Polishing wood in a rumbler or tumbler

[echnidna]

I am looking for ways of repetitively smoothing\polishing numerous small timber items.
Years ago I saw a rumbler used for polishing wood.
It was a rubber lined octagonal timber drum used to polish small wood items instead of sanding them. It was like an overgrown gemstone tumbler.
Hoping someone can give some info please or point me in the right direction. I cannot find anything in a google search.

[soundman]

This months aust wood review has an article on The cullen family operation which makes handles It mentiones they tumble handles. not much detail But might be worth a look.

they tumble with blocks of parifin wax.

[Toymaker Len]

I tried tumbling blocks of timber a few years ago. Built a big wooden barrell, half filled it with scraps of sand paper then threw in about a hundred blocks and turned it on at slow seed (about 30 rpm). It made a horrendous noise and I left it going for a few hours at a time. Eventually we developed a reasonable rough sanding result but never could get rid of little impact bumps where one piece had fallen into another and bruised it. The rumbler used to build up quite a lot of heat as there was no dust extraction to keep cool air moving through. I began to think it might be an explosion hazard and eventually junked the whole thing. People also suggested using other mediums such as rice husks and commercial sandblasting grit. You might even be able to pick up a big second hand rumber from the metal industry where thay are used to deburr small parts. Good luck with it I would love to hear how you get on.

[afm]

Would you be so kind as to post some schematic drawing of that device?
Thank you.

afm

[Woodwould]

I know when sewing cotton used to come on wooden (Birch) reels, the manufacturer used to tumble the reels in a very home-made looking drum with crushed Walnut shells and parafin wax. There must be a certain amount of crushed shell in the drum to cushion the tumbling reels as well as abrade them.

The drum was crudely made from eight (or six?) planks which didn't seal very well which I now believe was intentional. The thing was enveloped in a dust cloud when running.

[Toymaker Len]

This post has just jumped FIVE YEARS ! Is this a record ? I don't have a drawing handy but anyway a rumbler is a simple device. Imagine a barrel on its side mounted on an axle and with a motor to make it turn slowly. Then imagine a door cut into the side of the barrel to allow access to the inside of the barrel. That is all there is to it. There are heaps of them around from little gemstone tumblers to huge coal powdering machines the size of a locomotive.

[Bob38S]

Not sure if it helps but bullet case cleaners [tumblers or vibrating bowls] use crushed corn cob as the media - I have also heard of dry rice being used but it doesn't last long.

[afm]

Woodwould, Toymaker Len, Bob38s:
Thanks for your comments.
I am in a toy making project, and trying to avoid hand sanding. Or to minimise it.

[soundman]

I thing you will find that rumbling works quite well for steel parts, but I don't think it will give as fin a finish as oter methods will nor as fast,

Stationary belt sanders are hard to compete with for flat surfaces, bobbin sanders do a pretty good job on edges and inside curves, stationary disks work well on outer curves.

AND I recon the best thing for complex shapes has to be the shredded disk or drum.
where the sand paper is shredded into strips of an appropriate size.

remember you will never compete with the third world manufactured items that are finished for a bowl of rice a day.

cheers

[Toymaker Len]

Soundman is right. The only place I've seen a fine finish out of a tumbler/rumbler was Sugar Creek toys who used a rumbler to paint turned wooden dolls. It sounds odd but I've seen it done. They would put fifty or so pieces into the painting rumbler and pour in some paint then turn it on. The resulting paint was perfectly evenly spread with an absolute minimum of paint used. So I guess that with a lot of trial and error you might be able to get a good sanding job out of a rumbler.

[RETIRED]

We used to sand building blocks that way.

Used a square box with a couple of small steel baffles. Turned at about 20-30RPM.

Noisy as hell but we had it 200 yards away so it didn't annoy us.

[Andy Mac]

Another option I have heard about is to move the drum/box in a reciprocating way, not the full rotation but rather a rocking motion. I believe the stroke was adjustable, so the action inside on the parts could be gentle. Can't exactly remember where I heard about this, might have been a guy I met who manufactured small metal (rigging) parts for yachts.
I've thought even saw dust or shavings of various grades could be used, like burnishing on a lathe.

Cheers