I bought a tumbler and to be honest it sucks. It takes days to clean anything and even then is not clean enough for plating and as I said I hate blasting small parts like washers but I prefer to keep mine and make them new. So I decided to staple my washers to a board. Once stapled I pry the staple up so the washers can flip over to get the other side. A little prep and it I can do as many as I have in a few minutes.

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Finished product...

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Nice work. Builds patience!

Very nice work, sorta makes me feel guilty for buying mine new though.

Thanks for the tip. I have a bunch to do myself and was wondering the way I should do it.

I just use a wire wheel on a bench grinder and hold the small stuff with pliers or vise-grip.

That is a great tip! Thanks for sharing.

I've found there isn't any one cleaning method that works for everything. Tumbler works great with the right abrasive on some stuff, but not good for heavy oxidation on small parts from what I've seen. I usually start with the tumbler since that is the lowest effort on my part. Then move to the wire wheel for stuff that didn't clean up in the tumbler, then to the blasting cabinet which always works but is a pain for the reason you mentioned. I also use muriatic acid on non-hardened parts sometimes. That cleans up most corrosion in a hurry. I just hate working with the cid. Final step is on the wire wheel regardless of method used to clean the part previously.