how long do you wet tumble.

S

Shadow9mm

New member
Just got a Frankford wet tumbler. will be using the pins. Tried 2 batches so far, both came out looking amazing. I did buy the frankford cleaning packets. I do intend to switch over to dish soap and lemi-shine but wanted something i didn't have to tinker with starting out.

So I tried 2 methods so far

Added water, packet, pins. Let it run for 1hr so check and see how it looked, figured I could let it go longer if needed came out looking like new, fantastic results.

2nd run
added water, pins, let it run for 15min kind of a rinse to get the grime off. Dumped the water (mildly dirty), refilled, added pins and packet, ran for 1hr. came out looking amazing again. After the cleaning the water was less dirty, telling me I got all the dirt off and that the 15min rinse helped..

I see people running it longer, is there any benefit or is going longer just wasting time?
 
I have the same tumbler. I just crank the timer all the way over (3 hours I think) and ignore it for the rest of the day.
 
I use a rock tumbler from Harbor Freight. I fill the tumblers about 3/4 full of brass and add water just to top the brass. Then I add about a tablespoon of blue dishwashing liquid and a 9mm case full of LemiShine. I also use stainless steel pins. I usually tumble 1-2 hours depending on the condition of the brass, and I always tumble after decapping to get primer pockets clean.
 
If you are done in an hour, you are done in an hour. Additional time is just wearing more metal off the cases.

You want a citric-acid-based cleaner to chelate the lead from primer residue to make it safe to handle and flush down drains. You can buy citric acid in large quantities cheaply (10 lbs for under $25 shipped from Amazon if you have Prime). A solution that is about 0.75% citric acid by weight with a few drops of dishwashing liquid in it as a wetting agent is good. With usual food grade citric acid powder, that's about five level teaspoons in a gallon of water.
 
Unclenick said:
If you are done in an hour, you are done in an hour. Additional time is just wearing more metal off the cases.

You want a citric-acid-based cleaner to chelate the lead from primer residue to make it safe to handle and flush down drains. You can buy citric acid in large quantities cheaply (10 lbs for under $25 shipped from Amazon if you have Prime). A solution that is about 0.75% citric acid by weight with a few drops of dishwashing liquid in it as a wetting agent is good. With usual food grade citric acid powder, that's about five level teaspoons in a gallon of water.
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That is good to know. Didn't think about lead from primers, just the walnut dust, I was tired of needing to wear a mask and gloves to dry tumble.

I am using the Frankford Arsenal packets for now, but will make sure to use a citric acid when I transition to dish soap.

interestingly, the package says up to 500pcs of dirty brass per packet, I just processed 1000 9mm with no issue with just 1 packet.

It also says not not to tumble for more than 3hrs.
 
If you run a rotary tumbler without limit, gradually it peens the edges of the case mouths over and inward, narrowing them. It makes the expander do more work and more brass working shortens case life.

Keep in mind the main value in tumbling is preserving your sizing die and removing hard carbon that contributes to throat wear. Once the obvious crud is gone, you are good to go and don't need to run things any further.
 
Unclenick said:
If you run a rotary tumbler without limit, gradually it peens the edges of the case mouths over and inward, narrowing them. It makes the expander do more work and more brass working shortens case life.

Keep in mind the main value in tumbling is preserving your sizing die and removing hard carbon that contributes to throat wear. Once the obvious crud is gone, you are good to go and don't need to run things any further.
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I look at tumbling from 3 angles. It preserves my dies. It helps my guns function well, and looks darn good, like factory new or better.

I'm honestly curious now how fast it will work, because they look factory new after 1hr. I will probably skip the rinse going forward since I don't feel like adding citric acid and having to rinse it out before adding the main cleaner. I will probably pull casings at 15min, 30min, and 45 min to compare to the 1hr I have been running just to see when they are actually done.
 
HI Shadow. Here you go pal.

http://www.natoreloading.com/cleanbrass/

On the "time" it depends on a few factors. Here is MAIN FACTORs:

1) Your media MUST be clean before you tumble. If you tumble with dirty or slightly rusted, or unlcean pins, it won't work good. They need to be clean.
2) pre-wash your brass in soap, manual tumbler like in a bucket you shake around, etc. You want to get that brass soot off and dirt off, because this hugely interferes with the pins doing their job.

IF you do like on that site, as you can see from the pics, that is the cleanest, most shiney brass you can do as a human, on this planet.
 
When using the dishwasher tabs 3 hours. When using dish detergent such as Joy, Dawn, Sun, or whatever with Lemishine I limit it to a hour or so because of the acidity
 
30 min to 2 hours ... depends if I need to process the brass sooner than later. Sooner, I’ll rinse and toss them into a dehydrator. Later, I’ll just lay on a towel for a day or so.
 
Wet tumbling time depends on the wet tumbler - how much shine do you want? If you just want clean brass, then an hour is more than sufficient.

If you want that "jewelry-like" shine, then more wet tumbling time may be needed. I've been wet tumbling for about 9 years now using a Thumblers Model B High Speed. I routinely tumble for about 3 hours per batch. Using an ounce of auto wash & wax and a 1/4 TSP of Lemon-Shine. The resulting brass shine could lead you to believe the brasses were polished by a jeweler.

So, I'd say the answer to the OP's question is subjective to each wet tumbler. Tumbling time depends on the results you want to achieve in your brass appearance.

Bayou
 
You want a citric-acid-based cleaner to chelate the lead from primer residue to make it safe to handle and flush down drains. You can buy citric acid in large quantities cheaply (10 lbs for under $25 shipped from Amazon if you have Prime). A solution that is about 0.75% citric acid by weight with a few drops of dishwashing liquid in it as a wetting agent is good. With usual food grade citric acid powder, that's about five level teaspoons in a gallon of water.
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Who knew? I had no idea it was used for the purpose of capturing primer residues. I have been using Lemi-Shine because I thought it somehow aided the the cleaning action, but always worried that using too much would lead to premature tarnishing.

I have only been using about 1/2 teaspoon in my 3 gallon tumbler. Looks like I need to use a lot more, or is Lemi-Shine different than the citric acid mentioned here?
 
Yep.

Shadow9mm said:
...I don't feel like adding citric acid and having to rinse it out before adding the main cleaner.
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The citric acid is the main cleaner. It's a terrific water softener, as it dissolves all the mineral carbonates dissolved in the water, making the water all slippery feeling. You can experimentally add a little detergent. It can help suspend dirt a bit, but mainly it clings in a film to the outside of the case to help prevent the surface from tarnishing until you are rinsed off and drying.

Because of the water softening, you don't need distilled water for cleaning with citric acid. Just use tap water for cleaning and rinsing, then, with the clean cases back in the FART drum by themselves (no water or pins), add a cup of distilled water and cap the ends and run it for a minute to get the water distributed, then just pour it off. You don't need a lot of distilled water to grab the minerals in the rinse water and carry them down the drain, so you don't get water spots.

The amount I recommended is the concentration Hornady uses in their ultrasonic cleaning solution as near as I can tell without titrating a sample myself. (They also add a tiny amount of Diethanolamine which is an anti-oxidant, probably for temporary protection of the brass until it is rinsed.) You may not need that much with the stronger mechanical cleaning. You'll just have to try it and see. The lead residue in the cases is small compared to your teaspoon, so I expect it is probably enough for that purpose, but try both concentrations to see.
 
I use harbor freight rock tumbler with steel media and just dish soap. Usually the brass is clean after 15 min and depending on how shiny I want it to look, I stretch the tumbling to 1 hour.

The secret is in using boiling water and appropriately small amounts of dish soap. Excessive amount of soap will cause excessive foaming and result in significantly less effective cleaning.

Adding lemishine should cut the time even more but since that requires serious efforts in washing after tumbling (to avoid tarnishing) I am not using it.

Also, when tumbling rifle cases adding a few pistol cases improves the results.
 
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