The traditional way to clean and polish brass stampings involves tumbling these parts in a vibratory finishing machine, using agro media (such as walnut shell or corn cob). At ActOn Finishing we developed a more efficient process for tumbling brass stampings using ceramic media. This is a much faster process and it produces repeatable high-quality finishing results, even when the components are heavily tarnished.
Why you should switch to a wet tumbling process?
When cleaning and polishing brass stampings with corn cob or walnut shell in a vibratory tumbler, you can face a range of issues. From long processing times (sometimes up to 8 hours, depending on the part initial condition) to having to carry out rework and not achieving a consistent polished finish.
In comparison with a dry tumbling process, a wet finishing application using ceramic media has a number of advantages:
- Reduces processing times (even to a 40 minutes’ process)
- Produces a consistent finish, hence there is no need to carry out rework and you avoid high part rejects rates.
- There is a low probability of damaging delicate or large parts due to the circular motion of components and media.
- Vibratory finishing allows tumbling brass stampings with corners, holes, cavities and slots.
- Using a wet process, you can clean and polish more effectively the outside and inside of a brass stamping
How tumbling brass stampings with ceramic polishing media will help you to achieve a clean and polished finish?
The recipe to achieve a clean and polished finish involves using the correct machinery, media and compound. Hence you need to start by choosing the most appropriate vibratory finishing machine for your requirements. This depends on the amount of parts you want to process per batch and the size of the components. You can check our range of vibratory tumblers which are appropriate for this finishing process.
For this finishing process, we recommend tumbling the brass stampings in a vibratory finishing bowl with a separation system. This will enable you to quickly separate the media from the parts at the end of the finishing process.
A polishing media and an acidic compound will help in removing the scale and brightening the surface. ActOn recommends our LQ18 compound for this application, as this is designed to remove metal oxides and produce a bright polished finish.
To ensure the brass stampings do not stain after the wet finishing process we recommend drying the parts using an agro media and a vibratory dryer.
The result
- The vibratory finishing process delivers the required finish in a considerably reduced time (approx. 40 min, depending on the part’s initial condition)
- The dimensional integrity of the part is maintained.
- Wet tumbling brass stampings using a vibratory finishing machine will ensure results are consistent.
- Though the initial investment for machinery can be slightly higher, you can enjoy lower operating costs.
If you would like to find out more information regarding our mass finishing expertise please click here, or contact our technical team at [email protected] . To learn more about ActOn’s vibratory finishing technology please click here.