Stone tumbled finish - questions

[Daniel Koster]

How durable is it?

What prep work is involved?

What are the differences compared to a bead-blasted finish?




Just saw an article in Blade where a stone-tumbled finish was used to "bring out the quench line"...anybody here tried it for this purpose?

 

[J.Marsillo]

Daniel, What do you mean by stone tumbled?
Put the blade in a rock tumbler? I didnt see that article but if thats the case i'm gonna get a rock tumbler.( I have all these cool rocks i want to polish anyway)

 

[indian george]

Dan: I don't know about the finish. I know that some people will use a paint shaker for one gallon cans filled up with media. Must put a rubber coating inside the can.

 

[mete]

I don't know how that would bring out the quench line. Nor do I know how it's done but my Sebenza has that finish and that's mostly because it's a pain to get a good polish on S30V !

 

[B Finnigan]

I have used a vibratory tumbler that I used to clean brass ammo casings. Some of the media I have used is glass beads (100 grit), sand and aquarium gravel. Sometimes the finish looks good and some times I just go back and grind it. There are alot of different types of media available to use. I did see a program on the History Channel about Buck Knives and they used 1" stones in a water bath and tumbled thier folder blades. The did that to debur the blades since they stamp them out.

 

[alexmin]

Guys,

where can I get cheap tumblers or paint shaker?

Alex

 

[B Finnigan]

midwayusa.com has tumblers in several sizes. Any sandblasting supply store will have alot of different media to try. If you don't want to buy a 50 Lbs bag then go online to some jeweller suppliers to get smaller quantities.

 

[B Finnigan]

http://www.midwayusa.com/esearch.exe/search?TabID=0&category_selector=all_products&search_keywords=tumblers


This is the one I have had for over twenty years and it is still working fine. It has tumbled several thousand rounds of brass and assorted other trinkets that needed cleaning. But I am limited to 7" knives so you may want to get a bigger one.

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=158440

 

[Larrin]

Tumbled finishes are interesting to me, at least for a "using" finish, especially on high alloy, hard to polish steels. If your major interest is to bring out the hamon, I don't think it will beat standard finishing.

 

[Daniel Koster]

The reason I asked is that somebody quoted Tai Goo in a recent issue of Blade Magazine as having said that he stone tumbled a blade to bring out the quench line...


Just wanted to confirm.