New cheap tool that actually works! Case Polisher for bolts.

The Ls is in danger of going back together. In the path lay a large portion of nuts, bolts and brackets that have lived in the rust belt for 250,000 km. Not purdy. 

Enter the vibrating punchbowl.

24 hour before and after

The only downside that I can find is that the sand takes some effort to get rid of after you take the bolts out. (I used a strong magnet to fish them out)

Here is a bracket done with the bolts. for what it is worth, 80% of the cleaning seems to happen in the first five hours. It then seems to hit an exponential decay curve on how effective it is. I would like to see what five days does. The bracket was totally fuzzy brown when it went in. That mechanical brown that only people in Michigan or other parts of the rust belt can relate to.

You mention sand; what polishing/cleaning media are you using? I've used my case tumbler for fasteners many times but the walnut shell media I usually use doesn't really remove rust so much as just clean thoroughly. 

Pour EvapoRust in with the media and it'll come out perfect. 

Also, I've used perforated metal sheet to catch stuff, just put the sheet over a bucket, pour the contents into the bucket, bolts stay on one side of the metal sheet, sand/media falls into the other side.

Mezzanine said:

You mention sand; what polishing/cleaning media are you using? I've used my case tumbler for fasteners many times but the walnut shell media I usually use doesn't really remove rust so much as just clean thoroughly. 

just using sand from the sandblaster. Walnut wont remove rust.

Wonder what would happen if I made a slurry of sand and Evaporust? Never been that impressed with Evaporust because you still have to wire-wheel the results after the soak.

Have you tried any of the various kinds of vibratory cleaning/polishing media?  It comes in plastic, ceramic and maybe other materials.

Generally the approach is to let the polishing chemical do the corrosion removal and the walnut do the scrubbing. You don't need an actual slurry (doesn't shake well) but you can use quite a bit of chemical. The reason corn cob works well is not because it is abrasive, but because it soaks up a lot of chemical.

There are many ways to separate the cleaned items from the media, which you can buy from the same people that have vibrating punchbowls. Personally, I take advantage of the media behaving like a liquid while the vibration is happening and I just reach in and pull stuff out while everything is still turned on.

stuart in mn said:

Have you tried any of the various kinds of vibratory cleaning/polishing media?  It comes in plastic, ceramic and maybe other materials.

Forbidden chocolate chips.

For hardware and small brackets like that I throw them in a colander or mesh strainer and hit them in my blast cabinet. Only takes a few shakes to get all the sides and the aluminum oxide falls right through.

I like the passive method though. I wonder if aluminum oxide would be a little more aggressive to get those last bits.

Currently doing a re-run on some bolts that had a bit of rust on the heads. I soaked them in Evaporust for 4 hours and back in they go until tomorrow. I will be left wondering if two days in the tumbler would have done the same thing.

Removal is easy enough as I leave it running and fish through  the sand with a rare earth magnet. I made a bowl with a mesh bottom to sit on top of the shaker bowl so that the removed bolts can use the same agitation to remove the sand as the next batch scrubs clean.

I use a sifter to separate cases - or small parts - from the polishing media.  Something like THIS.

Dump the contents of the polisher into a bucket, put the sifter on the polisher, then dump the contents on the sifter.  Let the polisher run a bit,  stir the  cases/parts a couple of times, and you're done.