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Thread: HF cement mixer for wet tumbler

  1. #21
    Boolit Master
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    That's something to consider if I go back to the dry tumbling smaller volumes of brass, thanks!

    Sorry for the hijack. Back to the mixer. Jerry Miculek said in his vid that he'd do a five gallon bucket of brass along with the same amount of water in what looks like the full sized mixer. I assume proportionally less for the smaller.

    The work area at my club for the brass cleaning (also for cleaning up and ingotting scrap lead and for other casting) is just about done - pavers over gravel for drainage. Turned out nice. Maybe too nice - the club chairman thinks it would make a great place for a couple picnic tables and a grill. Sacrilege! Almost as bad as turning open land into a golf course instead of a rifle range.

  2. #22
    Boolit Grand Master

    mold maker's Avatar
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    Use care adding the MS as you can create an explosive atmosphere, in an enclosed space, compleat with static electricity. Also, too much can cause the dirt to stick to the brass like specks of hard wax, which is extremely hard to remove. I add a squirt of water to help keep the dust to a minimum and used dryer sheets to collect dirt.
    Information not shared. is wasted.

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
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    i have used a Cement mixer to polish. I was polishing 38 special brass. appox 2 5 gal pails. If the brass does not have a good support . Your brass will be ruined quickly. . Wet tumble will not work well because the brass sits @the botton and crashes into the blades . The best support I found was Hardwood sawdust. the brass mixed well and polished well. The nightmare was in the separation.
    NRA Endowment Member
    International Ammunition Association
    New York, the Empire State Where Empires were Won and Lost

  4. #24
    Boolit Buddy
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    I don't confuse CLEANING with POLISHING or COATINGS.

    Wash first, removes oily crud, loose carbon, mud, rocks & anything else that rode in on the brass.
    If it's really nasty, (tarnished/corroded, full of dirt/mud) I hit the initial cleaning with stainless pins/chips and maybe acid.

    Then I polish, corn cob or walnut shell.
    Both are proven and both can be screened/washed if you DO NOT address coatings.

    If the customer wants, I can add coatings. Waxes are common.
    I apply coatings with sponges. This keeps coatings out of the powder cavity and seriously un-complicates things.
    Wax left in the drum comes out when the next wash happens.

    ----

    Lowes has a plastic drum mixer for $300 USD.
    Metal drum supports inside, split heater hose down the side & nylon zip tie on the edges of the blades, or replace with hardwood if you use infrequently and/or have rust issues.

    You are looking at 10 gallons of brass maximum in this mixer.
    For $300 it's a tough plastic drum, gear box, motor and drum supported on rollers.
    https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-4-cu...-Mixer/3591096

    Many large vibratory & ultrasonic cleaner run $300 and can't do the volume, or cut time like a wet bath cleaning will.

    Grease cutting detergent to clean the oil crud off, flush the brass (or separate pins/chips if that's your thing), and throw DAMP (not soaking wet) brass right back in the mixer with corn cob or walnut polish media.
    DAMP brass will be dried by the media while it's getting polished.

    This breaks down the process, WASHING/CLEANING brass BEFORE you plug up your polishing media with the carbon & oily gunk, media lasts MUCH longer this way.

    ----

    Anything under 5 gallon bucket size (brass, water, pins, polishing media, all combined volume),
    A heavy duty kitchen mixer has speed control, motor, gear reduction drive and is easy to turn a small volume container.
    The frame is basically 2"x4" wood, a set of skate board wheels/axles (which have roller bearings) and your mixer drive.

    -----

    YouTube is full of home made separators that do larger volume.
    The biggest mistake I see is not mounting the separator drum up high enough to get a common container under it.
    I use the longer 'Rubber Maid' tubs since they are short, long, cheap, light (you are picking up off the floor), and when one fails it's no big deal, and they are still small enough for one man to manage alone.

    This all depends on *IF* you possess the skills for rough carpentry.
    No matter what tumbler you use, it will take a separator large enough to catch & separate the entire batch, and once you get more than about a gallon of brass, the consumer hand crank options run out pretty quickly.

    I have the wife watch the thrift stores, yard sales, etc for skate boards & old mixers (larger battery powered tools, but that's a different story) and old angle iron bed frames.
    That angle iron is wonderful for small frame projects, the mixers skate board axes & wheels are obvious.
    The speed controller & motor from tread mills works pretty good, but it's a little more complicated wiring and many guys stay away from wiring...

    Old battery powered tools are an 'Off Grid' option.
    Dead batteries are usually the problem, and you simply add a cord with a couple battery clamps.
    A drum sifter & rather large drill motor is how I separate range lead from dirt/sand/rocks when I'm cleaning out bullet traps.
    Ironically, it's on an old cement mixer frame that's low to the ground.
    Shovel dirt in, move it over the hole you just made & flip it on, the dirt goes right back in the hole you just made.
    My vehicle battery powers the unit with a cord & battery clamps.
    Last edited by JeepHammer; 06-23-2018 at 11:59 AM.

  5. #25
    Boolit Buddy 35isit's Avatar
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    Buy the media separator if you are doing less than mixer loads. I fought using kitchen utensils for a few years. Bought a used one for separating pins. Never looking back.
    Ky State Director IHMSA
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  6. #26
    Boolit Buddy
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    My separator is simply expanded metal with wood (painted) ends, wood funnel into tub underneath.
    The funnel supports the common pipe axle.
    I put media in nylon 'Dry Cleaning' bags when I need to sift or wash it.
    Window screen over the tub lets the media air dry when it's spread out a little.

    I started hand cranked, but found a reduction gear motor which I added later.

    It will swallow a FULL mixer of brass/pins/media, the 'Trick' to screening being surface area it works very quickly.
    The first drum was 6 sided, but an 8 sided screener makes for a more compact assembly and the drum will rotate with the lid open.

  7. #27
    Banned
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    I did this with 2 gal buckets can do 1100 pcs 44 S&W at a time, find biggest wiper motor and support the front and back so the motor is only turning the buckets(I didn't do this and the motor gets warm so I use a fan on it)
    4 nylon adjutators screwed in
    7# pins
    <2 gal brass de-caped
    almost full hot water
    1 tsp citric acid
    3 squirts dawn
    2 hours clean
    rinse well,
    media separator remove water
    soak in carwash/wax 1 min
    rinse
    media separator remove water
    roll on a towel to dry exterior (to prevent water spots)
    put in dehydrator for 2 hrs
    You could do this with a 5 gallon in a cement mixer just proportionally increase the sizes or directly in the mixer
    I've seen (somewhere) where they removed the metal "fins" out of a cement mixer and used nylon ones. If the metal mixer is to rough on the brass you could get it rhino coated like PU beds
    Food dehydrator









    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MchjmCIvzlY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4skIIRlFeQw
    Last edited by Grmps; 06-23-2018 at 02:00 PM.

  8. #28

  9. #29
    Boolit Master
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    Sep 2016
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    First run done with the HF small cement mixer.

    20# single caliber brass, couple tablespoons of Lemishine, three tablespoons of wash and wax, enough water to cover. No pins (I just tried the pins with my FART and I and going to skip them in the future, trading more brass per run and less hassle for the sparkling interiors and clean primer pockets). We assembled the mixer with one of the two metal blades that came with the mixer - the guy who wanted to clean his brass didn't want to wait to rig up new nonmetallic blades or to coat the originals. Cranked her up for just a short run under an hour because we were doing this while shooting a match.

    The motor strained a bit, with the drum slowing just a little on each rotation when the single blade lifted the brass. We'll probably have to tweak the recipe a bit; mebbe less brass and probably less car wash, as we spilled a lot of suds. The drum is a open mouthed top bolted to a geared solid lower, and leaked slowly at the connection (we turned the mixer off after it ran while we shot a stage and it had drained to the seam during the next stage). We drained into a plywood box with quarter inch mesh as a bottom, did a couple rinses and air dried.

    The brass looked pretty good. No peening appreciated, and cleaned well. More runs needed though, as this was once fired brass that wasn't very grungy to start with, done in a short run, and as mentioned before, we may reduce the detergent.

    ETA: and we'll see how long the motor lasts...
    Last edited by kevin c; 07-04-2018 at 12:50 AM.

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