Tumbled Finish? Cement Mixer?

They are actually called concrete mixers. :D

The portland cement is just the glue.


I would be willing to guess that abrasive media wouldn't wear it out any quicker than concrete. Plastic concrete is very abrasive. You should look down into the mixer drum on a truck or the hopper of a pump truck. The two rear fins on a mixer usually wear down in a couple years, and need replaced. The hopper of a pump truck is nearly 100% new metal welded on if the truck is over a year old.
 
I'd check out some of the rockhound or lapidary sites for examples of home built and purchased tumblers. Rock tumbling hobby is a great site with tons of information.

I'm not too sure but I would think a vibratory "tumbler" would be good for this.
 
I know that the drum on a cement truck is highky abrasion resistant steel
I don't know if the smaller mixers are but they seem to hold up well on job sites

Sammy9toes
 
After playing around with this a bit today, I ended up taking the mixer back and buying a large vibratory tumbler.

The concrete mixer seemed like overkill if I was only going to tumble one or two knives. I also did a bit of research, and found that vibratory tumbling is apparently the preferred method. I ordered some quality ceramic media, so I'll report back with the results in a few days.

However, the bucket method will work with the concrete mixer. If you already have a mixer, give it a shot. It will require more media than a modest sized vibratory tumbler however. If I really need to tumble a large piece, I'll just build a rotary tumbler. Someone gave me a semi-broken treadmill that should be about perfect.

If this vibratory tumbler does not work, I'm probably just going to buy a small industrial unit.

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200439935_200439935
 
I've looked at those tumblers over at Northern in the last couple months. They're nice, but that's a pretty big price jump from the $120 mixer from HF!!:eek: Can't wait to see how that one works:thumbup:

Mitchell Knives said:
After playing around with this a bit today, I ended up taking the mixer back and buying a large vibratory tumbler.

The concrete mixer seemed like overkill if I was only going to tumble one or two knives. I also did a bit of research, and found that vibratory tumbling is apparently the preferred method. I ordered some quality ceramic media, so I'll report back with the results in a few days.

However, the bucket method will work with the concrete mixer. If you already have a mixer, give it a shot. It will require more media than a modest sized vibratory tumbler however. If I really need to tumble a large piece, I'll just build a rotary tumbler. Someone gave me a semi-broken treadmill that should be about perfect.

If this vibratory tumbler does not work, I'm probably just going to buy a small industrial unit.

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200439935_200439935
Click to expand...
 
Can you tumble the entire knife - handle and all?
 
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Fellhoelter said:
You can indeed.

Planning on buying some completed knives now, and "engineering" them?
Click to expand...

cut and pasted from my website:

"Most of my orders come from people who want a knife that is engineered by someone with my experience and background - as you might imagine, experience and background in grinding steel is not at the top of their list. With the exception of the Chisos & Baby Chisos I don't regularly fabricate blades. Bush Monkey Knives is a one man operation that makes old skool tools from a piece of bar stock steel or a finished blade one at a time in Fort Worth, Texas. I design, fabricate and/or procure the individual components of the knife: blade, handle material, mechanical fasteners, lanyard tubing, adhesive and modify, shape, fit, finish, assemble and inspect every knife that leaves my shop."
 
BMK said:
cut and pasted from my website:

"Most of my orders come from people who want a knife that is engineered by someone with my experience and background - as you might imagine, experience and background in grinding steel is not at the top of their list. With the exception of the Chisos & Baby Chisos I don't regularly fabricate blades. Bush Monkey Knives is a one man operation that makes old skool tools from a piece of bar stock steel or a finished blade one at a time in Fort Worth, Texas. I design, fabricate and/or procure the individual components of the knife: blade, handle material, mechanical fasteners, lanyard tubing, adhesive and modify, shape, fit, finish, assemble and inspect every knife that leaves my shop."
Click to expand...

BMK,

This statement from your site kinda exemplifies the problem folks are having here.
It gives the impression that you're doing appreciably more than fitting handles most of the time by infering your knives are 'engineered' by you and that the designs benefit from your experience.

I think if you modified the statement to be something like the following, a lot of acrimony would evaporate:

"With the exception of the Chisos & Baby Chisos I don't regularly fabricate blades. Bush Monkey Knives is a one man operation that delivers old skool tools prepared one at a time in Fort Worth, Texas. I design and fabricate certain models and coordinate the custom assembly of others, personally ensuring the fit, finish, assembly and final inspection of every knife that leaves my shop."

That's a statement you shouldn't have to argue about and, I think, contains a respectable representation of your current approach to knifemaking.


!!!!!!!!!!

BTW:
There was a discussion over at the Professional Soldiers site concerning BMK's resume. At first they were unable to find him in the database, and that link was posted in one of the BMK threads over here. Now, I think it's only fair to point out the latest development in that PS discussion, namely this post:

"It's been confirmed that Natterer, Jeff is a former SF Officer, he used to be in C/3/12 and took a team to Haiti in 1994."

As seen here: http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32805&page=5
Post #63.

Thanks for your service. :thumbup:
 
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Fellhoelter said:
I missed it, where was it confirmed that this guy IS Natterer?

Sorry about your threads turn Johnathan.
Click to expand...

Damn, Johnathan I hate to go off topic as well....

Is that the same Culpeper that got the shaft here at BF, I wonder? At least I think Culpeper got the ban hammer here. It's been a while.
 
Here are a couple examples of cement-mixer-style tumblers. They're called "barrel tumblers" sometimes. There is one that has something that looks a lot like a 5-gal. bucket for the container, can't find a pic of it right now, though.
 

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The cement mixer will work with a 5 gallon bucket, but it is quite a bit louder than the vibratory tumbler. It would probably be good for someone doing a large volume of blades.

We used mixers at work that are somewhat similar to those in the pictures you posted. However, they would hold about 200 kg of material. That would be a lot of blades!

My ceramic media should be here tomorrow, so I should have some results shortly.
 
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Thank you for your opinion. However, I don't know of any other way the following can be interpreted: "...I don't regularly fabricate blades. Bush Monkey Knives is a one man operation that makes old skool tools from a piece of bar stock steel or a finished blade one at a time in Fort Worth, Texas..."

I make some blades, I designed a slicer a month ago and had a blademaker fabricate it for me and I simply order other blades.

I fail to see how your version differs (except in semantics) from what has been clearly posted on my website all along. I could be wrong...there is a first time for everything

BTW I sent the link to a SF roster with my name on it to an admistrator of this site and also encouraged that same administrator to contact ARPERCEN (Army Personnel Records Center - link provided) to fully investigte my military service about a week ago.




JCaswell said:
BMK,

This statement from your site kinda exemplifies the problem folks are having here.
It gives the impression that you're doing appreciably more than fitting handles most of the time by infering your knives are 'engineered' by you and that the designs benefit from your experience.

I think if you modified the statement to be something like the following, a lot of acrimony would evaporate:

"With the exception of the Chisos & Baby Chisos I don't regularly fabricate blades. Bush Monkey Knives is a one man operation that delivers old skool tools prepared one at a time in Fort Worth, Texas. I design and fabricate certain models and coordinate the custom assembly of others, personally ensuring the fit, finish, assembly and final inspection of every knife that leaves my shop."

That's a statement you shouldn't have to argue about and, I think, contains a respectable representation of your current approach to knifemaking.

!!!!!!!!!!

BTW:
There was a discussion over at the Professional Soldiers site concerning BMK's resume. At first they were unable to find him in the database, and that link was posted in one of the BMK threads over here. Now, I think it's only fair to point out the latest development in that PS discussion, namely this post:

"It's been confirmed that Natterer, Jeff is a former SF Officer, he used to be in C/3/12 and took a team to Haiti in 1994."

As seen here: http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32805&page=5
Post #63.

Thanks for your service. :thumbup:
Click to expand...
 
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And that is the problem dude, you don't see the difference, or won't admit it.

Your experience means Jack when you are buying blades from a catalog.
You are simply not engineering those knives.
There is zero admission in your statement of the fact that you do not even design the blades.
You however imply that your blades are superior, and engineered by you, when in fact any Monkey with a credit card can buy the very same blade from knifekits.com

You highlighted a passage there, are you in fact Jeff Natterer?
 
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