial machine is packed in its container and is waiting to be shipped, I should hopefully have it mid May. I have told a few people I have ordered this machine, and some mag wheels have been donated so I can do some demo pieces. Still no jellybean mags, nothing screams Aussie muscle like a jellybean mag
My sparky came in last week and cabled up some 3 phase power points for me. I managed to get some more work done on my home made tub today, I have lined the tub with rubber , the cost of polyurethane is expensive, rubber is fine for my proof of concept for doing dry runs. I also fitted my newer more powerful vibration motors , the motors I originally bought had 25kg of force, the new ones are 100G each, I just need some wiring to fit the variable controllers and put the plugs on the motors and I should be good to go. I received an update from the shipper of my commercial machine including the ships name, I googled the name and found tracking information , it is 2 days out of port . Im not sure how long customs will take, but things are getting exciting. New toys are going to be so much fun , I did some vapour blasting for a guy last week who has a collection of 60's and 70's muscle cars and we wants a heap of rims and other parts polished once I have it up and running.
Bigger than I thought it would be , tomorrow I will anchor it to the ground and hope the sparky shows up and we can see how she performs. I also finally powered up my home made unit, it shakes the tub quite well, now that my vibrating cones are here , I will put some parts in and have a crack . things have been a bit hectic of late , I need a day off so I can get my zxr registered and on the road