Bridgestone Motorcycle Parts Discussion Board
Bridgestone Tech Talk => 350 Talk => Topic started by: CL-100 on December 12, 2017, 09:52:46 AM
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I recently received this batch of parts for my 350 project from the tumbler. This is my first experience with tumbling and it's quite impressive. They use a large vibratory tumbler with a proprietary witch's brew of media that gets into the smallest crevice and cleans and coats the parts. I find that I prefer this to the finish from a blaster. Now I'll have something to do inside the workshop as winter settles in.
Thanks Mike for the referral.
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WOW!!! They look great. Where did you get them done? Harry
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Looks great - where did you get this work done? or is it a "top secret" vendor?
Dan
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The tumbler is located in Ohio.
Website is http://staffordgt.com
They are primarily a machine shop.
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Thanks Rowland,
Glad you put up the post for the shop. Hopefully everyone will be patient with their orders.
Later Mike
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Rowland, I've been wanting to do this for some time but was wondering if there is any prep involved before tumbling. Did you start with clean parts? I have parts with significant oxidation stains, can they handle those?
- Bob
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Bob,
The cases, cylinders, and hub I started with were absolutely caked with gunk. I doubt the previous owner/s ever cleaned the oil and dirt off of them. I sat out in my shop gravel driveway with various cleaners, some heavy duty, and a little bit of WD40 spray. I spent quite a bit of time with tooth brushes, stiffer plastic brushes, and brass and steel wire brushes. I even used long small diameter screwdrivers to force scotch pads into the nooks and crannies. While I was able to get most of the gunk off the parts, the real small areas around the exhausts did not come clean. They were still dirty black looking but had no actual material on them and it didn't feel like there was any grease and oil. (My wife says I'm a little OCD about cleaning things)
The tumbler was happy with this level of pre-cleaning. He will give them back to you if they are too dirty. Apparently a lot of oil and dirt really messes up the tumbling media that he uses. The tumbling did clean the black stains that were left over from my efforts.
I don't think oxidation stains are an issue. It's just about the oil/dirt/grime that messes up his tumbling mix. I think I was told once that in an ideal world the parts would be blasted clean first. I don't know of any motorcyclist that has done this. Just make sure they're as clean as you can make them. Hope this helps.
Rowland
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who is overly meticulous (OCD...lol) about cleaning parts. I have previously vapor blasted parts that I plan to send to these guys. I'll let everyone know when I have results.
...bert