Tumbled blade finish and tumbled Ti finish - How are you doing it?

J S Machine

Well-Known Member
Curious how some of you are getting good tumbled finishes on both blades and titanium. I have messed around with a few blades and done an etch, followed by tumbling with various media. I have gotten favorable results.

Ti has been a whole 'nother story. I have not gotten anything that I am really crazy about. I use a mix of ceramic pyramid looking media and driveway rocks, which is basically river rock. I only have a vibrating tumbler. I don't know if a rotary is the answer or what, but all I ever seemed to get is a matte sandblasted look. I'm looking for that sort of hammered look.

Any hints on how you guys do either one of these would be appreciated.
 
If you're looking more for the "commercial" stonewashed finish, I'm not sure you'll get it with a benchtop vibratory tumbler. It's does a better job of cleaning and deburring, than giving you that stonewashed "scratch" pattern.

I've been thinking about building a rotary style tumbler myself, as I've seen what look to be better results from other makers. In fact, I've seen some really nice stonewashing from guys using only a cement mixer with a mixture of media in there, from river rock to ceramic media, and maybe even some other random stuff.
 
Seems like when I was deep into trying to figure out how to do it, I had arrived at the same conclusion - that a benchtop vibratorywasprobably not going to do it. There has got to be someone out there that has a homemade rotary. I even tried a paint can with a sanding disk drill attachment glued to the bottom as an arbor, with it chucked up in the lathe spinning at slow speed. It worked okay, but it wasn't what I was really loking for.
 
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