Wet tumbling options

[thorborg]

A life focused on "need" only would be a sad life in my opine. Obviously not to the guy next door who hasn't washed his car in years.

 

[kmk1012]

I use stainless steel pins, lemishine, dawn and water. The trick I found works best for removing pins is fill my media separator with water, dump pins and brass into the separator, only takes about 15-20 spins each direction and pins are in the bottom, brass gets caught in the cage.

 

[eb in oregon]

2 1/2 hours with 1/4 cup vinegar, squirt of Dawn, and a quart of water, with some nasty cases. I blew them off with an air hose agitating them after throughly rinsing and then putting them in the sun to dry. I'll see how this works.

 

[eb in oregon]

Two hours in the sun and dry as a bone.

 

[aaron_l]

I use a 15lb thumblers tumbler (strategically aquired from wifes rockhounding stuff) , hot water 3/4 full, 3 lb ss pins, heavy squirt of dawn, 9mm case full of lemi shine. Run 1 hour, rinse and repeat, rinse hot and bake on parchment 175f for an hour, done

 

[aaron_l]

Well apparently my dog has a taste for hornady unique case lube . At least it was only 10%ish left. Licked clean

 

[GeoNOregon]

I'm a FNG w/ the limitations collar & all. Thought I'd share a great alternative use for that extra brass tumbler you been hanging onto or when you see a good deal on one, down the road.

I inherited a green plastic, (RBIC?), brass tumbler from a friend. I don't actively shoot much & hence, don't reload any more, either, partly suburban Portland locale, mostly my age; I'm officially ancient as of my B-day, a year ago. Got the paperwork & everything.

The plastic fantastic was in my line of site 10+ winters ago when I needed something to clean misc small parts, fasteners & such.

I lined the inner basket w/ some finer mesh plastic, (gutter leaf guard mesh, I believe), to keep washers, etc, in the basket.

Slipped some scraps of marble/granite countertop scraps to increase the hgt, & keep the volume of LA's Awesome stuff from the $1.25 Store I filled it with, (last time I was the Dollar Store, everything had gone from a Dollar to 1.25, I figure they've changed the namr, by now.

After filling w/ my fav cleaner, the LA Awesomeness, I dumped some greasy, dirty parts & fasteners in, closed it up & gave it a half dozen slow spins every 8-10, for an hour(?) while working on the lathe.

I was suitably impressed w/ the results. Seemed to be clean as a whistle & proven after rinsing w/ hot water. Over the next month, I refined the amount of spins, length of time, need for a pre-soak; generally got to know it. Did find it is NOT a rapid spin device, unless you want a mess.

As my newest became familiar, frustration w/ pesky rust raised it's head. The bane of getting parts/fasteners clean is then you see the rust.

Annoyed w/ the additional step of de-rusting, I whined about de-rust solutions not being able to remove grease, too. Why not? I pleaded to my dog?

Ignoring me, someyhing inspired me. I drained the green brass spinner & immediately discover my estimated cleaning cycle was too long. How much gunk you're removing sneaks up on a guy when it becomes so quick & easy. (It IS; haven't been 'selling' that part, enough. Easily the least amt of work I've ever put into small parts cleaning. It's THE chit!)

Cleaned out, I put 50/50 LA Awesome & WD-40's (?), de-rust solution. It worked! Cleaning & rust removal in one process. Only addition was an overnight soak.

But I was underwhelmed w/ the rust removal. Played around w/ ratios until I ran out, then went back to my preferred de-rust, Metal Magic(?), (the other jug was just experimentation, she didn't mean anything to me... er oh, wrong story, sorry.)

*Note: I follow names & brand names w/ (?) when my damaged brain is not certain. I scrambled it pretty bad in 2003; name/term recall ain't what it was. Confirmations/corrections in replies are appreciated. I only share good stuff that's sure to work & sometime correct ingredients are important.

Switching to Metal Rescue, (this is correct, but I'll leave Metal Magic coz of the note.), made a big difference. It's been a while since I have refilled, (4 yrs of cancer can do things like that), I don't recall the ratio.

I plan on trying citric acid down the road; have never used it for rust removal. Mixing it may negate citric acid's rust removing ability.

Before I discovered the green spinner, I was heading in the direction of heating Metal Rescue to improve it's function. Don't see how it could be done w/ the green spinner & I'm not willing to give up on the one step or even the ease & quickness of the spinner, it's that good.

Hope this helps somebody; it's reduced my time spent parts cleaning & when you have fewer summers left than you've by a factor of 2, reducing time spent on mundane tasks is a big plus.

Regards,

GeoD

 

[deadeye]

Old Lortone rock tumbler from my younger days. The motor blew many years ago so I decided to repurpose it for wet tumbling with pins. Basically rebuilt the whole thing using pillow bearings, much larger motor and different pully's.

I use pins, Dawn soap, a dash of lemon shine and water for a couple or so hrs depending on size of load. If I fill the tub it takes 3 or so hrs but really depends on just how bad the brass is to start such as stuff found that was exposed to the elements for a while or just range pick up type.

 

[icarus]

Wet tumbling with SS pins and dawn soap yields good results.

Adding a little lemishine won't hurt, but drying the cases is probably more effective.

Blasting air through the running tumber using the vented caps and a carpet blower for an hour will dry the cleaned wet cartridge cases. No more water spots!

 

[Hemlock]

Instead of Lemi shine try Finish Jet-dry rinse aid for dish washers. It's what makes your wife's dishes dry faster without spots. And brass won't tarnish like acidy Lemi Shine. I use my food dehydrator to dry brass. 30-45 minutes is all they need.