Types of Barrels for Every Finishing Use

Let’s say you know you need a finishing system (we say the chances are high, given you’ve landed here). Let’s say you even know that from among the surface finishing options, barrel finishing is what will meet your needs. Maybe you’re looking for a barrel finishing system to round out those corners, deburr, burnish, or polish, and you want to finish multiple parts at once.

Then you go to explore said barrel finisher and…you realize there isn’t just one type of barrel system! Rather, there are many different types of barrels for different finishing needs, including those that perform wet and dry finishing. You’ll also find variety among barrel finishing system size and design.

Choosing the right barrel finishing system is critical to ensuring the integrity of your products. Finishing a surface correctly is often about much more than just aesthetics. How a surface is finished can affect how your part performs, too.

Let’s take a look at barrel finishing system options here at Kramer Industries for a better understanding of what each type of barrel can offer. Read More “What Types of Barrels Should I Use?”

Up Your Production With 3D Print Finishing

You never want your parts or products shipped to market looking like they’re fresh off the cutting room floor. Yet, when it comes to parts or products manufactured with 3D printing, surface finishing can feel like a brave new world. Is a 3D printed object “done” when it has concluded printing? Often, the answer is no. Though precise in many ways, 3D printing can still leave parts with many subtle inconsistencies, imperfections, and unpolished surfaces.

When finishing a 3D printed object, the objective is to smooth out any raw characteristics that resulted from the printing process. 3D print finishing, when done correctly, gives you the ability to: adjust surface roughness, eliminate imperfections, and increase shine and polish.

However, to carry out these adjustments, 3D printed parts can demand a different approach to finishing than traditional metal parts. Here’s how. Read More “Guide to 3D Print Finishing Techniques”

Corrosion Protection Practices You Should Be Following

Corrosion (also known as oxidation) is one of the most common reason metal parts require repair and replacement. It can damage both the physical and atheistic integrity of a structure, discoloring its surfaces and weakening its strength and durability.

Corrosion can be tricky to avoid because it’s typically caused by common, natural elements. The process of corrosion takes place when metal is exposed to both moisture and oxygen. For example, when water comes into contact with an iron surface (think: anytime it rains on outdoor iron machinery) the oxygen in the air combines with that water to form iron oxide. Iron oxide, when left on a surface over time, creates rust that begins to eat away at the metal underneath. Once metal experiences corrosion, it’s impossible to reverse. However, you can attempt to stop further corrosion with the right corrosion prevention techniques. Read More “Corrosion Protection: Tips on How to Avoid It”

Are Your Finishing Systems Upholding Biocompatibility Standards?

Biocompatibility might sound like something you’d hear about in an Environment 101 course, but when it comes to biocompatibility standards for manufactured, finished products, it’s very much a relevant topic. In layman’s terms, a product that is biocompatible is one that doesn’t cause a response in living organisms. When that product comes in contact with humans, things like allergic reactions and complications (both short-term and long-term) don’t occur. The product is made with materials that aren’t toxic, and are friendly to the human body.

The extent to which a product is biocompatible is often determined by looking at three core components: its chemical and physical nature, what it will be exposed to (often, what type of human tissue) and the duration of human exposure. Biocompatibility requirements are listed within the ISO Standard 10993, Biological Evaluation of Medical Devices. Read More “Biocompatibility Standards: Surface Finishing Considerations”

Getting Rid of Pesky Surface Rust

How do you get rid of rust that’s plaguing your project’s metal surface? Removing rust is often the first box you’ll need to check off before continuing renovation or repurposing on your metal project.

Projects with a significant amount of rust or an expansive surface area will require more than just a fair amount of elbow grease or a handheld power tool. Rather, professional abrasive blasting equipment is warranted. Read More “Best Solutions: Treating Surface Rust”

How Outsourcing Services Will Improve Your Finishing Project

So, you have a project that requires surface finishing. Do you attempt to finish it yourself? Or do you choose to outsource to a third-party finishing company?

If you’re a business that typically likes to keep its work in-house, the thought of outsourcing a step in your production process might seem complicated or costly to explore. In some cases, outsourcing can be just that. However, when it comes to the dynamic and complex craft of surface finishing, outsourcing to trusted professionals is a business’s wisest choice. Read More “We’ll Finish It Off: Benefits of Our Outsourcing”

We’ve Been Around for Years, and So Has Abrasive Blast Cleaning

Here at Kramer Industries, we’ve been immersed in the world of finishing and abrasive cleaning for more than a century! Founded in the home of Harry Kramer in 1911, our business specializes in helping small and large companies alike find custom solutions to their projects’ cleaning and finishing needs. Through our efforts to provide customers with the best final products possible, we’ve always kept up with the latest innovations in abrasive blast cleaning, as experts in our field.

Abrasive blast cleaning is used by a range of industries, including ship building, construction, the auto industry, and others. There are three main ways to accomplish abrasive blast cleaning today: through air pressure, water pressure, and centrifugal wheels. Read More “The History of Abrasive Blast Cleaning”

These Benefits of Blasting Will Steer You Clear of Chemical Use

When it comes to prepping and cleaning your project’s surface, there are two widely-used techniques to consider: abrasive media blasting and chemical cleaning. While both options have been used on projects large and small among various industries, the benefits of blasting are known to outweigh those of chemically-induced removal in the majority of instances. Let’s take a closer look. Read More “Benefits of Blasting vs. Chemical Use”

Which Abrasive Media is Right for Your Project?

When finishing a project with a blasting, barrel tumbler, or vibratory system, you’ll need to identify the abrasive media required to achieve your desired surface finish. Abrasive media is the material used in conjunction with finishing equipment to clean, smooth, or polish the surface of a part. There are many different types of abrasive media that can be used for finishing, and each type will yield different surface results. The type of abrasive media you select can also impact the quality of any coating applied after, both in the near-term and down the road. It goes without saying: it’s important to choose wisely! Read More “Abrasive Media: Types and Choice”

Implement These Surface Preparation Methods Before Each Project

Correctly preparing a surface is incredibly important to the overall look, feel, functionality, and ultimate longevity of a finished material, which is why it’s key to understand which type of surface preparation method is warranted, and how to properly conduct. According to Sherwin Williams, approximately 80% of all coating failures are the direct result of inadequate surface preparation.

Preparing your surface for the application of paint, a sealant, or other type of coating can range from the simple to the more dynamic. It all depends on the material of the surface and its current condition. For example, you may need to conduct a basic chemical cleaning when attempting to remove oil from a surface, or you may need something more involved like abrasive blasting or tumble finishing when attempting to even out surfaces for proper roughness or texture. Read More “These Surface Preparation Methods Are A Must”

What Tumbling System Size Is Right For Me?

Rightsizing is a way to determine what type of resources are needed to meet a manufacturer’s business objectives. In layman’s terms, you rightsize an aspect of your business when you want to figure out how to make it more efficient. It’s a question of: what’s the best way to do this today?

Rightsizing is important because it can give your manufacturing business immediate cost savings and significantly increased efficiencies. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint by decreasing the amount of electricity needed, the quantity of materials required, and the extent of labor needed. Read More “Rightsizing Your Finishing System for Your Company”

How Surface Roughness Will Affect Your Project

Surface roughness refers to the specific depth and contour of ridges on a surface. Why does testing surface roughness matter? Because there’s no such thing as “zero” surface roughness (i.e, a surface that is completely flat), every project will have some level of surface roughness to measure. Not being attentive to the precise level of surface roughness can have a significant impact on the overall quality of a product. For example, surface roughness can impact:

• How a surface looks
• How a surface functions
• How well a coating adheres to a surface

Consider the importance of surface roughness in the case of car part production. Car engines have parts the constantly rub up against each other, or parts that must fit together precisely. A surface that’s too rough – or not rough enough – can cause parts to wear out too soon, or create unwanted space that impacts the functionality of the engine.

You can also use a surface roughness measurement to detect abnormalities and defects in a product. Surface roughness measurements can therefore be relevant at the time of production and at the quality control stage.

Every project should be measured for surface roughness, and in the case of pieces fitting into larger parts, required surface roughness will likely be stated in a blueprint from the outset. Read More “Quality & Control: Surface Roughness Testing”

Finishing 3D Printed Parts Will Enhance Your Overall Product

When first printed, 3D printed parts are still in a raw state. Rarely are these materials ready to be packaged and shipped “as is” without some type of additional attention. Among the completion actions recommended for 3D printed parts is surface finishing Even though the part is produced with precise printing technology, where surface roughness and shape can be finely controlled, finishing can deliver supreme product quality. Read More “Benefits of Finishing 3D Printed Parts”

What’s Right for Your Project?: Waterblasting vs. Sandblasting

When it comes to finalizing a project, the selection of a surface finishing method is often in order. Surface finishing is essential when you’re about to paint, apply a sealant, or need to smooth a surface to meet roughness requirements. Cleaning the surface of your project can be essential for preserving the quality of your intended coating as well as the integrity of the surface itself. The right type of surface finishing method will effectively ensure your project is in peak condition when it heads out the door.

Two of the most common types of surface finishing are waterblasting and sandblasting, techniques with similar end results but different advantages.

Just what are their differences, and which method could be the best fit for your project? Read More “Waterblasting vs. Sandblasting”

There is often confusion about the differences between the terms mesh, grit, sieve size, micron, micro-inches and others. These are all terms used to describe physical particle sizes. With regard to abrasive blasting and other applications that use that type of media, these terms – especially grit and mesh – (while technically different) are used interchangeably.

A more detailed article is available on our website HERE.

Polishing Black Acrylic

We have written a number of posts about polishing acrylic (here, here and here and more). The 4-step dry tumbling process with Hardwood Media and the Finishing Creams previous written about and detailed in this article has proven itself with multiple types of acrylic parts and with multiple colors.

Black can be a particularly challenging color as every imperfection in the surface will seem to stand out. The before and after parts above show that even with black parts, the parts can shine like glass.

Cleaning Wood Tumbled Parts

A common process for removing machining marks, hairs and rounding edges on wood parts is barrel tumbling with Hardwood Media and White Aluminum Oxide Grit. This will eliminate the need for a series of hand sanding steps but can leave White Aluminum Oxide Grit lightly embedded in the surface of the wood pores (see part on left above). This leaves the wood with a white discoloration and makes it more difficult for additional finishing.

This issue can be resolved (especially with harder woods) by tumbling the part in a Walnut Shell Grit. The part pictured on the right was barrel tumbled with a Walnut Shell Grit – 12/20 Medium for 30 minutes. The white grit was removed and the wood color was restored. The part is now ready for further processing like stain, paint or wax.

Routered Wood Parts

When wood blocks are routered  or machined to a specific geometry, there are always rough surfaces and wood burrs or hairs where the router enters or leaves the part. The part pictured on the left shows this condition very clearly.

Removing these burrs and achieving a smooth finish is a relatively simple process. Barrel tumbling the parts with a Hardwood Media and White Aluminum Oxide Grit will clean up the part and leave it smooth and ready for further processing. The cycle time to accomplish this task will depend on how rough the raw part is, what grit size of abrasive is being used and how much edge rounding is desired.

Barrel tumbling is a better process than vibratory tumbling for this application. The barrel will force the entire load (media, abrasive and parts) to stay mixed and performing optimally. A vibratory process will likely tumble the media and parts but the abrasive will often not stay uniformly mixed.

Stainless Steel Polishing

Machined stainless steel parts typically have sharp edges, burrs and a matte surface finish. Vibratory tumbling can be used to get a polished finish sometimes even down to just a few Ra surface profile. This is often a multi-step process.

The part on the left is the ‘raw’ part ready for deburring and polishing. The first step is to deburr and round the edges. This was accomplished using a KM general purpose Ceramic Media. This was a wet process using a solution of Kramco 1010 General Purpose Compound. The result at this point (not pictured) was a matte, tumbled finish with rounded edges.

The second step needed to get the pictured polish (on the right) involved tumbling with a Precision Ceramic Sphere and a solution of Kramco 2020 Burnishing Compound. Generally, a rounder media will produce a smoother finish than an angular media.

This part could be further polished with other tumbling media or hand buffed to a near-mirror finish.

Warped Aluminum Panel

Abrasive blasting is used for many different purposes including cleaning, stripping paint or rust, peening and preparing a surface for a coating (among many others). Usually, there is no need to be concerned about changing the dimensions of the material but sometimes care does need to be taken when blasting thin metals (i.e., auto body panels).

The picture above shows a thin metal panel on the right before any blasting. The same piece on the left was blasted with Glass Beads. It is quite obvious that the blasting process warped the metal. This was caused by heat generated during the blasting process in the spot that was being blasted and no heat in the areas nearby.

Care must be taken in the selection of media used for blasting. Aggressive media like Aluminum Oxide Grit or Glass can cause heat during blasting. While effective performing media, when working with thin metals these media can destroy the metal in the process.

Media such as Walnut Shell Grit and Plastic Abrasive Media are often better choices where warping is a concern. These softer media will also strip paint (albeit more slowly) with a much lower risk of damaging the underlying metal.

Aluminum Parts

 

Glass Bead (left) vs Aluminum Oxide Grit (right)

These pictures show the differences between blasting an aluminum part (middle of top picture) with either a Glass Bead – 100/170 Medium-Fine and Aluminum Oxide Grit – 220 Mesh.

The Glass Bead blasted part has much more a peened, smooth, uniform finish. The Aluminum Oxide Grit blasted part also has a uniform finish but is more etched and ‘darker’.

Acrylic Duck Calls

Above is an other good example of the results that can be obtained with dry barrel tumbling using Hardwood Media and the Finishing Creams. The part directly out of the milling is on the left and the final result is on the right.

There are a number of other pictures with brief descriptions of the process used located at these links:

Polishing Molded Acrylic
Polishing Machined Acrylic
Polishing Colorless Acrylic
Acrylic Button Polishing
Acrylic Knife Handles

Steel Parts

The parts pictured above needed to have a uniform matte finish and all have the same finish. The parts on the left and right were either painted or polished and the goal was make all the parts look exactly the same.

In order to get a uniform finish on every part, a load of parts were put into a tumble blaster and abrasive blasted with Aluminum Oxide Grit – 220 Mesh. The result was a batch of parts that all looked like the part in the middle.

Frosting clear glass to create a totally different look or put some type of design on the glass is a very simple process. This clear glass was abrasive blasted with a White Aluminum Oxide Grit – 240 Mesh to produce a translucent finish.

The use of a resist or pattern with exposed areas will allow for only select areas of the glass to be etched leaving the rest clear.

Different grit sizes will produce smoother or rougher finishes and cut to different depths into the glass.

Machined Brass

As a relatively soft metal, brass can be easily machined and polished. The brass part above has clearly indicated machining lines and burrs that needed to be removed.

Deburred

In order to be able to polish the brass after removing the machining marks, a minimally abrasive process should be used. Since this part is relatively flat with very few features, a round media is the best option. Generally, round media will result in a smoother finish than angular media. This part was tumbled with a 9mm Fast Cutting Sphere Precision Ceramic Media. The Kramco 1030 Mild Acid Cleaner kept the part clean and removed any oxidation. Most of the machining marks and burrs have been removed.

Polished

In order to get this part to a bright, polished finish, a smaller, round media is ideal. The 5mm Polishing Spheres Precision Ceramic Media and a solution of Kramco 2030 Neutral Burnishing Compound resulted in a bright, near-mirror surface finish. In both the deburring and polishing steps, the compound/solution pH is very important to produce the proper metal color (i.e., no darkening).