can you tumble polish wood like you would gems or shell casings?

[Roger Feeley]

I made domino sets a couple of years ago and spent a LOT of time sanding and breaking the edges. I'm thinking about a similar project involving hundreds of small wood parts that will all have to be sanded. Mostly, I just want to break sharp edges.

I wonder why I couldn't put the parts into a rotating drum with some abrasive.

[Brian Kent]

You might be the first Creeker to try. See what happens.

[johnny means]

Tumbling wood in an abrasive can create a very different effect on wood than it does on metal or stone. Metal and stone are going to have a homogenous hardness throughout, so they will wear evenly giving you a polished finish. Wood on the other hand is going to have differing levels of hardness across different layers of the grain. What you are thinking of doing creates an aged look, with the harder layers being more pronounced due to the wearing away of softer layers. It will however polish the material and depending on the species may create a deeper texture or none at all. Softwoods are particularly good for creating this effect.

[Rich Engelhardt]

can you tumble polish wood like you would gems or shell casings?Good question....


I'm thinking about a similar project involving hundreds of small wood parts that will all have to be sanded. Mostly, I just want to break sharp edges.

I have a Dillon CV-750 Vibratory Case Cleaner with corn cob media in it.
That should be gentle enough to not tear up the wood and still break the sharp edges.

Would it help you any if I tossed some scraps of red oak and poplar in it for a few hours to see? That's all I have as far as scrap hardwood. Well, that and a small piece of white oak floor transition. Come to think of it, I may have some scrap white oak flooring too.

Case cleaners aren't all that cheap though. One like my Dillon runs about $150. Midway USA has one that's smaller and cheaper.
Harbor Freight has one for about $50 that's a house fire looking for a place to happen & another one that's about the same price as the Dillon.

If this is a one shot deal, it may not pay to buy one.
You could always ask around and see if anyone is close by you that reloads & has one.

[Rick Lizek]

http://books.google.com/books?id=RdwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA941&lpg=PA941&dq=abrasive+tumbling+of+wood+parts&source=bl&ots=rTXEL52oKF&sig=nvJ0DTqsKbxL4u-rLmdTo_1oLC8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZQwNUa-cKcbE0QHBmYGoCQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCTgK
It's an old technique. I've seen it done with strips of abrasives.

[Perry Holbrook]

I visited a guys shop many years ago, who had figured this out. He built a larger tumbler, filled it with an abrasive media AND some kind of finishing material. He made childrens play blocks. They went in off the saw and out ready to ship. I was impressed, but apparently not enough to remember any of the details.

For my part I have tried a vibratory tumbler with several different kinds of media. All have been failures. My last effort was using course, 16 grit, aluminum oxode as the media. The company I bought the AO from had warned me that it would probably not work. They advised me the correct approach was using white aluminum oxide and a barrel tumbler. So building a tumbler is "on the list" for my next effort.

Good luck.

Perry

[phil harold]

There is a wide selection of tumbling media that can be used
http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/tumbling-media.htm

[Perry Holbrook]

There is a wide selection of tumbling media that can be used
http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/tumbling-media.htm

These are the folks I was referring to in my post. I bought the AO from them and they said a drum with white AO is what most people use.

Perry

[Rich Engelhardt]

For my part I have tried a vibratory tumbler with several different kinds of media. All have been failures
LOL!
My wife thanks you for that bit of info. ;).

She's sleeping in and I'd have to wake her up to see where she hid my Dillon case cleaner.
Now that it's established it won't work, I can cut her a break and let her sleep another hour.
;)

[mike holden]

There must be some simple way to do this. I bought a bunch of wood "stones" when I was in Costa Rica a few years ago, and I doubt they had anything remotely high tech to do it with, also got a cardboard with sample squares of polished wood attached - kind of like the rock samples I would make my parents buy me when I was a kid.
Mike

[Ted Calver]

One of these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=tumbler
With some of this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/25-lbs-coarse-grade-walnut-shell-blast-media-92150.html
Worth a shot??

[Mark Largent]

http://books.google.com/books?id=RdwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA941&lpg=PA941&dq=abrasive+tumbling+of+wood+parts&source=bl&ots=rTXEL52oKF&sig=nvJ0DTqsKbxL4u-rLmdTo_1oLC8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZQwNUa-cKcbE0QHBmYGoCQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCTgK
It's an old technique. I've seen it done with strips of abrasives.

Very cool.

[Rich Engelhardt]

There must be some simple way to do this. I bought a bunch of wood "stones" when I was in Costa Rica a few years ago, and I doubt they had anything remotely high tech to do it with, also got a cardboard with sample squares of polished wood attached - kind of like the rock samples I would make my parents buy me when I was a kid.Absolutly....I saw a rock tumbler once made out of an old tire.
The tire was filled with sand and rocks. Two pieces of plywood covered the hole in the center of the tire. A threaded rod held the two pieces tight to the tire and also acted as an axle.
The the tire was spun by an electric motor from an old washing machine & and the belt was a couple of old bedsheets tied together.

That contraption turned out polished stones by the ton!

[Perry Holbrook]

One of these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=tumbler
With some of this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/25-lbs-coarse-grade-walnut-shell-blast-media-92150.html
Worth a shot??

That is exactly what I bought to try. Maybe you'll have better luck.

I use it to clean steel and copper parts in varied media and that works fine.

Perry

[ray hampton]

you may be able to tumbler the blocks without adding any abrasives to some degree, I recommended that you start with a small -fine grade of abrasive and work up until you get the results that you want

[Roger Feeley]

I think I know the effect you are talking about. Ash is particularly good for this too. When I was in college, we made a mold for a polyurethane planter. the pattern was from ash that we sandblasted. Then we made a silicone negative into which we injected the polyurethane.

I would think that using something like sandblast media would give that effect. Perhaps the better abrasive would be larger. something like 5mm ceramic spheres....

[Roger Feeley]

Thanks to everyone that responded. the Popular Science article was really neat.

The impression I get is that this can and has been done. But it's always a one-off and no one has published any procedures that can easily be replicated by all. There might be a FWW article here.

[M Toupin]

Roger,

Tumbling your parts will work, I've done it a number of times when I had a lot of small parts to sand and break the edges on. I use my lathe and a plastic coffee can with wood disks attached to the ends for the chuck and center to mount to. It doesn't have to be real robust as you're just keeping everything aligned and turning it fairly slow. For "media" I just cut up sandpaper into 1/2" squares. Nothing exact, 180 grit and probably 2-3 sheets added to the can about half full of small parts. I found that about 2 hours or so is about right, but just keep an eye on them and you'll figure out what works best. You'll need either a VS lathe that you can slow way down maybe one of the cheap HF rock tumblers or an inexpensive fishing rod finishing motor can be cannibalized or adapted to work. You just need something that will give you 30-40 rpms or so. You want to go slow enough so the parts tumble, too fast and they get slung to the outside and don't sand.
Mike

[Kevin Guarnotta]

This is a fantastic idea...that pop mechanics article is great. I was hoping to make a set of building blocks for my son, I was not looking forward to sanding and finishing them all. I'd love to hear any reports, or see pics of set-ups that you guys try...if/when I get to it, I'll be sure to post.

[John Schumer]

I have used "pyramids" for that exact application, works great and does not hurt the wood.
Look in your local yellow pages and find a sand blasting media supplier.
John

[mike holden]

I just watched an episode of "how do they do it" on clothes pins. The pins are beech and simply tumbled together to soften the edges. So, simply tumbling wood can and does work.
Mike

[Kevin Guarnotta]

how do they tumble them? Do they use something like the pop science thing? How does a home shop go about it? in other words, where do you find a motor that turns that slowly? or do you need to devise some sort of pulley system?

[ray hampton]

how do they tumble them? Do they use something like the pop science thing? How does a home shop go about it? in other words, where do you find a motor that turns that slowly? or do you need to devise some sort of pulley system?



you can either use gears to attain your deserve speed or use pulley system

[Thomas Canfield]

I do remember seeing about 10 years back that someone was using a tumbler with crumpled sandpaper to break the edges on wooden toys. I don't remember what grit paper or size of tumbler used, but would expect that grit would need to be about 100 to 180 and a fairly loose fill tumbler.