Frankford ss pin cleaner

W

Wendyj

New member
Been using this thing for a year or so now on my brass. Picked up about 300 rounds from an old range. Brass super dirty and black. Ran tumbler twice. Six hours. Brass is spotless but is all nickel. Can the pins take brass off and are they safe to use. That or they were nickel to start but didn't look like it when I was depriming. Strange but it will clean dirty brass. Maybe too much.
 
If the brass cases came out nickel after 6 hours of wet tumbling, then they were nickel plated when they went in the tumbler.

Don
 
I switched three years ago to wet tumbling with SS Pins , ran the tumbler most of the time three but there were times I forgot an left it on also for six hours . Brass did come out spotless but never turned to look nickel . They may have looked pretty rough at first but after your nickel cases look like new nickel cases . The wet tumblers do a nice job inside and out , now dirty them up again . Be Well .

Chris
 
When I first started wet tumbling years ago, I tumbled some nickel plated brasses too long. The nickel was wearing off in spots leaving exposed brass.

Nickel cleans/shines up much faster than tarnished brass...in my experience, at least.

Bayou
 
Yes, if the cases are nickel plated now, they also were before you put them in there. The tumbler can't plate the brass.
 
If that is the case have you ever seen nickel tarnish to a brass color? I’m about half blind anymore but they sure looked brass to me. The insides of the clean ones now have a faint brass color. After a year or two in the dirt I’m quite impressed. They look store bought. I’ve cleaned mine after a range session but not out of dirt and mud.
 
I've been using a wet tumbler with SS pins for about 3 years. I've never had a problem cleaning brass or nickel cases, even if mixed together.
The only issue I've had was once when I added too much LemiShine to the mix. That resulted in cases that came out copper colored instead of shiny brass. Now I use just water and blue dish washing detergent with SS pins to clean cases.
 
There is a galvanic reaction that can make the brass white on the surface. Too much citric acid or pins that were not cleaned of contaminants after the previous tumble. Someone else reported it here once, so you could try searching for it. I can't recall what it came down to. May have just been metal dust on pins that hadn't been tumbled and dulled a little previously. May have been a steel or a nickel-plated case that got mixed in with the brass. I just don't remember.

Anyway, an easy way to tell if that happened is to put the pins in your old vibratory tumbler with some polish and see if they turn brass-colored. Whatever is plated on them will be thin and should come off that way. Polish one by hand with some tumbler polish or some toothpaste as an alternative. See what you get. Try using a magnet to check for steel cases, too.
 
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