Wet Tumbling Curiosity

P

Panfisher

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Got bored and had a friend give me some rescued brass from the remains of his burned house, the brass wasn't fire damaged per se, appears to be just nasty from ash, and melted plastic. I picked out the ones that are just filthy and loaded up my HF wet tumbler. Changed the water twice in 3 hours (wow it was nasty), and then put it in fresh and let it run all night. I have let them run over night before just to see what happened and basically it changed nothing. However this morning once I poured out the unbelievably nasty water the cases appear to be a nice uniform bronze/pewter color. Clean and smoothe but odd colored, not shiny brass color. Almost the color of the coating on steel cased ammo. Did I get too much lemi-shine you think or something else. FYI I put fresh water and suds in this morning and restarted it before going to work. I may put them in the Lyman 600 to see what happens. NOTE: I am not really trying save the brass after the fire, just wanted to see if I could clean them for funzies.
 
You know if the brass spend a lot of time in the fire? Might have gotten heated hot enough to make it too soft. Suspect the odd color indicates excess heat and it's been annealed too much.
 
Don't know exactly how long or how hot the fire, although it was hot enough to melt lead out of bullets leaving the copper cup/jackets. Mainly why I have no interest in saving it to load. Usually with annealing marks at the case mouth the wet tumbling cleans it right off. Don't know if the ash made the water bath aciditic enough to change the color or what. I am going to chuck a couple cases into a drill press and polish with some steel wool, both original filthy dirty cases and some of the discolored ones.
 
The first time I did some wet tumbling, I had a color exactly like you are talking about. Clean cases, could have easily loaded them up to fire as they were - but they were just a bronze/brown color instead of the gold shiny brass.

I was using liquid rinse aid Lemi Shine and switched over to the powder. Next tumble and they came out looking like brand new brass.

Only thing I can think of is that you are tumbling them too long - at some point you reach diminishing returns. Maybe refresh the soap, citric acid powder and water and give them a normal 2 hour tumble and see what happens.
 
I have wet tumbled a few thousand cases before this. This a new one. I have run them for well over 24 hrs just as a test before, definitely a point where clean is clean, but never any discoloration. In rinsing them off and drink off I found one of the .223 cases stuck inside a pistol case. The pistol case looked just like the .223 except for the part that was protected from the solution and that part looks like we'll dirty brass but definitely the brass color. I am still thinking that the ash formed some sort of a acid wash and discolored them. I have enough to run another bat h to test it again.
 
cases I've done, fired with black powder do similar... if the water water is nasty after the tumble, I've been able to get them back to shiny gold with another tumble, with fresh water & chem... suggest you give that a try, since you mention the water was nasty after the last tumble
 
I am going to try that exact thing. I ran another batch last night but was searching for something to negate the acidity, a big spoonful of baking soda is what I used. Brass all clean this morning and the exact same color as before. I have yesterdays batch rinsed and dried, will put it in the wet tumbler with clean water and see how it comes out. The second batch I will toss into the old Lyman 600 and try both ways. The color does polish right off with steel wool.
 
I have seen that pewter color after wet tumbling, too.
I don't know what causes it but it does not hurt the shootability of the brass.

If the brass got hot enough to anneal the heads, it should not be used.
If only smoked and steamed, it can be but it will not last long. Some sort of corrosion from the fumes, probably.
 
My guess is the Lemi-Shine. It will begin to discolor brass after some time. Most threads I've read suggest two to three hours is the sweet spot. I typically wet tumble with a 9mm case-sized scoop for 2hrs. HF tumbler.
 
If you put too much lemi-shine in the first time, it will make the brass dull color. And washing it again, won't fix it.

use as little as you can get away with to make it somewhat shiney.

Too much just once, that brass is discolored pretty badly and its very hard to fix.
 
Issues with not bright brass:

1) too much lemishine
2) water too dirty. If you clean out the dirty water and wash the metal pellets clean, rinse, so to speak, then tumble again 1 hour or so, it should be bright.
 
I had the same issue with a batch of 45 ACP. It was 10 lbs of brass so I split into two 5 lbs batches. The first came out perfect.
Without any change in process, the second batch came out what I can only call a champagne color. I guess that may be the same as a shiny pewter.

I have washed this brass 2 more times with 2 different mixes, and they came out the same.

My tumbler is Big Dawg style 6" SDR35 PVC, and holds 1.5 gallons. 10lbs pins, 8 lbs brass, 2 tbs Armor All Wash and Wax ((With Carnuba), and 1 tbs of Lemishine Booster. 2 hrs gets them cleaned inside and out, but it takes 3 to 4 to get the primer pockets cleaned.
 
Brass discoloration

I use the Thumler's tumbler with Armor-All car wash and Lemishine. The volume is one gallon and 1/4 teaspoon is enough Lemishine. You state you are using one tablespoon (3 teaspoons). For 1-1/2 gallons of water it is about 8 times the amount of Lemishine needed. Cut back to under one half teaspoon and see if the results improve.
 
Um no, I never said anything like that. There was NO, none, zip, nada, lemishine in the second batch which came out exactly like the first. Lemishine when added is done in pinches, no more. All this reminds me that the first batch is still rolling around in my Lyman 600, maybe I will remember when I get home to go look at it and see if it is polishing the color off yet.
 
When I first got my wet tumbler I experimented with it. What would happen if I used common finish nails instead of ss pins? What would happen if I used chopped up copper wire? Each experiment would put a different hue on the brass. Are all your shells brass? I have come across copper plated steel cases. You might have a foreign metal in your tumbler causing the discoloration.
 
Bigcheese,

I will try varying the lemishine. I got about 5 k 9mm coming. I have tried different amounts of lemishine when using dish detergent with varying results. Some not good.

I will say that at my published dosage, my brass looks embarrassingly bright brass colored. Some posts have indicated an obvious color change, other than the pewter discussed in this thread when using excessive Lemishine.
 
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