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Lemi Shine and Dish Soap

D

DSPrecision

Private
Minuteman
Dec 28, 2021
40
23
Denver
#1
If dish soap is a base and Lemi Shine (Citric Acid) is an acid, then why do people mix the two together to clean their brass? Depending on the ratio, aren't they just neutralizing one or the other, and depending on that ratio, being left with either an acid cleaner or basic cleaner. This makes zero sense to me. Can someone please enlighten me?

Also, the MSDS on RCBS and Hornady cleaner is Citric Acid.
 
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#3
Soap is very mildly basic, but that’s not the reason it’s in there. It also acts as a surfactant, which help things like oils, dirt, and powder residue that normally aren’t particularly friendly with water GET friendly with water so they’ll wash away with the water. This is the purpose of soap which anyone who has taken a shower will recognize.

If you put both together, the LemiShine will override the weak basicity of the soap, and you’ll have low (acidic) pH which helps dissolve brass tarnish (metal oxides). This doesn’t fully inhibit the soap’s surfactant action, so you get both benefits.

It does make soap less effective, but not totally ineffective.
 
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#4
KnowNothing256 said:
Soap is very mildly basic, but that’s not the reason it’s in there. It also acts as a surfactant, which help things like oils, dirt, and powder residue that normally aren’t particularly friendly with water GET friendly with water so they’ll wash away with the water. This is the purpose of soap which anyone who has taken a shower will recognize.

If you put both together, the LemiShine will override the weak basicity of the soap, and you’ll have low (acidic) pH which helps dissolve brass tarnish (metal oxides). This doesn’t fully inhibit the soap’s surfactant action, so you get both benefits.

It does make soap less effective, but not totally ineffective.
Click to expand...
Interesting... The Hornady solution also contains Diethanolamine, which I believe is also a bit of a surfactant.
 
#8
DSPrecision said:
If dish soap is a base and Lemi Shine (Citric Acid) is an acid, then why do people mix the two together to clean their brass? Depending on the ratio, aren't they just neutralizing one or the other, and depending on that ratio, being left with either an acid cleaner or basic cleaner. This makes zero sense to me. Can someone please enlighten me?

Also, the MSDS on RCBS and Hornady cleaner is Citric Acid.
Click to expand...

From the Lemishine website and product description:

"Is hard water defacing your glassware and dishes? We got you. Fight hard water spots and film with Lemi Shine’s award-winning Dish Detergent Booster. Even in the hardest water conditions, the citric acid in our Booster formula latches onto minerals that cause spots and film and flushes them away. "
 
#9
I've done the dish soap, lemishine, Hornady one shot, and a couple other concentrates on the market. The one that I found that blows them all away by a factor of 2x-3x effectiveness vs time invested is the Boretech Case Clean concentrate.
 
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#10
gigamortis said:
I've done the dish soap, lemishine, Hornady one shot, and a couple other concentrates on the market. The one that I found that blows them all away by a factor of 2x-3x effectiveness vs time invested is the Boretech Case Clean concentrate.
Click to expand...
But its 4x+ more expensive
 
#11
Has anyone tried the little dishwasher looking pods they sell now for cleaning brass? I saw some at the gun store the other day and thought about trying them. I’ll see if I can find a link

Here they are. Better be good for over $1 a cleaning.

www.frankfordarsenal.com

Platinum Series 24 Count InstaClean Brass Cleaning Packs | Frankford Arsenal

Platinum Series 24 Count InstaClean Brass Cleaning Packs
www.frankfordarsenal.com www.frankfordarsenal.com
 
#13
Winny94 said:
But its 4x+ more expensive
Click to expand...

BigJohn141 said:
Here they are. Better be good for over $1 a cleaning.
Click to expand...

I've used so many different things...probably at least 10 different things mostly through sample packs or whatever. Absolutely all the other stuff I've tried definitely works.

At the end of the day Dawn+Lemishine works more than adequate for just pennies. I don't know exactly how many tumbles I can get out of a bottle of Dawn and a bottle of Lemishine, but for a combined $10 I would venture to say maybe 100 or more for .10 to MAYBE .15 cents each load.

The ONLY thing that is 'need to know' about the use of Lemishine is to not use too much. If you put too much your brass will still be clean but it will turn army green after a while. Less is more in this case. If you have hard water then the use of Lemishine will help prevent hard water spots on everything.

That being said people are obviously free to spend their money on whatever they want.
 
#14
alamo5000 said:
The ONLY thing that is 'need to know' about the use of Lemishine is to not use too much. If you put too much your brass will still be clean but it will turn army green after a while. Less is more in this case. If you have hard water then the use of Lemishine will help prevent hard water spots on everything.
Click to expand...
Ive always used 1/8 tsp in a full thumlers. Not sure if thats the "right" amount, but it makes em shiny and no ill effects.
 
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#16
20 years ago, before the lemishine/dish soap caught on, my recipe consisted of a gallon of hot water, a big splash of concentrated lemon juice, white vinegar, dish soap and a sprinkle of salt. It worked well but if you left the brass in too long it would turn pink.
 
#17
Winny94 said:
But its 4x+ more expensive
Click to expand...
Its still a minor expense in the grand scheme of what it costs to reload a match grade round. It used to take me 2 hours to get my brass clean enough with all the home brews and most commercial brass cleaners. With the Boretech Case Clean, 20 minutes of ultrasonic solvent time followed by a 10 minute fresh water ultrasonic rinse and I am done. The older I get, the more valuable my time seems to be.
 
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#18
gigamortis said:
Its still a minor expense in the grand scheme of what it costs to reload a match grade round. It used to take me 2 hours to get my brass clean enough with all the home brews and most commercial brass cleaners. With the Boretech Case Clean, 20 minutes of ultrasonic solvent time followed by a 10 minute fresh water ultrasonic rinse and I am done. The older I get, the more valuable my time seems to be.
Click to expand...
How woudl it take 2 hours? Or are you counting the time the machine is working as your time?
 
#19
DSPrecision said:
If dish soap is a base and Lemi Shine (Citric Acid) is an acid, then why do people mix the two together to clean their brass? Depending on the ratio, aren't they just neutralizing one or the other, and depending on that ratio, being left with either an acid cleaner or basic cleaner. This makes zero sense to me. Can someone please enlighten me?

Also, the MSDS on RCBS and Hornady cleaner is Citric Acid.
Click to expand...
Dawn is your detergent. Detergent work in hard and soft water, but are most effective in softer water. Lemishine is a citric acid which effectively softens the water to make the detergent work better and also reduces water spotting.
In order to get the best results, you must run test batches using a variety of Lemishine to find the proper level. Too much will turn brass pink or brownish. This will reverse with successive cleanings (2-3).
Lastly water temperature will make a huge difference. Cold water will work, the hotter the water the better.
Media:
My preference has been a 50:50 mix of SS pins and Southern Shine SS chips.
If you are inclined to buy solution, I prefer Brass Juice. Small amount does a great job and if the brass is not dirty, you can reuse 2-3 time.
 

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#20
BigJohn141 said:
Has anyone tried the little dishwasher looking pods they sell now for cleaning brass? I saw some at the gun store the other day and thought about trying them. I’ll see if I can find a link

Here they are. Better be good for over $1 a cleaning.

www.frankfordarsenal.com

Platinum Series 24 Count InstaClean Brass Cleaning Packs | Frankford Arsenal

Platinum Series 24 Count InstaClean Brass Cleaning Packs
www.frankfordarsenal.com www.frankfordarsenal.com
Click to expand...
I've tried those pods. They actually work pretty good.

I usually just use a hefty squirt of dawn and a sprinkle of lemishine.

Either works well.
 
#21
Becoming a fan of lemishine.

Just did some cases this am.

I only use it as the cleaning process prior to prepping my brass, just to remove any gross contaminant and have them clean enough not to damage dies.

It's quick and the idea is to keep shit out of my corn cob.

Once the brass is processed it goes in corn to remove lube than gets loaded.

After loading another short trip in corn leaves a little bit of nu finish on and than they go into storage.
 
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#23
Soap breaks surface tension too.

Here’s some anecdotal evidence after cleaning and selling over 20,000 pounds of brass many years back.

Just soap without lemishine Will clean brass, but it definitely won’t sparkle in the sun like new brass.

The stainless pins do the majority of the grunt work in cleaning.

Brass is butt nekkid after being cleaned this way, and and you can feel it in the dies. A lot more friction. Try it.

I used to run the brass in a cement mixer filled with corn cob treated with new finish AFTER stainless cleaning. This provided just the right amount of slick to the brass.

Pure food grade citric acid is cheaper than lemishine.
 
#24
Bigfatcock said:
Soap breaks surface tension too.

Here’s some anecdotal evidence after cleaning and selling over 20,000 pounds of brass many years back.

Just soap without lemishine Will clean brass, but it definitely won’t sparkle in the sun like new brass.

The stainless pins do the majority of the grunt work in cleaning.

Brass is butt nekkid after being cleaned this way, and and you can feel it in the dies. A lot more friction. Try it.

I used to run the brass in a cement mixer filled with corn cob treated with new finish AFTER stainless cleaning. This provided just the right amount of slick to the brass.

Pure food grade citric acid is cheaper than lemishine.
Click to expand...

Guessing those plastic lemons filled with pure juice mixed with water would work equally well.

Just easier storing a can of lemi shine under the bench.

When I had some real grungy 9mm brass I got off a range I also added a lemi shine activator tab to the mix, made the brass nice and shiny and all I do is let it sit in a rubber bucket for ten minutes or so.

Use caution on drying though, don't let the water sit in the brass any length of time. You will get blue staining from leaching the copper out of the brass.

I put the brass in a pillow case and toss it in my furnace room, agitate the brass a couple of times and let the heat of the furnace quickly dry the water.
 
#25
I used pure food grade citric acid from diesel labs. Would order it 10 lbs at a time.

If you’re getting blue staining, something else is wrong. The citric acid will leech zinc, which is why it turns pink if left too long.

Only time I saw blue stain was if the wet brass came into contact with galvanized steel.

For my personal use brass, I fill a bucket with hot water, add Dawn, citric acid, and let brass soak for 5 minutes. No pins. After that I let it dry, and then tumble.

For my black powder brass, it goes into a soap/water solution at the range. At home it goes into water with oxy clean, followed by a citric acid/water soak, and then tumbled.
 
#26
#27
”Finish” booster also works every bit as well as Lemishine. Competing product and turns out to be even cheaper on Amazon. Of course you have to be man enough to live with a pink bottle. 😁
 
#29
I remember going down this road years ago when I was researching whether or not I should get into the SS pins for case cleaning. Well, I did. Unfortunately, I got stuck on the crazy ass 150 step process over at 6mmbr.com...looking back, it was really dumb.

Anyhow, I got tired of doing that process, and just tested a batch out using warm water and 2 table spoons of Dawn.

You could not tell any difference. In fact, the Dawn by itself was much better. When I used Lemi Shine, I would get some discoloration in some of my cases in each batch.

Seriously, just toss them in warm water with the Dawn and let them roll.

TBH - you could prolly just run them without any "cleaner" in the drum, but I believe the Dawn puts a kind of lubricity to the inside of the cases that allow the pins to come out easier when they are first being rinsed.
 
#30
I was reading onto this and decided to do a test:

PMC brass, suppressed, the dirtiest brass I have seen for a while.

Temperature: 70C / 160F

Just citric acid, 5min:
Before:
PMC CA only bf.jpg


After, this came out looking brighter than it was.
PMC CA only af.jpg


CA + soap, 5min
Before:
PMC CA+soap bf.jpg

After:

PMC CA+soap af.jpg


With my bare eyes I could see that added soap reduced spotness and cases were maybe 50% cleaner than with just CA.

I left both cases straight from the cleaner to dry in cardboard boxes and see if there will be any discoloration.

With already quite clean cases just the citric acid did good job getting them cleaned.
 
Last edited:
#33
Near miss said:
I was reading onto this and decided to do a test:

PMC brass, suppressed

Just citric acid, 5min:
Before:


View attachment 8018732

after:
View attachment 8018733

CA + soap, 5min

Before:
View attachment 8018734
After:

View attachment 8018735

With my bare eyes I could see that added soap reduced spotness and cases were maybe 50% cleaner than with just CA.

I left both cases straight from the cleaner to dry in cardboard boxes and see if the will be any discoloration.

With already quite clean cases just the citric acid did good job getting them cleaned.
Click to expand...
I've done the same test, but with really hot water for the citric acid solution (Lemi Shine in my case) and on brass that doesn't have dirt or mud caked on them. My tests consisted of 10-15 minutes with a little swirling/agitation by hand a couple of times. The brass case came out pretty shiny. But, if I didn't rinse them really well in cool water, they'd lose that shine substantially.

Also, doing the same thing, but after discarding the citric acid water, I refilled the bucket with a little
Dawn and hot water, with a little hand agitation, after ~ 5 minutes I rinsed them really well and they came out looking almost as nice as if I had wet tumbled them with Lemi-shine and Dawn.

My conclusion after my experiments is that it doesn't take very long to clean up brass that's not got dirt or mud clinging to them.
 
#34
For semi 223 brass I usually decap (because it is covered in dirt and sand), wash and then resize. The resizing process usually gets some more stuck carbon moving and after that I wash them again and they are quite nice. I also wash quickly after trimming if I do it.

But those brass were dirty, caked on dirty. I had hard time even reading the markings against light.

I think I could try the oregon washing ultrasonic liquid also but not sure of its composition if it attacks the brass.
 
Last edited:
#35
Btw. I spent few hours reading about brass and different chemicals to clean it with and it turned out that citric acid is also used by many companies to protect the brass from corroding in storage and use.
That is, turning green or maybe even losing zinc.
So there is no reason to wash it off, actually against it.

So let the stuff dry on the case (not sure if the layer forms against air, as like when passivating steel with citric acid) but leaving some citric acid to dry on top of that brass will definitely prolong its life, not the other way around.

Citric acid is really incredibly brilliant stuff to clean brass with. It only attacks the copper and zinc(?) oxides, leaving pure and passivated surface (that does not react easily with outer contaminants) behind.
 
#36
It's an easy to use , cheap on the pocket alternative to high cost cleaners you have to make sure you rinse the cases really good cause the lemi shine will turn the case green fast if left on or you use too much of it . Or you could use a drill to spin the case and a tiny bit of brasso to polish the case without using water it sounds slower but doing 100 is actually faster buy about an hour with the drill than washing and drying and it stays shiny for a month maybe more longer than washing gets em . best of luck with what ever you decide to do .
 
#37
acudaowner said:
It's an easy to use , cheap on the pocket alternative to high cost cleaners you have to make sure you rinse the cases really good cause the lemi shine will turn the case green fast if left on or you use too much of it . Or you could use a drill to spin the case and a tiny bit of brasso to polish the case without using water it sounds slower but doing 100 is actually faster buy about an hour with the drill than washing and drying and it stays shiny for a month maybe more longer than washing gets em . best of luck with what ever you decide to do .
Click to expand...
Brasso contains ammonia which will cause brass to degrade and weaken. It might look good, but will cause premature failure.
My favorite is BrassJuice. Fast complete cleaning with SS pins. Inside outside and primer pocket as pristine as new.
Recent test of BrassJuice and BoreTech Case Cleaner. See results.
 

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#38
DSPrecision said:
If dish soap is a base and Lemi Shine (Citric Acid) is an acid, then why do people mix the two together to clean their brass? Depending on the ratio, aren't they just neutralizing one or the other, and depending on that ratio, being left with either an acid cleaner or basic cleaner. This makes zero sense to me. Can someone please enlighten me?

Also, the MSDS on RCBS and Hornady cleaner is Citric Acid.
Click to expand...
A base doesn't nuetralize an acid, an alkali nuetralizes acid and vice versa.
 
#39
Dawn, Lemishine, water and your brass.
No pins, nothing else to filter out or check to see if it's stuck in the flash hole.
Completely effective, cheap, widely available in many common stores.
 
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