Thread: Tumbling Without Removing the Pins

The edge could be taped. If the edge does not desperately
need polishing line up the tape to protect
the last 1/16" of the blade and it will not be as DULL.

Has anybody thought about how the media flows in the tumbler? It always flows in one direction, counterclockwise in mine. If you put a blade in through a slot, only one side would be polished. You would have to flip the blade around to allow the second side to come in direct contact with the media, making your tumbling time double. Just a thought.

Originally Posted by rrp1501

Has anybody thought about how the media flows in the tumbler? It always flows in one direction, counterclockwise in mine. If you put a blade in through a slot, only one side would be polished. You would have to flip the blade around to allow the second side to come in direct contact with the media, making your tumbling time double. Just a thought.

What kind of tumbler do you have? I think a vibratory tumbler might appear to crate a whirlpool effect, but below the surface everything is washing around. If you're really concerned, twist the razor so that the blade is horizontal.

To really grasp what's going on inside a tumbler, you need to understand the complex science behind fluid dynamics. This might help.

Originally Posted by BingoBango

What kind of tumbler do you have? I think a vibratory tumbler might appear to crate a whirlpool effect, but below the surface everything is washing around. If you're really concerned, twist the razor so that the blade is horizontal.

To really grasp what's going on inside a tumbler, you need to understand the complex science behind fluid dynamics. This might help.

Wow, if only my engineering professors at the universaty coulld have presented information that clearly, I probably would have my PHD by now!

Well, it's been about 36 hours - long enough to get an idea of what's going on.

Originally Posted by BingoBango

. . .
The only problem I see with the "dipping" method is that the "water line" of the media flows up and down a bit. You might get a nice even gradation of polish to no polish, but you won't be able to control it quite the same as the idea of sticking it through a slot or something.

If I did the "stick it through the slot" method, I'd try to polish right up the the tang, and hopefully I could mimic the look of a blued tang - just with tarnish.

As for using painter's tape - you'd have to watch that the edges don't start coming up or wrap a few layers in case.

Well, there is a "water line" and here it's visible:



This photo was taken before I wiped the blade with the "workhorse" (ie: dirty) microfiber cloth in the background. You can see that about 80% of the blade was immersed in the media.

These pictures were taken after I wiped the surface,



and sort of show the tumbler beginning to do its work of polishing the (apparently not well sanded) blade.

Originally Posted by rrp1501

Has anybody thought about how the media flows in the tumbler? It always flows in one direction, counterclockwise in mine. If you put a blade in through a slot, only one side would be polished. You would have to flip the blade around to allow the second side to come in direct contact with the media, making your tumbling time double. Just a thought.

I didn't think that this would be the case, but I did observe that there was a slight but noticable difference in the location of the "water line" on either side of the blade. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of the difference (lame digital camera skills + poor lighting in my basement)

This method (of jamming it in there) is a bit rough on the razor, as you can see here:



I should note that when I first started working on this razor, I damaged the point a bit, and "reprofiled" the tip, which left it looking ok, but it was much thinner than before. It is entirely possible that the toe was damaged as a result of my sanding errors rather than the tumbler, but I think it shows that fragile blades may be more at risk if the blade movement inside the chamber is restricted.

Originally Posted by BingoBango

What kind of tumbler do you have? I think a vibratory tumbler might appear to crate a whirlpool effect, but below the surface everything is washing around. If you're really concerned, twist the razor so that the blade is horizontal.

To really grasp what's going on inside a tumbler, you need to understand the complex science behind fluid dynamics. This might help.

Dude, you don't know how much I appreciated seeing that lecture!!

Originally Posted by Alembic

Wow, if only my engineering professors at the universaty coulld have presented information that clearly, I probably would have my PHD by now!

If my engineering professors had looked anything like that I'd know that I'd fallen asleep in class, and was dreaming!

Well, that's my report. If I feel really ambitious later, I have a razor that should be a candidate for taping the scales and chucking the whole thing in.

Thank you for conducting this experiment.

So, there is a waterline, it did polish, it seemed possibly rougher on the razor itself.

Now that we know what it does do, is there merit in trying to overcome the issues associatied with it?

Move the waterline almost to the scales and create a scenerio where the impact to the razor is minimized.

Lets ask the professor in the video if more experiments are in order. I believe the answer was yes.

Thanks for the update on the experiment. My guess is still that we'll see the most even and predictable results with the "slot" method or the "blue paper wrapped scales" method. Simply because these two methods will put the whole blade below that "water line." You can try to dip the blade further in, but with the uneven line made on each side you might always have a problem with uniformity. If I did the dip method I would put tape on the tang right up against the shoulder and try to have the media go past the tape to ensure the blade was evenly covered.

Another thing is the depth of the bowl: It would have to be deep enough to fit the length of the razor without touching the bottom and have some space for the water line at the top.

As for going forward with this experiment, someone should give the slot method a shot. It'll just about permanently ruin (or at least change the function) of one tumbler bowl. I'd volunteer but I don't own a tumbler - I just mooch off a fellow SRP member.

Rob - I'll spring for a new bowl if you want to give it a shot.