How to Build an Abrasive Part Tumbler - DIY Tool

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In this video, I make an abrasive tumbler out of stuff I had laying around. The abrasive media is 5lbs of green resin "rust cutting" pyramids purchased from Harbor Freight.

Materials used:
-(4) Casters
-(1) Windshield Wiper Motor
-(1) 12V Power Supply
-Some Screws, Nuts, and Bolts
-Some scrap pieces of wood

Tools Required:
-Drill with various bits
-Hole saw
-Band saw
-Welder
-Screwdrivers
-Pliers

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Intro and outro music clip is from the song "He Said" by an incredible Akron band called Roid Rage.
https://roidrageband.bandcamp.com/alb...

Some of the gear I use:
Canon G7X Mark III: https://amzn.to/3tiWWlf
Rode Video Micro: https://amzn.to/3s68sib
Uurig G7X Protective Cage: https://amzn.to/3s7c6bw
Micro HDMI Cable:
HDMI to USB Capture Card:

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Youtube:    / nickmakesbreaksstuff  
Website: https://www.moto-obscura.com/
Instagram:   / nick_makes_and_breaks  

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For vintage Italian car parts and accessories (and other fun stuff) check out my website: https://www.moto-obscura.com

Video Transcript:
I thought that I could get away with using swivel casters, but it turned out not to be the case.
So I used a couple L brackets to hold the swivel casters in place. I know I could have used non-swiveling casters, but I didn’t have any on hand and I didn’t really want to spend any more money on this project.

This is the windshield wiper mechanism from a Fiat 850, I’m salvaging the motor off of it and that's what is going to spin the drum.
Since the wiper motor didn’t have a central pivot point, I welded a bolt to it to act as an axle for the drum.

Now I’m adding a couple pieces of wood to the inside of the drum so that it agitates the abrasive media as it rotates.

I threw a lot of bits of metal and stuff in there so I’m going to take it out and wipe it off with a cloth. So let's take a look at was in the tumbler for about an hour.First of all, remember I put this bolt in? This is what it looked like before I put it in. And this is what it looks like upon removing it from the tumbler. This has been in there about an hour and fifteen minutes probably. Not too shabby.

This is a bracket that was on the bottom of a car. It took most of the paint off, unfortunately it took the paint off of the areas that had surface corrosion already. You can see there is still paint here on the areas that aren’t as badly corroded, but it did take a lot of that loose rust off.

Again, it took the paint off and smoothed it down. Parts like these I’d say are ready for paint after being in there for about an hour.
These are some little brake fitting clamps. Usable.
This is the sliding wedge piece off of a fiat brake caliper. It took the corrosion off and is pretty smooth now. This one has a little more corrosion, might want to replace this one.
Here's a couple nuts, usable, not very pretty but they've only been in there for an hour.
These are brake caliper springs and they turned out really nice, those look fantastic.

So like I said, these were in there for about an hour before I stopped it. The motor was getting quite warm, it was 12v the entire time and consistently about 4.5 to 5 amps. So I think I might want to find another motor that is a little bit beefier and maybe slower spinning as well. The only modification I made was to raise up the open end so that the abrasive media doesn’t spill out when I open the lid, but other than that I think I’m going to add an actual power supply and call it a day.

#tools #tumbler #howto