Heavy Deburring - Small Parts

Deburring Small Parts

Often times, the machining of small parts can lead to very heavy burrs and difficult areas to finish. The steel gear pictured above has a diameter of about 1/4". The machining to make the gear teeth left very heavy burrs on the edges (see part on left). The burrs can be seen as the excess material that is hanging off the edges and rolled into curls. All this steel needs to be removed before the part is functional.

The two primary criteria for finding the proper media are (1) small enough to get into the area between the teeth and not get stuck and (2) aggressive enough to remove the extraneous steel and burrs without overly changing the dimensions and tolerances of the part.

This part was deburred (see part on right) using a general purpose, deburring Ceramic Cone in a vibratory tumbler. This shape was chosen since the tip of the media will get between the teeth to remove the burrs. The general purpose bond or formulation (KM in this case) provided the best balance of deburring without being overly aggressive.

While this process did remove nearly all of the burrs on the gear teeth in only 1 hour, looking closely at the finished part will reveal some material still left on the edges. In some cases this metal needs to be removed as well and would require longer cycle times, more aggressive media and/or additional grinding steps.