okay...NOW what am i doing wrong?

[mozeppa]

batch in the red circle are 9mm
batch in the yellow circle (and pile) are 38 with a few 45's and a few 9mm in there too (a few!)

BOTH batchs were run in a cement mixer with stainless paddles , nuts and bolts (colbalt from lowes home improvements.)

BOTH batchs were run in 3 gallons of hot water (as hot as my water heater can do...approx 140 degrees.)yes... i changed water, soap and citric acid between runs.:groner:

BOTH had the same stainless steel pins in the water ...about 20 pounds. "(washed in between)

BOTH had the same 1/2 cup of citric acid (food Grade)

BOTH had the same teaspoon of dawn dish soap.

BOTH run for 4 plus hours.



9mm bright and shiney! yay!

38's dull and lifeless looking.


why? what did i not do?......my hat was on backwards , moved my keys and wallet to the right side... even shifted ...uh.. you know.

why ?

heres the pix.........

[osteodoc08]

Why people are so obsessed with brass cleanliness is beyond me. I just do the basics.

To answer your question, who knows. Different make, different year brass?

Howd you dry them? The 38 brass looks more oxidized, but same cleanliness. I get this when I dry in the oven. It takes on a darker patina.

Toss em in a tumbler with some brass cleaner and be done with it.

[Beesdad]

batch in the red circle are 9mm
batch in the yellow circle (and pile) are 38 with a few 45's and a few 9mm in there too (a few!)

BOTH batchs were run in a cement mixer with stainless paddles , nuts and bolts (colbalt from lowes home improvements.)

BOTH batchs were run in 3 gallons of hot water (as hot as my water heater can do...approx 140 degrees.)yes... i changed water, soap and citric acid between runs.:groner:

BOTH had the same stainless steel pins in the water ...about 20 pounds. "(washed in between)

BOTH had the same 1/2 cup of citric acid (food Grade)

BOTH had the same teaspoon of dawn dish soap.

BOTH run for 4 plus hours.



9mm bright and shiney! yay!

38's dull and lifeless looking.


why? what did i not do?......my hat was on backwards , moved my keys and wallet to the right side... even shifted ...uh.. you know.

why ?

heres the pix.........

The concentration citric acid is way to high... 1/4 tsp / gal. Is all that is needed.. Hot water not necessary. You can increase the dawn without any problem.

[BNE]

I'm fighting the same learning curve..... I have VERY shiny brass, but then when they dry, they tarnish. I don't have the cement mixxer, but I am using warm citric acid in a sonic cleaner.

Today I tried taking them out of the liquid, rinsing several times, then shakig them in a yogurt tub with rubbing alcohol then fanning them dry. Some looked great, some dark. I put them in my tumbler with corn cob media and tumbled for a few hours, and they look good now.....

Good post, I look forward to the answers. (And to those who wonder WHY we bother, some of us just like shiny brass.)

[62chevy]

Shinny brass is easier to find in the dirt/mud/grass that's why we like shinny brass.

[nvbirdman]

When I clean and tumble my brass and dump it out of the tumbling media it is nice and shiny. When I leave it in the media and don't dump it out until a few hours later it is dull and tarnished looking.
Just trying to throw you a hint.

[dbosman]

Last year we processed 1.25 tons of 9mm brass.
In the Lowes mixer we put about 2.5 gallons of brass, filled the mixer with almost all the water it could hold (cold from the hose), about 1 Tbsp of LemiShine (Citric Acid) and at least a table spoon of liquid dish detergent. First wash got poured off entirely. The timing depending on how dirty the water got how fast. Physically dirty brass was clean of dirt after 20 minutes or so. The next hour or two was to clean the brass.

Then several fill, rinse and dump cycles to clear out the detergent.

[BruceB]

The reason that super-shiny brass tarnishes is that the metallic surface is "naked" to the air, and therefore will oxidize quickly.

For many years, I've been polishing my brass with fine-grind corncob.... BUT..... to each tumbler load, I add a shot of turtle Wax "Scratch and Swirl Remover".

I selected this stuff in hopes that it would be slightly more-aggressive in its action than regular Turtle Wax. Dunno if it is or isn't, but it surely does work well for me.

The important point is this: using a car polish or other wax product in the DRY tumbling medium leaves a microscopically-thin layer of wax on the brass. The air does not make direct contact with the surface, and as a result my brass stays brilliantly-shiny for many months in storage.

Try it; you'll like it.

[hickfu]

I'm fighting the same learning curve..... I have VERY shiny brass, but then when they dry, they tarnish. I don't have the cement mixxer, but I am using warm citric acid in a sonic cleaner.

Today I tried taking them out of the liquid, rinsing several times, then shakig them in a yogurt tub with rubbing alcohol then fanning them dry. Some looked great, some dark. I put them in my tumbler with corn cob media and tumbled for a few hours, and they look good now.....

Good post, I look forward to the answers. (And to those who wonder WHY we bother, some of us just like shiny brass.)

Drop a little of the liquid car wax into your mix, It will help keep them shiny


Doc

[mozeppa]

Why people are so obsessed with brass cleanliness is beyond me. I just do the basics.

To answer your question, who knows. Different make, different year brass?

Howd you dry them? The 38 brass looks more oxidized, but same cleanliness. I get this when I dry in the oven. It takes on a darker patina.

Toss em in a tumbler with some brass cleaner and be done with it.



i figure that if i'm going to go to all the trouble of making rounds of ammunition that are heads and shoulders above anything a factory can produce.....well...it should look the part as well!

its "OCD" i know ...but its my time...love like i am and don't try to change me!

if you want to see real "OCD" in action ...wait til you get a gander at my reloading room. bet i drop some jaws!

[mozeppa]

all were air dried on 2 big bath towels

[MtGun44]

I tumble in corncob with a capful of NuFinish car wax. Slick and shiny in 2 hours, never
and silly drying and working with chemicals, stainless pins, etc. Unless the brass is
DARK BROWN there is zero need for citric acid.

I am absolutely amazed at the way folks complicate the heck out of a simple process.

Bill

[WILCO]

There are many ways to get shiny brass. Keep it simple and have fun.

[altheating]

FWIW, my tumbler holds about 1.5 gal water. I put whatever amount of brass in it. Fill with hot water, about 1 cup of stainless pins, a tablespoon of cheap dish soap and a cut off 12 gauge shotgun shell (cut to the top of the brass) of lemishine. 2 hours = shiny brass. I'm thinking a combination of too much pins and too much lemishine.

[mozeppa]

I tumble in corncob with a capful of NuFinish car wax. Slick and shiny in 2 hours, never
and silly drying and working with chemicals, stainless pins, etc. Unless the brass is
DARK BROWN there is zero need for citric acid.

I am absolutely amazed at the way folks complicate the heck out of a simple process.

Bill

you'd really be amazed if you tried your simple process on 5 gallons of brass at a time!
you'd be amazed at how long it took.

or you''d be amazed at how many buzz buckets you'd have to buy so you could do a 5 gallon bucket of brass.

[Moonie]

I've moved away from using Dawn because of the tarnish issue, I use liquid car wash and wax, just as bright and shiny but doesn't tarnish.

[mdi]

Even though I couldn't care less about polished, shiny, virgin looking brass, I've tried wet tumbling w/ss media. I didn't use pins, but have a bunch of stainless steel hardware (I owned a few boats). I tumbled with small parts; 4-40, 6-32, nuts and washers and #6x1/2 ss screws, small cotter pins, etc., and got the shiny brass folks talk about. But I found the process much too involved (washing, tumbling, rinsing, drying) and all my brass tarnished, lightly, over a period of time. I don't have an answer about why the 9mm brass turns out different than the others but have you checked the headstamp? Mebbe slightly different alloy reacts differently....

[dbosman]

The outside of brass can be cleaned up without SS pins, or any other media. Just wet tumble in water. Detergent will abet the process, but isn't required. The drawback of that is the case mouths will show peening.

Another side of cleaning is neither fine walnut or corncob is enough to clean really tarnished brass. Both are too soft. Coarse walnut is a different matter.

But... all of these discussions are well covered in dozens of past threads.

[MtGun44]

Quantities being processed has absolutely nothing to do with the methods used, only
the size of the machine.

Use a cement mixer with corncob and NuFinish and you can do a large quantity, simply
and quickly without all the expense and mess of the wet cases. I have a friend that used
to do 55 gal drums of brass with two cement mixers with corncobs. Quick, dry and shiny.

Bill

[dragon813gt]

There is a very good reason to use citric acid w/ brass. It passivates it. Unfortunately it does not provide enough protection. But this is where a tumbler and NuFinish comes into play. There are many ways to achieve the same results. Who cares what other people do? I'm of the opinion that SS cleaning is to much work. But I couldn't care less if others want to do it.

[BNE]

The reason that super-shiny brass tarnishes is that the metallic surface is "naked" to the air, and therefore will oxidize quickly.

For many years, I've been polishing my brass with fine-grind corncob.... BUT..... to each tumbler load, I add a shot of turtle Wax "Scratch and Swirl Remover".

I selected this stuff in hopes that it would be slightly more-aggressive in its action than regular Turtle Wax. Dunno if it is or isn't, but it surely does work well for me.

The important point is this: using a car polish or other wax product in the DRY tumbling medium leaves a microscopically-thin layer of wax on the brass. The air does not make direct contact with the surface, and as a result my brass stays brilliantly-shiny for many months in storage.

Try it; you'll like it.

Excellent idea, I have not heard this one. Thanks! (Also MtGun44 thank you also. This is not the first time you have helped me out.) I'm off to the garage to see what car polish I have....