New Way to Clean Brass

[la5676]

Makes simple, hard. Does a fine job it appears, but for me, kitchen sink, Dawn soap, Lemi-Shine (or pickling salts), hot water, 10 minutes - ba~da~bing -- done. Nail board to dry in the sun.

Lemi-shine is really nothing more than citric acid with a little baking soda in it.

[358429]

I do a quick tumble in corn cob to get the rough stuff off. Then I deprime. Then I put about anywhere between 500 to 1000 in my Frankford wet tumbler with pins, lemishine and Armour all wax n Wash. Run it for about an hour or two. Dump them into a media separator to get the pins out. Lay a wife approved towel on the clothes dryer and have a small desk fan that blows air over them. I like um bright and shiny.

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Nice fresh minty brass!

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[Dieselhorses]

Summer in Louisiana now. 2.5 hours wet tumbling-1 hour drying! I just spread out 500 cases on a couple of towels on a fold out table and let the mid day sun do the work.

[GregLaROCHE]

Has anyone tried putting cases in a mesh bag and running them through a cycle in a washing machine? I found a case that must have been left in a pants pocket, in the bottom of my washing machine once. It was pretty shiny and clean.

[MUSTANG]

Has anyone tried putting cases in a mesh bag and running them through a cycle in a washing machine? I found a case that must have been left in a pants pocket, in the bottom of my washing machine once. It was pretty shiny and clean.

Would think it would bang up the sides and chip the paint on the washer drum. Also in a bag; it would put the drum out of balance on "Spin Cycles". When in a pants pocket it is limited in quantity and ability to unbalance spin cycle.

[Baltimoreed]

Environmentally safe chemicals are still chemicals, there are too many in the world imo. I’ve been using my old ‘orange’ tumbler for years. When I get home from a match, I drop my match and prematch practice brass in it, set it in the gazebo on my deck and plug it in. Before I go to bed I will go out and dump it through a colander to separate the media from the brass. Next day I’ll sort the brass and put them back into their appropriate jugs. Not a commercial operation by any means but it’s easy. I deprime and prime pistol brass on the press as it’s loaded but will prime rifle brass with a lee autoprime as it’s reloaded on a single stage press.

[jonp]

Makes simple, hard. Does a fine job it appears, but for me, kitchen sink, Dawn soap, Lemi-Shine (or pickling salts), hot water, 10 minutes - ba~da~bing -- done. Nail board to dry in the sun.

Do you find the non iodized pickling salt works better than table salt?

[DocSavage]

The minuete I heard sulfuric acid I was put off. Sulfuric acid is still acid no matter what the percentage is. Dawn,Lemni shine,SS pins and water works just fine.

[1hole]

The minuete I heard sulfuric acid I was put off. Sulfuric acid is still acid no matter what the percentage is. Dawn,Lemni shine,SS pins and water works just fine.

Well, acid is acid for sure but the concentration/strength matters. I believe you'll find that the active part of Lemishine is citric acid.

[1hole]

Environmentally safe chemicals are still chemicals, there are too many in the world imo.

It's gotten to be very hard to avoid all them chemical things these days, they can be found in virtually every thing we eat. (I recently learned that even our best coffees are absolutely full of H2O and a few other chemical things!)

[Mal Paso]

When separating the brass from the pins I used two buckets, a television and a cold beer on a hot day.

If you use one of the rotary separators Submerged In Water the pins fall out in seconds.

[Daekar]

Impressive results in the video.

Call me lazy, but I just don't care. As long as things shoot straight and my dies aren't damaged, I don't really see the point.

[Rfeustel]

I think the drying process required in wet tumbling gets a lot of bad press.


My Lortone #12 wet tumbles 500-600 9mm empties easily (if I counted them it would probably be more). Using Lemishine + Armorall's Wash & Wax I rinse 2 times & put them into my Midway colander. I position my goose neck desk lamp over them (60 watt bulb)& they are dry in less than 2 hrs..

Before going into the colander I put them into a wife approved towel & fold similar to a hammock, & let them slide back & fort in that "hammock" about 10 times & then they go into the colander.

Note: I always deprime before the process.

I agree. I’m a recent convert to wet and the drying is not the PITA I thought it would be - especially because I decap before wet tumbling. Here in CA, I can leave them out in the sun to dry. Using Southern Shine media and the separation of the media from the cases is really easy too. No harder than dry tumble separation.

[imashooter2]

Any process that uses water is a pain. I am not carrying pails of water into the shop and then you have to dry the cases. Might work OK for a few less than 200 cases at a time.

Ultra clean cases do not perform any better so not worth the bother.

And let the people say, AMEN!

And any process that makes me decap before cleaning is a no go for me.

[ACC]

This is old news. That stuff, under a different name, was available back in the late 70's. It etches brass badly so it must weaken it as well. Tried it didn't like it.

ACC