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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Wet tumbling with SS media, lots of pics New info second post 10-02-2015. (Page 7 of 23)
| I have polished 2k or so pistol brass with mine that turned out great. Recently though, my brass isnt coming out as shiny as it used to. It is still very clean but doesn't have the goldish shine to it anymore, not its more of a pale light yellow instead of the deep shiny gold. I am still using the same Dawn and Lemishine. I've tried using more and less of each as well as longer run times and still can't get it right, what could I be doing wrong? |
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What do you guys think about this rotary tumbler, I have been using a round drum and it works just as well as the hex drums but mine is rubber so the brass grabs and tumbles inside, not sure if it would do that in a hard plastic drum?
I could always get a Tumblers drum later if needed, I'm just looking for the best machine for the best price and this one looks quality built. http://www.ebay.com/itm/15-lb-cap-1-gallon-Rock-Tumbler-Polisher-/320789464615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab08ac627#ht_1537wt_1185 |
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Quoted: Have you checked the tumbler to see if something came off the casing that eneded up being deposited on the drum/media? I am thinking something like steel fake brass and its oxidation or something of that order. Try wiping the inside of the rubber drum to see if there is something deposited on it.I have polished 2k or so pistol brass with mine that turned out great. Recently though, my brass isnt coming out as shiny as it used to. It is still very clean but doesn't have the goldish shine to it anymore, not its more of a pale light yellow instead of the deep shiny gold. I am still using the same Dawn and Lemishine. I've tried using more and less of each as well as longer run times and still can't get it right, what could I be doing wrong? |
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What do you guys think about this rotary tumbler, I have been using a round drum and it works just as well as the hex drums but mine is rubber so the brass grabs and tumbles inside, not sure if it would do that in a hard plastic drum? I could always get a Tumblers drum later if needed, I'm just looking for the best machine for the best price and this one looks quality built. http://www.ebay.com/itm/15-lb-cap-1-gallon-Rock-Tumbler-Polisher-/320789464615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab08ac627#ht_1537wt_1185 Well if you are willing to experiment, you could try it. For a few dollars more you could get a tumbler known to work. The hard plastic drum would need to have paddles added, and would be noisy I'm thinking. I would pass. |
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I have polished 2k or so pistol brass with mine that turned out great. Recently though, my brass isnt coming out as shiny as it used to. It is still very clean but doesn't have the goldish shine to it anymore, not its more of a pale light yellow instead of the deep shiny gold. I am still using the same Dawn and Lemishine. I've tried using more and less of each as well as longer run times and still can't get it right, what could I be doing wrong? Some brands of brass shine better than others. And they tarnish at different rates also. Just slightly different alloys of brass acting (shinning up or tarnishing) different. You have noticed how shinny just tumbled brass is, and not as shinny after it has dried. |
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I put ALL my fired brass through my vibratory tumbler with walnut media for about 30-60 minutes before I do anything else with it (except sorting by size, of course). The walnut scours off the range grit and other gunk, leaving my brass clean enough to process. I use my shop-vac to collect the dust after separating the media; I leave the brass in the separator and use the vacuum hose on the outside of it, getting almost all the dust out in just a minute or so.
Why are people just de-capping the brass vs. sizing it with a regular sizer die? I get dirty range brass, sort by caliber, pour Lee case lube in my hand with gloves on and lube the cases like mixing pizza dough. I use lots of lube and it looks like a filthy mess, but they all size / de-prime just fine, then wet tumble and ready to load when dry, why add an extra step? Am I missing something? I only tumble for 2 hours and only change is primer pockets may have a very slight amount of dark spots but no carbon. I use a Lee Universal Depriming die, THEN a regular sizer without the decapping pin. Lee's decapper is more robust and easier to reset if when I miss a Berdan primed case. It's almost trivial to remove the depriming pin from a rifle die's expander stem, and I find this allows me to do things like manage expander ball lubrication without poking myself. After depriming and sizing, the brass all goes into a cleaning process. My "mad money" piggy bank is going to be ready for the Thumler's Tumbler purchase by the end of the year... 
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Quoted: Quoted: I put ALL my fired brass through my vibratory tumbler with walnut media for about 30-60 minutes before I do anything else with it (except sorting by size, of course). The walnut scours off the range grit and other gunk, leaving my brass clean enough to process. I use my shop-vac to collect the dust after separating the media; I leave the brass in the separator and use the vacuum hose on the outside of it, getting almost all the dust out in just a minute or so.Why are people just de-capping the brass vs. sizing it with a regular sizer die? I get dirty range brass, sort by caliber, pour Lee case lube in my hand with gloves on and lube the cases like mixing pizza dough. I use lots of lube and it looks like a filthy mess, but they all size / de-prime just fine, then wet tumble and ready to load when dry, why add an extra step? Am I missing something? I only tumble for 2 hours and only change is primer pockets may have a very slight amount of dark spots but no carbon. I use a Lee Universal Depriming die, THEN a regular sizer without the decapping pin. Lee's decapper is more robust and easier to reset if when I miss a Berdan primed case. It's almost trivial to remove the depriming pin from a rifle die's expander stem, and I find this allows me to do things like manage expander ball lubrication without poking myself. After depriming and sizing, the brass all goes into a cleaning process. My "mad money" piggy bank is going to be ready for the Thumler's Tumbler purchase by the end of the year... I would suggest STRONG CAUTION in terms of using the shop-vac to collect dust after separating the media. The problem here is the walnut media will be contaminated with the lead from the primers and any really fine dust collected by the shop-vac will have a hard time staying inside the vac’s filter since unless they are the $1K units made to vacuum asbestos, they will not be able to contain the fine dust i.e. dust that is smaller than 2 micron in diameter. Any fine dust that goes into the shop-vac will come out of it again and quickly dispersed into the air where it will be inhaled. The bad news about inhaling fine dust is that unlike the larger stuff which is normally caught in the nose and sinus, the fine stuff will make it all the way down into the lungs where it will be trapped and the lead will be released and absorbed into the body. This is basically the worse case situation for lead which is put it in something small and disperse it into the air. Just to give you a parallel example, when I took a toxicology course in grad school, the worst case text book mercury toxicity example they quote us was when some mercury was spilled in a dentist’s office and someone thought it was smart to vacuum it up, the beating brush of the vac finely dispered the mercury and the fine stuff got out into the air and was inhaled – instant mercury toxicity…… Just saying  |
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The amount of lead in the dust after a 30-60 minute tumble in fine walnut will be so minute as to be safely ignored. The tumbling media itself will hold the lead salts (typically absorbed into the pores of the tiny bits of walnut), or more likely the lead will remain with the carbon and dirt scraped off of the cases, which is heavier than everything except the walnut bits themselves. Finally, I do this vacuuming AFTER thoroughly separating the brass from the media, so all that is left really and truly is some very fine walnut dust. Some people wipe cases with a towel after tumbling with walnut, and I think that's probably less safe than a 10 second dust off with a shop vac.
I appreciate that lead contamination is a concern, but there is almost certainly more lead in the "clean" soil around my home (former ranch land for which my homesite was the first "development") than in thousands of quick runs of a tumbler to scrape the gunk off of range pick ups. |
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So are there any disadvantages to this method? I am brand new to reloading and this method seems to get the best results for slightly more start up cost, which I can deal with. I'm looking at wet tumbling or ultrasonic.
I take it there are no adverse effects from tumbling brass with stainless steel? |
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Quoted: The amount of lead in the dust after a 30-60 minute tumble in fine walnut will be so minute as to be safely ignored. The tumbling media itself will hold the lead salts (typically absorbed into the pores of the tiny bits of walnut), or more likely the lead will remain with the carbon and dirt scraped off of the cases, which is heavier than everything except the walnut bits themselves. Finally, I do this vacuuming AFTER thoroughly separating the brass from the media, so all that is left really and truly is some very fine walnut dust. Some people wipe cases with a towel after tumbling with walnut, and I think that's probably less safe than a 10 second dust off with a shop vac. I appreciate that lead contamination is a concern, but there is almost certainly more lead in the "clean" soil around my home (former ranch land for which my homesite was the first "development") than in thousands of quick runs of a tumbler to scrape the gunk off of range pick ups. Overall, there is certainly not a lot of lead in terms of total amount in the media, however it is concentrated in the media because when people use the media, it is used over and over again and so the amount per volume of media builds up and can be high in concentration although not total amount. The problem is when you inhale the dust, you are in fact inhaling the concentrated stuff, combined this with the fact that this is not a onetime exposure but repeated exposure, and the fact that the stuff once it gets into your lungs do not come out easily, that would potentially cause a problem in the long term. This is similar to asbestos exposure which is low concentration, but repeated and also it does not come out once it gets in the lungs. Not trying to be an alarmist (although it always sounds that way when these issues are discussed), but at least looking at what is on hand in terms of material and equipment, it is hard not for me to see a potential issue based on my education. The fact is these potential safety issues is always difficult to judge since there are so many factors that affects the degree of exposure and so just trying to point out potential issues so that folks can determine for themselves what is and not a risk for them. |
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So are there any disadvantages to this method? I am brand new to reloading and this method seems to get the best results for slightly more start up cost, which I can deal with. I'm looking at wet tumbling or ultrasonic. I take it there are no adverse effects from tumbling brass with stainless steel? Just one. You will be spoiled forever and your friends will want their brass wet tumbled. |
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The amount of lead in the dust after a 30-60 minute tumble in fine walnut will be so minute as to be safely ignored. The tumbling media itself will hold the lead salts (typically absorbed into the pores of the tiny bits of walnut), or more likely the lead will remain with the carbon and dirt scraped off of the cases, which is heavier than everything except the walnut bits themselves. Finally, I do this vacuuming AFTER thoroughly separating the brass from the media, so all that is left really and truly is some very fine walnut dust. Some people wipe cases with a towel after tumbling with walnut, and I think that's probably less safe than a 10 second dust off with a shop vac. I appreciate that lead contamination is a concern, but there is almost certainly more lead in the "clean" soil around my home (former ranch land for which my homesite was the first "development") than in thousands of quick runs of a tumbler to scrape the gunk off of range pick ups. Overall, there is certainly not a lot of lead in terms of total amount in the media, however it is concentrated in the media because when people use the media, it is used over and over again and so the amount per volume of media builds up and can be high in concentration although not total amount. The problem is when you inhale the dust, you are in fact inhaling the concentrated stuff, combined this with the fact that this is not a onetime exposure but repeated exposure, and the fact that the stuff once it gets into your lungs do not come out easily, that would potentially cause a problem in the long term. This is similar to asbestos exposure which is low concentration, but repeated and also it does not come out once it gets in the lungs.
Not trying to be an alarmist (although it always sounds that way when these issues are discussed), but at least looking at what is on hand in terms of material and equipment, it is hard not for me to see a potential issue based on my education. The fact is these potential safety issues is always difficult to judge since there are so many factors that affects the degree of exposure and so just trying to point out potential issues so that folks can determine for themselves what is and not a risk for them.
This is why I use inexpensive media (pet store walnut litter) and dispose of it frequently. Not only is the fine-grained walnut media/litter inexpensive, its size means that it loses cleaning power faster than 14/20 grit media does, so replacing it frequently is not only safer, it is necessary to make the cleaning operation work. I realize that I didn't include this important point in earlier posts, but it is indeed key to safety with this method. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The amount of lead in the dust after a 30-60 minute tumble in fine walnut will be so minute as to be safely ignored. The tumbling media itself will hold the lead salts (typically absorbed into the pores of the tiny bits of walnut), or more likely the lead will remain with the carbon and dirt scraped off of the cases, which is heavier than everything except the walnut bits themselves. Finally, I do this vacuuming AFTER thoroughly separating the brass from the media, so all that is left really and truly is some very fine walnut dust. Some people wipe cases with a towel after tumbling with walnut, and I think that's probably less safe than a 10 second dust off with a shop vac. I appreciate that lead contamination is a concern, but there is almost certainly more lead in the "clean" soil around my home (former ranch land for which my homesite was the first "development") than in thousands of quick runs of a tumbler to scrape the gunk off of range pick ups. Overall, there is certainly not a lot of lead in terms of total amount in the media, however it is concentrated in the media because when people use the media, it is used over and over again and so the amount per volume of media builds up and can be high in concentration although not total amount. The problem is when you inhale the dust, you are in fact inhaling the concentrated stuff, combined this with the fact that this is not a onetime exposure but repeated exposure, and the fact that the stuff once it gets into your lungs do not come out easily, that would potentially cause a problem in the long term. This is similar to asbestos exposure which is low concentration, but repeated and also it does not come out once it gets in the lungs. Not trying to be an alarmist (although it always sounds that way when these issues are discussed), but at least looking at what is on hand in terms of material and equipment, it is hard not for me to see a potential issue based on my education. The fact is these potential safety issues is always difficult to judge since there are so many factors that affects the degree of exposure and so just trying to point out potential issues so that folks can determine for themselves what is and not a risk for them. This is why I use inexpensive media (pet store walnut litter) and dispose of it frequently. Not only is the fine-grained walnut media/litter inexpensive, its size means that it loses cleaning power faster than 14/20 grit media does, so replacing it frequently is not only safer, it is necessary to make the cleaning operation work. I realize that I didn't include this important point in earlier posts, but it is indeed key to safety with this method. Not a problem. My post was more of a general comment with potential problem associated with the tumbling media/vacuum combination in general. As you pointed out correctly, there are ways to minimize potential problems with incorporating certain safety steps. I myself use a shop vac in my reloading shop but also only in specific and isolated situations. |
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So are there any disadvantages to this method? I am brand new to reloading and this method seems to get the best results for slightly more start up cost, which I can deal with. I'm looking at wet tumbling or ultrasonic. I take it there are no adverse effects from tumbling brass with stainless steel? Disadvantage- Watching brass Dry is like watching Paint dry, does not happen fast enough, but always worth it |
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So are there any disadvantages to this method? I am brand new to reloading and this method seems to get the best results for slightly more start up cost, which I can deal with. I'm looking at wet tumbling or ultrasonic. I take it there are no adverse effects from tumbling brass with stainless steel? The only disadvantage I've noticed is the recommended max capacity is a little less than what I can get into my vibrating tumbler. But the shine of the wet tumbled brass more than makes up for it. . |
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I have polished 2k or so pistol brass with mine that turned out great. Recently though, my brass isnt coming out as shiny as it used to. It is still very clean but doesn't have the goldish shine to it anymore, not its more of a pale light yellow instead of the deep shiny gold. I am still using the same Dawn and Lemishine. I've tried using more and less of each as well as longer run times and still can't get it right, what could I be doing wrong? It is a good idea to periodically run just the ss media with lemishine and dawn or ivory by itself for a cleaning cycle. That seems to clean the media and get the brass back shining on subsequent loads. Also be sure to not let the media and brass stay very long in the tumbler with the dirty water as the crud will adhere to both fairly quickly. Rinse the media thoroughly after each cleaning round. That should help you out. |
| Here is a thought for all of you guys, If you are looking to have some decently powerful magnets on the cheap. Just take an old hard drive from a computer and take it apart, there will be 2 small but powerful magnets in them. With the holes in them from being secured in the hard drive you can take a few screws and attach the magnets to almost anything. These magnets will hold quite a bit of weight compared to their size. |
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Tumblers B model question; Would 3,000 RPM motor with a barrel rotation of 30 RPM would be fast or slow?? If you want to wet tumble brass cases, get the 3,000 rpm model. I have both the 1500 and 3000 rpm model B Tumblers. 1500 takes 8 hours, 3000 rpm takes 4 hours. |
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Hey all, have an older model B that won't roll with 5 lbs of media and half full of water. Just slipping the belt. Thoughts? New belt search underway. Google "Thumbler", they sell the parts and motors. eta, Thumbler Parts link. |
| I have small gold flecks in the water and stuck inside the rubber container. They are really small but after I Reload a couple hundred rounds I can see it all over my press. Is this coming off of a certain type of case? I only use brass and a few nickel plated cases. |
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Some brass "dots" are normal.
You should see cases that were trimmed and still had lube on them and wet tumbled. I rinse out the drum and cases and keep going. No problem as far as I can tell. But it looks like something they would like to see on Gold Rush. (The show on Discovery) |
Ok I'm doing this  Did a google search and the best deal I found was at Brownell's/sinclair side of the house.
Thumler's Tumbler Stainless Steel Tumbling Kit $219.95 for hi-speed "B" model and 5 lbs of stainless steel media, used the "DFM" code at checkout for $20 off that! Got the McFeely's knobs also, thanks again Dryflash for the write-up. I noticed quite a few websites we're sold out, me thinks you may have had something to do with that Good job!
Blackops_1. |
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Ok I'm doing this Did a google search and the best deal I found was at Brownell's/sinclair side of the house.
Thumler's Tumbler Stainless Steel Tumbling Kit $219.95 for hi-speed "B" model and 5 lbs of stainless steel media, used the "DFM" code at checkout for $20 off that! Got the McFeely's knobs also, thanks again Dryflash for the write-up. I noticed quite a few websites we're sold out, me thinks you may have had something to do with that Good job!
Blackops_1. That was a better deal than I got. Glad the retailers are putting a good priced package together at last. 
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| dryflash3 - don't know if I should curse you for aiding in the addiction. However, thanks for this thread. Probably the most useful I have seen on the board in a long while. Brought both of my Thumblers out of storage and the first batches were awesome after getting the worn belts replaced. |
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dryflash3 - don't know if I should curse you for aiding in the addiction. However, thanks for this thread. Probably the most useful I have seen on the board in a long while. Brought both of my Thumblers out of storage and the first batches were awesome after getting the worn belts replaced. I wasn't the first around here to promote wet tumbling. TGrant is who got me started. Just slowly converting others. Welcome aboard. |
| This may be a stupid question but why is the model B limited to 15 pounds? Is it that anything over 15lbs will be too stressful on the carriage or motor? On my very first tumble of .223 I noticed that I could fit way more than 2lbs of brass along with the 5lbs of media and 1 gallon of water. |
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I believe it's a rating for the motor.
Motor will run fine with 15 pounds, run more and motor will overheat and die. At least that's how it works with other electrical equipment. It's your tumbler, load it however you want. If you have success, please report back. Good luck. |
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As a technique, I like to take the brass that's about to go into the wet tumbler and put it in a plastic foldgers coffee can. I then fill the coffee can up with water, put in a healthy squirt of dish soap, put the lid on, and shake away. You don't need to do it long (20 to 30 seconds is plenty) but you'll be amazed at how much dirt/carbon/scum will come off with that first rinse. I then refill the coffee can with water and give it a second shake. No need to add soap the second time; there's still plenty left from the first round. You should be able to see a slight difference in shininess already. From there I dump the water out and throw the cartridges into the wet tumbler along with the pins and get it ready to go. There's still a fair amount of soap left, so don't go too crazy when adding in your lemi-shine and soap into the mix.
It only adds a minute or two into the process but I've found that it drastically cuts the amount of time needed for the brass to run in the tumbler. I typically only run my brass for 2-3 hours after it's had it's pre-rinse bath and they come out looking the same as four hours of tumbling without the rinse. |
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As a technique, I like to take the brass that's about to go into the wet tumbler and put it in a plastic foldgers coffee can. I then fill the coffee can up with water, put in a healthy squirt of dish soap, put the lid on, and shake away. You don't need to do it long (20 to 30 seconds is plenty) but you'll be amazed at how much dirt/carbon/scum will come off with that first rinse. I then refill the coffee can with water and give it a second shake. No need to add soap the second time; there's still plenty left from the first round. You should be able to see a slight difference in shininess already. From there I dump the water out and throw the cartridges into the wet tumbler along with the pins and get it ready to go. There's still a fair amount of soap left, so don't go too crazy when adding in your lemi-shine and soap into the mix. It only adds a minute or two into the process but I've found that it drastically cuts the amount of time needed for the brass to run in the tumbler. I typically only run my brass for 2-3 hours after it's had it's pre-rinse bath and they come out looking the same as four hours of tumbling without the rinse. Thanks for sharing this! Going to give it shot next time. |
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Tumbler and media arrived today. Painted the inside of the tumbler shell, put some really corroded brass in the dillon tumbler to clean it up before depriming. Waiting on universal depriming dies, should be tomorrow, then I can give this a go this weekend. Welcome aboard.
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Well, Crud! My universal decapper came in today, Got it all set up, and bang! broke the pin on the 3rd case, which turned out to be berdan primed. I thought it wasn't supposed to break, but push up if it couldn't push it out?
If these .308 cases were the ones I bought a couple years back as surplus ammo, they were supposed to have been boxer primed. >maybe< they were range pickups, but I doubt it. Anyway, my dillon was set up for 30-06, so I went ahead and sized and decapped all the cases I could find, a mix of greek and herters cases. The holes in the herters must be a little smaller or something, as the pin would pull out every 10 cases or so. I had just enough cases to fill the 6" pop bottle measure, and should be done in 1/2 hour. Toss them in my powdercoat oven for a few minutes, and I should have "ooh, shiny...." ETA: Actually ran about 5 hours. Got caught up in other things for awhile. Here's a pic of some of the worse brass. My range box was a cardboard box. It was sitting on the basement floor last winter when a pipe burst. Due to circumstances, I couldn't clean up everything right away, and figured the brass would survive better than the paper targets and other things. Take note of that 5th case. 
I then ran some of this corroded brass through my dillon CV-500 before I ran them through my dies. See the 5th case again? still kinda grungy. 
Here's the result. Water marks you can see because the case seperator was not washed out beforehand, just wiped quickly. I think another rinse would have helped at this point. I oven dried about 10 minutes at 150 degrees. 
I looked over every case trying to find the corroded ones. Only found 1, which I think was the one mentioned in the first 2 photos. I don't think you can see it very well in the photo here, but there is a slight patina. 
I'm sold!! |
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Got a couple of tips for you.
The collet adjustment on the Lee universal decapping die is a compromise. Too loose, won't deprime. Too tight, broken pin on Berdan case. Just right, deprimes Boxer, raises up with Berdan. If you put a dab of case lube on the decapping pin every 4 or 5 cases, the small flashole brass will deprime easier and the decapping pin will stay put. |
[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Wet tumbling with SS media, lots of pics New info second post 10-02-2015. (Page 7 of 23)
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