OnceFired
05-24-2015, 11:19 PM
Hey all
Thought I'd post about this, since I had no idea what I just found could happen.
As many of you know, I tumble my brass in a cement mixer and recently upgraded to using steel pins. I wanted to run an experiment with the water used to clean the brass. After many weeks of sitting there un-used, the experiment is now seeing the light of day.
Here's the history of it.
I cleaned a full 5 gallon bucket of 223 brass using the following recipe:
Hot water (boiling from the stove - approx 2-3 gallons)
Hot water from the tap (remaining balance of 5 gallons or so)
Citric acid (from Walmart - about an ounce)
A couple drops of standard Dawn
Approximately 15 lbs of steel pins
Note that I cleaned about half of the brass per load so it took 2 loads to get it all done (pins work better with higher ratio of pins to brass)
I kept the water from the wash cycle in two 5 gallon buckets. That included a little bit of the rinse water too, but for the most part I did not keep the rinse water. It was easy enough to dump the cold rinse water into different buckets, so that's what I did.
So, what I have in two buckets is highly concentrated dirty brass water, which is high in citric acid content and likely has quite a bit of lead particulates as well as gunpowder residue, and a little soap.
The water was kept sealed in the 5 gallon plastic buckets for probably 2-3 months. Outdoors in full sun.
My plan was to use a biosand filter to clean the water up. My experiment was to see precisely how clean the filter could make the water.
I have one bucket that I have begun filtering already, and I have kept the other one on hand. I want to get that water tested before I run it through the filter, then test the filtered water after 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 passes through the biosand.
On to my point...
Interestingly, both buckets developed a very viscous, slimy almost fatty substance that floats on & just beneath the surface of the water. I have no idea what that might be. It looks nasty and feels worse, but it doesn't smell at all. Apparently it also coated the sides & bottom of the bucket, but when the water was disturbed that part quickly broke apart into sheets which then tore apart into tiny filaments.
But those filaments it definitely clogged up my top bucket that allows water to dribble out a small hole in the bottom before it gets to the top dispersal plate of the actual filter bucket. I'll post photos tomorrow so you can see what I mean.
The layer floating on top of each bucket did not break up easily. I ended up using a paint strainer bag to get the goop out of the dark brown water. I used latex gloves during the whole thing so I wouldn't get anything unknown all over my skin.
So my question is - what IS that junk? I have seen water go stagnant before of course, but it grew a paper thin film of algae not this really thick slime.
I imagine the highly acidic and nitrogen-impregnated water was a bit of a primordial soup so I don't know what to expect from having that in a petri dish so to speak. But, I expected to be testing what was essentially dirt dissolved in water, and instead I got a bit of a surprise.
I read a study that biosand filters do a fantastic job of filtering out lead & other heavy metals, and wanted to test the theory. I got something I hadn't planned on, which was both cool and odd.
Anyone have some knowledge they could share?
OF
Thought I'd post about this, since I had no idea what I just found could happen.
As many of you know, I tumble my brass in a cement mixer and recently upgraded to using steel pins. I wanted to run an experiment with the water used to clean the brass. After many weeks of sitting there un-used, the experiment is now seeing the light of day.
Here's the history of it.
I cleaned a full 5 gallon bucket of 223 brass using the following recipe:
Hot water (boiling from the stove - approx 2-3 gallons)
Hot water from the tap (remaining balance of 5 gallons or so)
Citric acid (from Walmart - about an ounce)
A couple drops of standard Dawn
Approximately 15 lbs of steel pins
Note that I cleaned about half of the brass per load so it took 2 loads to get it all done (pins work better with higher ratio of pins to brass)
I kept the water from the wash cycle in two 5 gallon buckets. That included a little bit of the rinse water too, but for the most part I did not keep the rinse water. It was easy enough to dump the cold rinse water into different buckets, so that's what I did.
So, what I have in two buckets is highly concentrated dirty brass water, which is high in citric acid content and likely has quite a bit of lead particulates as well as gunpowder residue, and a little soap.
The water was kept sealed in the 5 gallon plastic buckets for probably 2-3 months. Outdoors in full sun.
My plan was to use a biosand filter to clean the water up. My experiment was to see precisely how clean the filter could make the water.
I have one bucket that I have begun filtering already, and I have kept the other one on hand. I want to get that water tested before I run it through the filter, then test the filtered water after 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 passes through the biosand.
On to my point...
Interestingly, both buckets developed a very viscous, slimy almost fatty substance that floats on & just beneath the surface of the water. I have no idea what that might be. It looks nasty and feels worse, but it doesn't smell at all. Apparently it also coated the sides & bottom of the bucket, but when the water was disturbed that part quickly broke apart into sheets which then tore apart into tiny filaments.
But those filaments it definitely clogged up my top bucket that allows water to dribble out a small hole in the bottom before it gets to the top dispersal plate of the actual filter bucket. I'll post photos tomorrow so you can see what I mean.
The layer floating on top of each bucket did not break up easily. I ended up using a paint strainer bag to get the goop out of the dark brown water. I used latex gloves during the whole thing so I wouldn't get anything unknown all over my skin.
So my question is - what IS that junk? I have seen water go stagnant before of course, but it grew a paper thin film of algae not this really thick slime.
I imagine the highly acidic and nitrogen-impregnated water was a bit of a primordial soup so I don't know what to expect from having that in a petri dish so to speak. But, I expected to be testing what was essentially dirt dissolved in water, and instead I got a bit of a surprise.
I read a study that biosand filters do a fantastic job of filtering out lead & other heavy metals, and wanted to test the theory. I got something I hadn't planned on, which was both cool and odd.
Anyone have some knowledge they could share?
OF