Lemishine

[Carrier]

Hi, dbmet -

Happy to share my wet tumbling recipe. I have the Thumlers model B with a 15 pound drum capacity. I typically tumble about 5 pounds of brass per batch. I use 1 ounce of auto wash and wax (Armor-All, Blue Coral, Maquire's all work about the same - but Rain-X didn't suds up enough for me). Also 1/4 TSP of Lemi-Shine. It's the Lemi-Shine that delivers the "jewelry-like" brilliance. Without the Lemi-Shine, the brasses would tumble clean but look very dull (I've done it without Lemi-Shine just to compare).

The brasses in the above pic were tumbled yesterday for about 3 hours. Also, important to getting a brilliant shine is to immediately dry the brasses to remove surface drops. Otherwise, you'll get very noticeable waterspots.

That's it.

Happy Tumbling -

Bayou52

How much water does this hold filled to top with no brass in it?

[Walter Laich]

I have the Rebel 17 tumbler from STM; a bit bigger than Thumlers. It calls for 1 gallon of water, 1/4 teaspoon of Lemishine and as others mention Armor-All Wash and Wax

I use three capfuls per load. Super shine and it holds it's shine for over a year--did some 38 Sp brass that still is shinny--going on 18 months now

I've moved over to SS chips instead of pins and 2 hours is fine for length of time to get them clean.

[Bayou52]

How much water does this hold filled to top with no brass in it?

The Thumlers Model B drum has a 15 pound drum capacity. 1 gallon of water is 8 pounds. So, the drum (empty - no brass, no pins) should hold just shy of 2 gallons of water.

Bayou52

[Gillie Dog]

How much water does this hold filled to top with no brass in it?

Good question. Brass, pins and one gallon of water almost fills it up. Curiosity go to me so I went and measured a Thumlers B and got 160 ounces in it or 5 quarts of water without pins or brass. The pins displace some water and the brass displaces very little also. So it is close to full with one gallon water, 2 lbs. brass and 5 lbs. of pins.

GD

[dbmet]

How do you like the Rebel 17?

D

I have the Rebel 17 tumbler from STM; a bit bigger than Thumlers. It calls for 1 gallon of water, 1/4 teaspoon of Lemishine and as others mention Armor-All Wash and Wax

I use three capfuls per load. Super shine and it holds it's shine for over a year--did some 38 Sp brass that still is shinny--going on 18 months now

I've moved over to SS chips instead of pins and 2 hours is fine for length of time to get them clean.

[Carrier]

Thanks for the replies. My son made one and so far we have gotten good results. Just have to play with the amount of wax/soap and lemi shine. The brass have a slightly yellowish color to them and not the brilliant shine such as yours.
Used 5lbs of pins and think maybe 10 might be better. Going to try a batch tomorrow and will measure the amount of water it holds with nothing else in it and then figure out the amount of wash/wax and lemi shine to put in.

[Bayou52]

Carrier -

What type of tumbler are you using?

[Carrier]

Carrier -

What type of tumbler are you using?

Like I said its a homemade one. It holds 8 liters of water which is about 2.1 US gallons to the top. It measures 7"X16".

[Bayou52]

The reason I asked was to compre what you have to what I'm using which is a Thumlers model B. Your drum is slightly larger if it has a 2.1 gallon capacity. The Thumlers drum is slightly less than 2 gallons.

As such, 10 pounds of pins would seem to be plenty of pins since the Thumlers uses only 5 pounds and achieves stellar results. I have not experimented with increasing the volume of pins, however. Please let us know how you do if you increase the volume of your pins.

[Carrier]

The reason I asked was to compre what you have to what I'm using which is a Thumlers model B. Your drum is slightly larger if it has a 2.1 gallon capacity. The Thumlers drum is slightly less than 2 gallons.

As such, 10 pounds of pins would seem to be plenty of pins since the Thumlers uses only 5 pounds and achieves stellar results. I have not experimented with increasing the volume of pins, however. Please let us know how you do if you increase the volume of your pins.

The reason I'm thinking of increasing the pin amount is the length of the cylinder. It may or may not work. I have been using too much soap and lemi shine though.
Also what water temperature do you use?

[Bayou52]

The reason I'm thinking of increasing the pin amount is the length of the cylinder. It may or may not work. I have been using too much soap and lemi shine though.
Also what water temperature do you use?

I use cold water out of the tap for both tumbling and rinsing.

Too much Lemi-Shine will cause brass darkening/discoloration. I limit its use to 1/4 TSP per batch, and get the results you see in the above pic.

Happy Tumbling!

Bayou52

[Carrier]

Have any of you tumbled 44 magnum with 38/357, 9 mm or 223? Just wondering if the smaller cases will get stuck in the 44 ones with the pins.

[Bayou52]

Have any of you tumbled 44 magnum with 38/357, 9 mm or 223? Just wondering if the smaller cases will get stuck in the 44 ones with the pins.

Yes, I've made that mistake. The smaller cases would fit inside the larger ones and would not get cleaned. So, I make sure to separate the brasses, except, for example, similarly sized cases such as 38, 9mm, etc.

Bayou52

[OS OK]

I use 1 tbs of Armorall wash and wax and 1/4 tsp of Lemishine and get the same results as Bayou52. I tumble for 2 hours. You will have to play with the detergent amount and the amount of time you tumble because water hardness varies in different places on this earth. I used to use Dawn, but then the brass tarnishes pretty quick after you tumble and dry. The armorall wash and wax leaves a wax on the cases and the tarnish doesn't happen. I just tumbles some 45acp cases today and dried them and put them in a container that had tumble cleaned brass from 6 months ago in it and you could not see a difference. I have an old food dehydrator I use to dry my brass. 20 or so minutes at 120 degrees and all the brass is dry.

Attachment 165956Attachment 165957Attachment 165958Attachment 165959

The first two pics. are with different light of the same batch…under fluorescents, it's impossible to get them to look as they would in sunlight. I'm happy with them now, but I had to do them twice.
The first time, 3 hours, with the Armor All and a 'pinch' of Lemi Shine with well water through a softener they came out 'brownish' in color. Clean but no good!
The second time, 2 hours, with Dawn mixed with a small squirt of this 'Jet Dry' stuff the wife uses in the D.W. they came out as you see in pics. 1 & 2.
This Lemi Shine stuff seems to not work with my well water…or is it something else entirely? We soften our well as it is high in Calcium, no iron if that makes a difference.
The pic. of the motor assy. on the tumbler shows a small metal strap I made to rotate the motor out and tighten up the belt…not too tight though just enough so that you don't have to use belt dressing along with a string of cuss words to get it to perform, self start under load as designed.

Can somebody get me straightened out with this business…suggest something, different method or …?
Do you have the same treated well water (Culligan, just keep the salt filled to right height)…as me?

charlie befuddled...

[BUCKEYE BANDIT]

OS OK,

I'm on a well also,very hard cal/iron thru a Culligan.

Not sure of your tumbler drum capacity but it took a while to figure out the right mix in mine.Now I'm back to that point again(just built a new tumbler with bigger drums).Just a guess,but I use 2 tps. per gallon of water and the wash-n-shine.

[Bonz]

the Armor All Wash & Wax is the hot setup for the final wash. It leaves a wax finish on the brass that keeps them from tarnishing. I have a bunch of 5.56 brass that I washed almost a year ago and it looks just the same as the day I washed it.

[mold maker]

Take extra pains to ensure that you don't have a single steel case in the mix. it will cause terrible results. Dark stained and grungy is an understatement.
Even the drum of the tumbler will need cleaning.

[Carrier]

the Armor All Wash & Wax is the hot setup for the final wash. It leaves a wax finish on the brass that keeps them from tarnishing. I have a bunch of 5.56 brass that I washed almost a year ago and it looks just the same as the day I washed it.

Yup I went to armour all as well and noticed big difference from dawn soap. I just need to get the lemi shine mix right as my brass is really clean but a little yellow. I used less lemi shine in the bottom ones and they were less yellow.
I checked some brass that I did last summer one batch with dawn and the other with armour all and the batch with dawn had spots on them but the armour all ones were just as they were last year.
As you can see in this picture.

[Bayou52]

Congrats, Carrier -

Nice results you've got there, esp in that second photo.

It's true that a bit much Lemi-Shine will actually cause darkening of the brass. It's a matter of trial and error to see how much or how little works best for your size tumbler, etc.

It's 1/4 TSP per batch for the Thumlers Model B that I use......

Bayou52

[OS OK]

So…I need to go back with the Armor All alone in my media separator in a bucket filled with water as I do the rinse? So as to get the protective coating?
Do my wash initially as I do with Dawn and the D.W. additive?
Do I throw out the Lemi Shine because of water considerations?

Yes I have the model B Thumbler but only fill the water to 2/3's capacity for weight control and keep the entire loaded tumbler at or below 23 pounds.
By the way, I don't know where I got mine…it just showed up one day and I don't know the 'specs' on it…what are they?

charlie