Wet Tumbling

[WyldeShot]

Has anyone ever had stainless steel media get dirty enough not to clean bass? I had case lube on my brass. Now my media is very dark. The cases were remaining dark but I could use my and to remove the dirt and case lub so I know the cases are not tarnished. I then used new media and the cases clean up as expected.

Any thoughts on cleaning the media?


Thanks!

 

[ljk]

No, but how big is your tumbler?

It needs the volume of water to keep the carbon and other dirty stuff to stay suspended.

 

[tsm]

Never had that problem with my SS media, but have you tried tumbling just the dirty SS pins with some detergent to see if that'll clean them up?

 

[WyldeShot]

No, but how big is your tumbler?

It needs the volume of water to keep the carbon and other dirty stuff to stay suspended.

It's the Frankfort Arsenal tumbler.

 

[WyldeShot]

Never had that problem with my SS media, but have you tried tumbling just the dirty SS pins with some detergent to see if that'll clean them up?

Im going to try that. I may add some degreaser or something.

 

[dieselrealtor]

HOT water, Dawn & Lemishine, don't run it too long or the contaminants suspended in the detergent will be released back onto the media as the detergent breaks down.

 

[sassdan]

I talked to a rep from tumblers tumbler he said to use hot water and simple green, to clean the ss pins.

 

[ljk]

Simple Green puts a green hue to the brass.

Blue Dawn concentrated dish soap or citrus dish soap really put a bright color to it.

 

[crazygunner1]

I am not sure if it will do the trick for you, you might want to try to clean it with petrol? I have tried cleaning things with petrol and it really does the trick for me. Cheers mate!

 

[Hohn]

Funny you mention that. I had a large batch come out (after three hours) dingy too. The subsequent batch was spanky clean, but it was only about 200 cases of Lake City. The pins can't be dirty separately from the brass or the water.

I think that 1) it's OK to use a bit more Dawn than you might be used to and 2)Lemi Shine is good stuff. Local stores now carry it, before it was Amazon-only for me. For the 7L Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (FART if you will), I think even two tablespoons or so of soap isn't too much if the drum is nearly full of brass.

Another point. The amount of junk in the water and the necessary soap and such relates not to how FULL the tumbler is, but how many cases you have. More small cases means more primer pocket crud and such. Fill that drum with 30-06 and the water won't be that dirty. Run a batch of 9mm and it will be absolutely filthy, even if the same amount of fill. 5.56 is like 9mm, lots of crud per space.

Especially if you wet tumble the nasty steel case stuff.

 

[sassdan]

the simple green and hot water is for cleaning the ss pins and tumbler I think I ran it for about 30-45 minutes

 

[tsm]

The Lemishine works well on brass, but I wouldn’t waste it on the SS pins.

 

[JUGGERSEVENSIXTWO]

I clean my tumbler with Dawn dishsoap after every session.I also rinse my stainless media.I run my brass 6 hours minimum.Sometimes 12 hours.
depends on how many rounds I am cleaning

 

[boostjunki]

I see a lot of folks use dish soap or similar with their wet tumblers. I’ve been using car wash soap and lemishine for years with great results. An added bonus is the wax in the car wash soap acts as a “ case lube” when I’m resizing with carbide dies, helping smooth things out. Of course, I still lube all bottle neck cases.

 

[Hohn]

So I just did a batch of 6.5 with car wash soap and lemi-shine. It came out not just clean but GLOWING clean. Like jewelry.

And it stayed that sparkly even a week later. I think the car soap's "wax" additive keeps it from tarnishing..

 

[bwframe]

What kind of car wash soap are we using? Quantity with lemishine?

 

[Hohn]

This is actually a mix of some cheap green rain-x I used up and the Mother's california Gold (which is very thick).

Lemi shine was "shake shake, that you should it."

 

[STFU]

So I just did a batch of 6.5 with car wash soap and lemi-shine. It came out not just clean but GLOWING clean. Like jewelry.

And it stayed that sparkly even a week later. I think the car soap's "wax" additive keeps it from tarnishing..

Day-um! That looks really nice.

 

[Hohn]

The cool part is that while my cases have been air drying for a week, they still look that shiny...

I'm starting to think one of the keys is to use a lot of soap. Like enough the it takes a lot of rinsing. You might get good results at lower soap levels, but I've had scuz come out before when I went too light on soap (granted that was Dawn and not car wash soap), and I'm thinking that the extra soap cost is worth it to ensure they come out nice.

At least for me, it's not like I'm going to spend $100 a year on tumbling soap or something.

 

[Indy574]

No issues with the original recipe of Dawn and Lemishine. If your brass isn’t clean your probably not using enough water. I do rinse both my brass and SS media afterwards with clean water. You may have a contaminant in your vessel, try more dawn and I use hot water as well when I tumble.