Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

[boltstop]

Hey folks.

Bought some media to bead blast the slide of a handgun to return it to normal "frosted" finish after a goofball gunsmith messed it up.

Have a metric ton of it left over. Thinking about using it as secondary polish for the cases after the anneal/lube/re-size/decap/decrimp/trim/debur/flash-hole treatment step.

Anybody here have experience with using glass bead media in a tumbler? If not, I'll try a dozen pieces in it today to see if there will be any unexpected challenges.

 

[tomcatfan]

Re: Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

Tag! I'm curious to see how different media's do in the polishing of brass. Let us know how it works.

Is there any concern that the harder glass bead media will remove material from the brass?

 

[waste_knot]

Re: Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

It's pretty abrasive. It will round the corners off of everything like sand paper. I've only used it in rotary tumblers.

 

[boltstop]

Re: Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: waste_knot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It's pretty abrasive. It will round the corners off of everything like sand paper. I've only used it in rotary tumblers. </div></div>

This stuff's the spherical stuff. I think it's pretty smooth.

When I got about 2 lbs of it in my eye (this may be an exaggeration, but those worthless safety goggles may be replaced because of that incident) it seemed not to abrade too badly.

I also use the stuff to thicken epoxy resin for creating the fin fillets on mid and high-power model rockets. Works like a champ, and sandable too!

 

[azhank]

Re: Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

How much room does a metric ton of media take up?

 

[boltstop]

Re: Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

Here's the upshot on this deal - don't do it. I got started with this stuff and saw that even only after 40 minutes the brass was looking like it was becoming pitted on the surface.

It's similar to using clean walnut shells on clean brass instead of corncob media.

 

[RotARy15]

Re: Bead blasting media as vibratory polishing media?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: azhank</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How much room does a metric ton of media take up? </div></div>

Just know that it is a much simpler number than a comparable quantity measured in standard tons.