media for tumbling

#251
Re: media for tumbling

I actually use a 2.5 litre ultrasonic cleaner. Mix 50/50 water and white vinegar, add about 1tbs of baking soda, run it for 480 seconds or 8mins and after about 1/2 hr you can see you reflection inside and out, flash hole as well as primer pocket is clean...then rinse with tub of hot water and rubbing alcohol or windex about 2shots in 2 litre tub...place on towel and then stand up in plastic tupperware bin and get the hair blower out...after 3 mins i lay them down in tupperware tray and blast them with the high setting on the hair blower, then its a litte inner outer neck chamber and load the primers and away i go...no more tumbler for me , to loud and takes to long, this cost me about $1.00 to clean 50-100 cases..
 
#254
Re: media for tumbling

I'm pretty new to this compared to most of you folks. I have both the sonic cleaner and the Thumbler's with SS media as Terry hooked me up with the source a couple of months back.

In my limited time of about a month of trying the SS media, it does a much better job than the sonic cleaner. Cases are cleaner and much brighter, almost mirror polished.

One of the things that worked best for me was not to use hot water with the SS media. Regular temp filtered water with a squirt of dawn and about a 9 MM case of lemishine has worked great. I also don't put the brass in the oven. I do roll it in a towel after rinsing and put it case mouth down in a cat litter box tray with holes just right to hold the shells vertical. It doesn't tarnish at all.

I noticed that the hot water in the sonic cleaning and heated brass appeared to make the cases tarnish over a few hours. I have avoided that completely by leaving off the heat in the Thumblers and drying process. This works great for me, and maybe it might help someone having the problem with cases tarnishing over time.

Many thanks to Terry and Mark.
 
#255
Re: media for tumbling

Seawalker,
Will try the ambient temp water. That will speed things up by not having to come into house, get hot water and carry it back out to shop.
The hot water and the limishine must have a reaction or something.

Also next thing I going to try is I got some car wash soap/wax at K Mart on sale for 2.99 a gal. Gonna try and and see if that will work. Will report back with that. Or might just have a wide mouth jug and dump clean wet cases in a mixture of that and remove them for drying. If this works it will be the cheapest soap deal that can be had.

Guys need to keep experimenting to find a better solution. This is what found the Limishine which cut tumble time in half.

Put in one ounce of KMart stuff and let it run an hour with Limishine. Opened it up and cases were gray and crud in primer pockets in tact. No soap suds at all. I shot some Dawn to it and canned it back up so we will see what happens in another hour.
 
#256
Re: media for tumbling

Hummer,
Yea, I was going down the path that increasing the water temp and increasing the amount of lemishine in the sonic cleaner was speeding up the cleaning process, and it probably did. For me at least it also speeded up staining or tarnishing the brass. It did seem to be creating more of a chemical reaction using heat.

I even tried neutralizing the solution by dropping the cleaned brass in a baking soda solution. That helped some, but it seems that trying to speed up cleaning or drying with too much temp is a negative.

By the time the Thumbler's and SS media arrived, I had a pretty good indication that more is not always better.
 
#257
Re: media for tumbling

I dumped the other stuff refilled with tap water and did 1/2 ounce of Dawn and 6CC Limishine and went off and forgot them for a couple hours. Came out gleaming.

I mixed up some of the K Mart wash/wax in water and after rinsing the cases I put half of them in the wash/wax mix and other half left out and placed both on black surface to dry.

Well as it would happen came up a real wally gusher and dropped in several inches of rain so now the cases are sitting in water and will be rained on all night. I thought this would be a good test of whether either the untreated or treated would start to turn color so I am going to leave them out in the weather for several days to see what happens.

Supposed to rain here for several days out so this will be an accelerated test.
 
#258
Re: media for tumbling

Certainly will be interested in seeing how that turns out! Maybe it will be okay.

Wish we could get some of that rain here, but we did get about 1.3 inches this afternoon. Always something we can be thankful for.
 
#260
Re: media for tumbling

It is just easier for me to roll the cases in a towel which gets all the water off and prevents the waterspots which cause the tarnishing. I haven't tried anything like Cascade which is supposed to prevent water spots in dishwashers, so don't know if something like that might work.

Maybe somebody will run across just the right sequence or product.
 
#261
Re: media for tumbling

brass has been in weather raining on it every day and is now starting to turn both the waxed and unwaxed at same rate so the wash/wax isn't going to get us anywhere.
Stumbled across some 30.06 commercial once fired today in a garbage bag. No idea how long I have had it but headstamp with WRA. Must be 300 pieces.

It was too scuzzy to run in FL die so I decapped them and have them tumbling to come out in about 45 minutes. Will FL size them when they come out and get the next load ready.

 
#262
Re: media for tumbling

Thanks to Terry and Mark.
Received media yesterday. Should receive tumbler from Buffalo Arms this Friday. Should have a fun weekend cleaning brass
 
#263
Re: media for tumbling

Update on brass left out in weather. Starting to turn dark brown now. Been rained on half a dozen times so it is for sure the automotive wash&wax combo is worthless insofar as our needs are concerned.
On the old 30.06 brass, gee they were scuzzy. Had to tumble them twice and water turned black both times. Will probably do them a third time.

The third batch I even used 1 1/2 oz Dawn and 10CC Limishine ! ! !
Good thing is it was fired in a tight chambered bolt gun as head web area on fired cases is .468 so I can size them with a .466 base FL die and be good to go after I swage the primer pockets. Final count on the once fired is about 180 and near a hundred on the other cases fired in a FBC.
 
#265
Re: media for tumbling

Wife and I were cruising flea market the other day and one of the all chicom dealers with 500 plastic carrying bins had fine mesh stainless steel collanders for $2.00 each. They appear to be identical to the ones Target sells for 8.00.
So next time you see a flea market with lots of plastic bins check for the collanders with fine mesh.

I already got mine but at that price I got two more.
 
#268
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: canuck4570</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Anybody tried to dry your cases on the running shoes rack in your clothes dryer ? </div></div>
do you have a link to the type of rack you are talking about?
 
#269
Re: media for tumbling

usually when you buy a clothes dryer it come with it
its a rack that goes in the tumbler but does not turn and you put your wet running shoes on them
here is a picture of one
do a google search on dryer rack
heard somewhere that it works great
just put your cases on a 1/4 screen mesh and 15 minutes or so in the dryer....
dryer-rack-maytag_c8eaf19a27e1d87ec0fb31fc6aef7ef7_3x2_jpg_570x380_q85.jpg

 
#271
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: JPipes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I do the same thing and it drives my wife nuts. The dryer method sure works well though. </div></div>
same here
so I bought here a new bigger dryer and kept the small one for me
had to do a bit of electricity work in the garage to plug it but it was worth while...
peace in the house is important LOL
 
#274
Re: media for tumbling

Terry,
Thanks for the hookup for the SS media. It works better than the ceramic I was using. Wont ever go back to the walnut.
 
#275
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Lex Luther</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have always used walnut...for the guys using stainless, what volume of brass are you processing? Also is everyone getting theirs from STM.com, or are there other sources?
Thanks </div></div>

Check your PM's

Terry
 
#276
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ranger1183</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: canuck4570</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Anybody tried to dry your cases on the running shoes rack in your clothes dryer ? </div></div>
do you have a link to the type of rack you are talking about? </div></div>

Check out page #6 of the Testimonial Thread about half way down.

Terry
 
#278
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: suasponte</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ranger1183</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: canuck4570</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Anybody tried to dry your cases on the running shoes rack in your clothes dryer ? </div></div>
do you have a link to the type of rack you are talking about? </div></div>

Check out page #6 of the Testimonial Thread about half way down.

Terry </div></div>

could you send me the link you are talking about? Thanks!
 
#283
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BamaLoaded</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Please PM me info on Stainless media.

Thanks </div></div>

PM sent

Terry
 
#284
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Lex Luther</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have always used walnut...for the guys using stainless, what volume of brass are you processing? Also is everyone getting theirs from STM.com, or are there other sources?
Thanks </div></div>

I am shooting several hundred rounds a weekend and also catching up on piles of plinking brass I havent bothered to clean until now. You can easily do a couple hundred per night.

John
 
#292
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Moose72</div><div class="ubbcode-body">May I get the Pm about the stainless media as well, please..

Thanks.. </div></div>

PM sent

Terry
 
#297
Re: media for tumbling

Received the stainless steel media a few weeks ago. Using a small 3# Thumler A-R1 tumbler left over from kid’s rock polishing days. Still working on adjusting the amounts of materials and time, but have been mostly using around 20 oz. media, 100 pcs 40 S&W, water to about 1/4" over materials, small squirt of Ivory and 2-3 pinches of Lemi Shine. Run the tumbler 1-2 hours, rinse and play with the pretty brass.
1000 pcs of 40 S&W, range pickup, thus far and the only problem I've had was when I ran the tumbler for an hour, turned it off overnight and then ran it for a couple of hours the next morning. The brass was dull and slightly discolored. I suspect the long soak in the acidic Lemi Shine solution etched the brass.
 
#299
Re: media for tumbling

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Jaybird39</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Do you think you could convert a old clothes dryer to a case tumbler? </div></div>

Yes, this has already been done by a hide member. Look at the Testimonial thread, its posted in there somewhere. Page #6 to be exact towards the bottom.

Look here!!

Terry
 
#300
Re: media for tumbling

I also saw a post where someone used a clothes dryer with a rack which was meant for sweaters or sneakers. Since my dryer had a similar rack I purchased a cutlery insert for a drawer (rectangular basket) and then put my brass in that which I placed on top of the the dryer rack insert. It holds a 150 308 cases. Takes about 10 minutes to fully dry them. No need to make anything special. The wife gets annoyed when I tell her to wait on drying the clothes but no biggie.
 
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