Wet grinder for making picks.

[Engineer]

Has anyone tried tumble polishing?

I know rock tumblers can be dry tumbled for short periods to polish small objects like cartridge cases. It is not smething I've ever done, so wondered if anyone had tried it and what results they had got? Perhaps for getting a nice surface on your raw stock metal, before turning it into a pick even? Not just for a finish polish.

[femurat]

So after many years of service my wet grinder broke. The bearings supports broke. They're made of poor quality cast metal, so there was no way to repair the grinder and I had to throw it away.

I started using my other grinder and was very angry because it makes a mess. Dust goes everywhere. I have to vacuum clean all the room after I'm done... so inspired by some famous woodworkers I improvised a dust collection system
The need to keep the metal cool remains, so I had to dip it in water every now and then. That's pretty annoying.
Apart from that, it really made a difference, since almost all the dust got caught by the vacuum cleaner.
Now that I've seen that it works, I may make something better than some electrical tape.

Cheers

[femurat]

Here is my new wet and dry grinder. It's bigger than the old one and works quite well. The wet disk wobbles a little but I was not able to fix it by loosening the bolt, rotating the disk and tightening it again a few times. I'll keep it this way, it's not that bad. It works better than the old one.
I'll make an attachment for the vacuum cleaner on the dry side. I may use it for the gross shaping of the blank, before passing to the dry disk for refining it.

I've already made a set consisting of two picks and two tension wrenches with it.

Cheers

[Silverado]

That is a nice looking machine! How does the wet grinder part work without flinging oil/water everywhere?

[femurat]

The wet disk spins slowly so water doesn't go everywhere. It removes material very slowly and gives me good control of the process.
Keep in mind that I mainly use street cleaning bristles. When I use hacksaw blades I use the dry disk of the grinder or a cutoff wheel on a dremel, otherwise it would take forever to grind them down.

Cheers

[Silverado]

Oh, that makes sense. For some reason the thought of it moving slow enough to not make a huge mess never occurred to me.
I need more coffee...