Butter wrote:
On Oct 31, 12:47 pm, "Steve W." wrote:
Butter wrote:
By big i am thinking capacity of 1000 lbs. This is to tumble
steel parts coming off our plasma cutting table. My boss came and
asked me to be on the lookout for gearbox and 5 or 10hp motors.
I'm well known for scrounging around here. He wants us to build
something to tumble and debur the parts coming off the cutting
table. The largest would be 1in thick and 12in by 12in. So i want
to look into this since i have little faith in our recent grad of
an "engineer" to design this well, and i think it would be
interesting to get involved in this.. So are there any sites with
info on these? I'll i find when i search are "Rock Tumblers"
About all my boss said was these things sort of self destruct and
we'll be replacing chains and parts. What we have is our Plasma
table, large rolls, and welders.
They don't usually self destruct IF they were built right. The ones
we had were real simple. They had a large drum made of 1/2" thick
steel panels welded along each edge, with one that locked in place
with simple dog locks. The end caps were the same steel and welded
all the way around. On each end were two pairs of pillow blocks
with stub shafts that bolted to the tumbler body. Power for
rotation was a simple hydraulic drive motor that connected to one
stub shaft with a sprocket. Had a control lever that allowed you to
roll the drum either way. Used to tumble a LOT of stuff in there,
Abrasive wise it used a standard ceramic media just like the
vibratory units.http://www.thermalfab.com/manufacturing.htmTake a
look at the picture of their tumbler about half way down the page.
Ours was almost a twin to that, Just a bit more
"used"http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/barrel-finishing-systems.htmhttp://www.almco.com/main.html


We also had a medium sized vibratory unit. It worked great on
things that you couldn't tumble but it was N O I S Y!!!!! You
couldn't run it during normal production hours because it was so
loud. Had to run it on third shift when you could load it, hit the
switch and get well away from it.

http://www.vibratoryfinishing.com/v12.htm And here is a used one
just like it!

-- Steve W.

Thanks for the links. We will probably use 3/8 since we have so much
of that size steel scrap and roll a drum i'm guessing.

You don't want a true circular drum if at all possible. The parts will
just slide around and not tumble. Adding paddles doesn't work real well
as they tend to do more damage then help. The sectional drum avoids this
with the angles of the drum causing the media/parts to tumble.
If you have a good sized break you could make it in one piece easy enough.

--
Steve W.