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Posted: 7/19/2009 3:59:50 AM EDT
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...Did this last night, but had some problems.
I was doing mostly 9mm, but I through in a couple of grungy old .223 cases and a .30-06 case, all of which had light green powdery corrosion on the inside. The rifle cases cleaned up amazingly well. Just nice shiny smooth brass/coppery color on the inside now. I was glad to see they weren't pitted on the inside. It's flat out amazing how well this stuff works. You can see a difference nearly instantaneously. The 9mm cases weren't oxidized at all, but they were dirty. I soaked them for a few hours, every once in awile pulling one out and wiping it down inside and out, impressed with how nice they looked. Then, later on, I dumped them out of the solution and spread them all over one of those sloped dish drying racks letting the liquid run off into a bucket, and then placed the rack w/ brass inside a rigged-up "easy bake oven" contraption made of foil and a couple of light bulbs. The oven did the trick and dried everything out, but now the brass is dirtier than before. It's covered in a sticky residue. I guess after the water evaporated it left the dirt behind. I probably should have put the brass in a "rinse cycle" before trying to dry it. For those of you who have used this method, what process did you use after you pulled the brass out of the Lemi-Shine solution? |
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Before using Lemi-shine (LS) I wash my brass with soap and water (if they are old/dirty), then use LS, when done soaking, rinse with fresh water, and dry. +1, that's pretty much the same thing I do. Wash with soap, then rinse. Soak in Lemishine, agitate the container occasionally, then rinse and dry. I tumble as the last step. One interesting thing I noticed with Lemishine is that it softens the carbon enough that it can be wiped out of the primer pocket and interior easily. When I shake the container, I loosen some of the carbon and then it settles on the bottom of the container. I suspect this is one of the keys that makes ultrasonic cleaning so effective. Even though the carbon wipes out easily, it's still too much work to manually clean thousands of cases. I haven't tried running Lemishine in a vibratory tumbler yet. A half hour of good agitation might work as well as an ultrasonic cleaner. When I agitate the container, I pick it up and give it several good hard shakes. I use empty containers for nuts from Sam's as they are a convenient size and I have plenty. I let the cases soak for several days. I'll pick the container up whenever I walk by, shake it a few times, and go on. |
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After overnight in Lemshine, I rinse in cold water.
Dry cases on top of wood stove (this time of year set out in the sun), then tumble in walnut. I only use this process on cases that are very dark and would take the tumbler forever to clean. AeroE gets the credit for leading the way on Lemshine case cleaning. 
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I bought mine at Wal-Mart.
I'm still new at this and don't yet have a tumbler, so I decided to go the Lemi-Shine route until money for a tumbler becomes available. I seemed to have fixed my problem by soaking in the Lemi-Shine solution a second time, then thoroughly rinsing using a collander, then draining everything (including turning every case over and draining the shaking the water out) and then placing them under lights. They seemed to have dried out now. It was very time consuming and tedious! 
I'm afraid there may be some water still inside the primer pockets (this brass has not been resized or deprimed - just "once fired" brass) as I resized a few and there was moisture in the primer pockets still. I hope that by the time I get around to loading them (next weekend at the earliest), they've completely dried inside. |
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I wouldn't use Lemishine for routine cleaning of brass, only to clean up dirty tarnished brass, but it won't hurt anything, either. If it's relatively corrosion free, a bath in hot water and Dawn with a good rinse is enough.
Clean, not blinding shine, is required. Shiny is an extra. |
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Quoted:
Can you over concentrate the mix / put too much Lemi Shine in the water for the brass? I ask because its for dishwashing machines and no directions for reload prep / cleaning. I use hot water in a container that is probably a little larger than a quart and keep adding Lemishine until I reach "that looks about right", stir it in and if it doesn't settle out, indicating the solution is saturated, I might add a little more, or not. One or two tablespoons worked when I tried this the first time, but later I added more and that mix worked noticeably better. The solution is a weak citric acid solution. I suppose if it turns every case bright pink after just 30 minutes or so, it might be too strong. The solution is reusable and there is no need to toss it after a batch if it still works, so it's cheap to use, too. I have a container in the garage that has a light green cast and has cleaned at least three batches of brass. The only thing I've done is transfer the top solution off so I can drain off the lime and carbon that settles in the bottom. All this means that I'm not going to obsess over finding a precise mixture of Lemishine, I'm going to approach it like a cook by adding amounts that look about right, getting it thoroughly dissolved, and then adjusting the mix later if needed. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Can you over concentrate the mix / put too much Lemi Shine in the water for the brass? I ask because its for dishwashing machines and no directions for reload prep / cleaning. I use hot water in a container that is probably a little larger than a quart and keep adding Lemishine until I reach "that looks about right", stir it in and if it doesn't settle out, indicating the solution is saturated, I might add a little more, or not. One or two tablespoons worked when I tried this the first time, but later I added more and that mix worked noticeably better. The solution is a weak citric acid solution. I suppose if it turns every case bright pink after just 30 minutes or so, it might be too strong. The solution is reusable and there is no need to toss it after a batch if it still works, so it's cheap to use, too. I have a container in the garage that has a light green cast and has cleaned at least three batches of brass. The only thing I've done is transfer the top solution off so I can drain off the lime and carbon that settles in the bottom. All this means that I'm not going to obsess over finding a precise mixture of Lemishine, I'm going to approach it like a cook by adding amounts that look about right, getting it thoroughly dissolved, and then adjusting the mix later if needed. Kinda what I was thinking. Thanks for the info! |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Can you over concentrate the mix / put too much Lemi Shine in the water for the brass? I ask because its for dishwashing machines and no directions for reload prep / cleaning. I use hot water in a container that is probably a little larger than a quart and keep adding Lemishine until I reach "that looks about right", stir it in and if it doesn't settle out, indicating the solution is saturated, I might add a little more, or not. One or two tablespoons worked when I tried this the first time, but later I added more and that mix worked noticeably better. The solution is a weak citric acid solution. I suppose if it turns every case bright pink after just 30 minutes or so, it might be too strong. The solution is reusable and there is no need to toss it after a batch if it still works, so it's cheap to use, too. I have a container in the garage that has a light green cast and has cleaned at least three batches of brass. The only thing I've done is transfer the top solution off so I can drain off the lime and carbon that settles in the bottom. All this means that I'm not going to obsess over finding a precise mixture of Lemishine, I'm going to approach it like a cook by adding amounts that look about right, getting it thoroughly dissolved, and then adjusting the mix later if needed. Aero, do you know if it's a bad sign if the brass turns pink? The .30-06 case I dunked in the solution had a bit of light oxidation on it and it turned pinkish just where the oxidation was. It was still a gold brass color overall, but now has a pink cast. This was a recurring trend in all the brass I cleaned. Any reason to be worried? Does this weaken the brass? Also, it seems my batch of 9mm brass has dried out nicely. I'm just glad all the powder residue, light oxidation, and grit is off the cases. They're not bright and shiny, but that's not what I'm going for anyway (the sizing die does shine 'em up a bit, though). It seems I'm not storing my brass in ideal conditions (plastic bins in my basement), as most of my .223 and .30-06 brass is green on the inside. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any pitting, so I think it's still fine to load. They'll have to be inspected, and stored in a sealed container with some silica gel, I think. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Can you over concentrate the mix / put too much Lemi Shine in the water for the brass? I ask because its for dishwashing machines and no directions for reload prep / cleaning. I use hot water in a container that is probably a little larger than a quart and keep adding Lemishine until I reach "that looks about right", stir it in and if it doesn't settle out, indicating the solution is saturated, I might add a little more, or not. One or two tablespoons worked when I tried this the first time, but later I added more and that mix worked noticeably better. The solution is a weak citric acid solution. I suppose if it turns every case bright pink after just 30 minutes or so, it might be too strong. The solution is reusable and there is no need to toss it after a batch if it still works, so it's cheap to use, too. I have a container in the garage that has a light green cast and has cleaned at least three batches of brass. The only thing I've done is transfer the top solution off so I can drain off the lime and carbon that settles in the bottom. All this means that I'm not going to obsess over finding a precise mixture of Lemishine, I'm going to approach it like a cook by adding amounts that look about right, getting it thoroughly dissolved, and then adjusting the mix later if needed. Aero, do you know if it's a bad sign if the brass turns pink? The .30-06 case I dunked in the solution had a bit of light oxidation on it and it turned pinkish just where the oxidation was. It was still a gold brass color overall, but now has a pink cast. This was a recurring trend in all the brass I cleaned. Any reason to be worried? Does this weaken the brass? Also, it seems my batch of 9mm brass has dried out nicely. I'm just glad all the powder residue, light oxidation, and grit is off the cases. They're not bright and shiny, but that's not what I'm going for anyway (the sizing die does shine 'em up a bit, though). It seems I'm not storing my brass in ideal conditions (plastic bins in my basement), as most of my .223 and .30-06 brass is green on the inside. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any pitting, so I think it's still fine to load. They'll have to be inspected, and stored in a sealed container with some silica gel, I think. I shoot 'em and haven't had a problem. The material removed is probably only angstroms thick. Really, less is more with this process; it should be monitored and stopped when the brass is sufficiently clean and then the reaction stopped by washing in clear water. The solution is weak. Maybe one of our chemists has a simple method to test the solution so we can make mixes with no more than 5% to 10% citric acid in solution with water. I have cleaned some 7.62X39 brass that turns more pink than any other cases, but I don't shoot that cartridge. In a batch of a couple hundred, I'll see maybe 6 or 8 that are colored more pink than the rest, and most brass will look unchanged. One of the chemists will need also to tell us whether the final pink color is due to the reaction of the copper, tin, or zinc with the acid. I don't know, and I'm not going to stop using this method to remove bad corrosion and I'm not going to worry it. One thing you'll notice if you tumble these pink cases in walnut, the surface color will change back close to "normal". Here are some cool photos of etched cartridge brass. The paper is barely relevant to reloading, but it's interesting and the photos are cool - Copper Microstructures A Wikipedia article: Citric Acid |
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