The Vibratory Tumbler is supplied...
The Vibratory Tumbler is supplied ready to use, with two bowls: one for the Green Rust Cutting Media and another for the DryShine Media. This is great as it saves removing the media each time, as the bowls can easily be swapped over.
Let’s face it—we’d all like a media blasting cabinet in our home shop, though not many of us have the space to dedicate to one! But taking small parts to a media blaster is always a crap shoot as to whether you’ll get ’em all back again. Those little pieces always seem to go missing.
Eastwood’s Vibratory Tumbler may very well be the answer. It’s small, inexpensive, and can handle parts 7 inches long and 2 inches wide, though it works best with numerous parts no larger than 3 inches in length. Plus, once it’s loaded and switched on, you can get on with other tasks while it does its thing.
We should stress from the outset, however, that it will not remove paint, but is ideal for removing rust, and with a change of media, will produce a reflective shine. The Tumbler is supplied with two forms of media, a Green Rust Cutting Media, which can be used wet or dry, and a DryShine Media. The former will remove rust, with a processing time of between three and seven hours, while the latter needs a minimum of six hours, with longer periods yielding a higher shine. Both types of media should be used in a ratio of 70 percent media to 30 percent parts. There’s no need to use all the media each time, and in fact doing so will reduce the performance. The bowl should be filled by weight rather than volume, especially when using a wet solution, as it’s designed to take a 5-pound total load, parts to be treated included.
[1] The two types of media...
[1] The two types of media are very different. The pyramid-shaped Rust Cutting Media is on the left, with the more granular DryShine media on the right.
The instructions supplied are pretty simple, but need to be followed to obtain the best results. The Tumbler should be placed on a solid floor. It has rubber feet to prevent it from walking, but we found out the hard way that if the hand knob inside the bowl isn’t tightened down fully, the bowl will move excessively and cause the unit to walk pretty well. Ours managed to rotate itself enough times that it pulled the power cord from the wall socket while unattended. Purely down to user error, once we tightened the knob, it performed flawlessly for six hours afterward with the DryShine media installed.
Obviously with processing times of several hours, the Tumbler can be left to work its magic overnight, providing nicely cleaned parts ready to use the following morning!
[2] We elected to test the...
[2] We elected to test the Tumbler on these early Ford front spindle nuts and washers, plus a couple of inner wheel bearing races, all of which had seen better days. We hit them all with a wire brush to remove the loose rust and any grease before placing them in the Tumbler.
[3] We also threw in a couple...
[3] We also threw in a couple of old Ford brake line clamps and a circlip. The more the merrier!
[4] Keen to see the progress,...
[4] Keen to see the progress, we stopped the Tumbler after three hours, with these results. While the paint was still on the brake line clamps as expected, the remainder of the parts looked way better than they had previously.
[5] Switching bowls, we reloaded...
[5] Switching bowls, we reloaded the bearing races, circlip, and a washer to test the DryShine media.
[6] After exactly six hours...
[6] After exactly six hours (look, we’re impatient OK!), here are our results. Pretty impressive we’d say. From junk parts to reusable ones, and the best part is, we didn’t have to break a sweat to get the job done!
[7] Curious to see what the...
[7] Curious to see what the DryShine media would do on its own, we masked off half of this old radiator cap. The right side is after three hours with the DryShine media. It looks a little different, but feels much smoother.