Question about drying cases after tumbling wet. biggie.

[Bmi48219]

Couldn't you just dump them onto a screen and let them dry?

It can take several hours of hot sun to dry the water out of inside the brass, if they’re laying on a towel or screen.
After going through the entire cleaning process I’d just as soon not have water spots on or inside my stored brass.

[kevin c]

No spots if you remove most of the water and towel off the exteriors. My wet cleaned brass gets rinsed then tumbled in a media separator or shaken vigorously over a screen to get most of the water out, slung back and forth in a towel hammock to mostly dry the exteriors, then air dried outdoors. If I’m in a hurry screen trays of brass go over a floor vent at home where my furnace makes them comfortably warm.

Water doesn’t have to be at boiling temp to evaporate. I process too much brass to use a kitchen oven, but one set at a couple hundred degrees (or even hotter but turned off) should dry small batches.

If 350° over an hour doesn’t anneal the cases, I’d guess they’re OK, but I don’t have the experience or the understanding of materials science to know for sure: I’ll defer to those who do.

[charlie b]

There is no reason to go higher than 250F in an oven. That is above boiling and all of the moisture will be gone in a matter of minutes, even if you have 'pools' inside your brass. This works even on buckets of brass as long as the temp at the center of the batch goes over boiling temp. Convection ovens do better at getting the entire batch heated. FWIW, most of the brass will be dry before it even gets the entire batch up to temp.

If you are below boiling then it becomes a time/temp curve based on humidity. If you don't mind waiting you can just leave them on your bench for a few days. As many have posted just direct sunlight works well. Again, time depends on ambient temp and humidity.

Annealing brass takes a LOT hotter, 700F or so. Your oven cannot do it.

[reddog81]

I leave mine on a towel in the basement. During the winter the humidity is low and it usually takes about a day for them to dry. In the summer when humidity is higher it takes about 2 days. With bottleneck cases you must make sure all loose water is dumped out otherwise it can take much longer.

If for some reason I need to reload cases right now, I use a heat gun and can get them dry in a few minutes.

[nanuk]

I use a dehydrator I bought cheap at a yard sale

lay cases out one layer deep, stack the trays, turn it on to high, go to bed, wake next day, if I feel like it, I'll turn off the dehydrator and put cases into containers to keep clean

my problem is not drying, it is running them through the SS tumbler and not having them come out all black and greasy.

[charlie b]

Forgot one thing. Where I live the water is VERY hard. If left to dry on stuff there is a lot of calcium deposits. I do a final rinse with distilled water.

[Bmi48219]

…..my problem is not drying, it is running them through the SS tumbler and not having them come out all black and greasy.

I had that happen once when using a HF tumbler. I tumbled just the pins for two hours with Dawn DW soap. That got rid of the greasy tar-like stuff.
Since then a couple teaspoons of Dawn in every batch (FA rotary tumbler) with Lemishine & Blue Coral car wash.

[Rockindaddy]

I wet tumble with stainless pins. A 1/2 teaspoon of Citric Acid and a couple drops of Dawn then 1/2 fill the tumble container with water. Spin for a couple of hours. Empty out the cases on a black towel in the sun. About a half day and done! I like the idea of placing the tumbled cases on nails pounded through a board. Rifle cases take longer to dry than pistol empties.

[OS OK]

Forgot one thing. Where I live the water is VERY hard. If left to dry on stuff there is a lot of calcium deposits. I do a final rinse with distilled water.

Have you ever tried rinsing in your hard water with a cap-full of Armor-All 'wash & wax' in the rinse? That stuff sheds water as I explained in post #37..

(Make a hammock out of a large bath towel, dump your brass in the middle and then grab both ends of the towel and work them back and forth making the brass tumble in the towel from side to side...the 'wash & wax' makes the brass shed any water whether inside or out and the towel pulls it away...
Lay the towel out in the Good'ole sunshine that dries the brass in less than an hour.)

I wonder what your local car wash does to combat water spots?

[charlie b]

Don't know about all car washes. The good ones have crews to do a final drying. I have had water spots after going through some of the cheaper car washes.

At car shows many of the folks would carry a couple gallons of distilled water for their final wipe down to get dust off. I used to rinse my motorcycles with it.

RainX is my go to for water shedding. But, I don't want to put anything like that on brass. Just isn't any need for it.

Kinda like using lemishine with a pin tumbler. The pins give the brass all the shine possible. To me lemishine tones down the shine a bit. I do use a little bit of Dawn to help break up the powder fouling. The pins do the rest. If not tumbling (such as with an ultrasonic clenaer) I do use citric acid cause it is simply a chemical reaction with the brass.

[porthos]

i roll them in a towel; then put them in a large "dollar store" plastic bowl and stir them around while using a heat gun.

[dale2242]

One more thing about drying SS tumbled brass.
Deprime it first.
Depriming has 2 benefits.
You get spotless primer pockets and the brass dries faster.

[Rapier]

I do not wet my cases anymore, but when I did do so, I had a stairway into the attic, runs about 130 on a sunny day, dries wet cases quick.

I start with the cases in the middle of a towel, fold both sides in then the ends, roll the cases end to end arms out straight, pour onto cookie sheets, up into the attic.