Vibratory finishing smooths objects by vibrating them with pellets of an appropriate material. It can cause a smudging, descaling, or brightening effect. Different materials, shapes, and sizes are used to achieve particular effects. The media can also separate workpieces. Substrates can vary from natural to synthetic products.
Vibratory finishing is a process that can be used to smooth objects by placing them in a vibrating device along with pellets of an appropriate material. The vibrating action of the device causes the finishing material to work against the pieces and can cause a smudging, descaling or brightening effect depending on the medium used. Finishing substrates can include both natural and synthetic products and are also classified by shape and degree of uniformity. Unlike ordinary tumbling finishing, the vibratory motion of this process can allow the abrasive media to act on the insides of the pieces rather than just the outside.
Batch production often uses vibratory finishing to clean large numbers of parts at once. After the parts have been cast or otherwise produced, they are usually moved in batch form to a vibratory finishing station. At this point, the pieces can be fed into a vibrating drum along with an abrasive medium. Each type of support has its own unique qualities, so different materials, shapes and sizes are chosen to achieve particular effects. It is also common to place additional compounds in the vibratory finisher to aid in cleaning, deburring, or polishing.
The supports used in vibratory finishing are usually designed for cutting, polishing or scrubbing. Cutting pads are generally quite abrasive and designed to physically cut or shave burrs and other imperfections from workpieces. These materials usually result in a dull or dull type surface finish on the product. If a sheen is desired, mildly abrasive or completely non-abrasive backings can be used to achieve a shot peening effect, which involves striking the surface of a part without abrading any material. Abrasive media can be abrasive or non-abrasive and are usually intended to clean dirt and other contaminants.
In addition to performing various cleaning and deburring tasks, the media used in vibratory finishing can also serve the purpose of separating workpieces. If very small amounts of tumbling material are used, the possibility of pieces contacting each other during the vibratory finishing process can be high. This is often undesirable because if the pieces vibrate against each other it could damage the products. The ratio of the medium to the pieces is typically used to control this type of contact.
The substrates used during vibratory finishing can vary from natural products, such as walnut shells, to synthetic plastics. Each material has unique properties that may be best suited for cutting, polishing or rubbing. The shape of the craft may also be important, and balls, ovoids, wedges, and various other configurations may be used.
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