Wet tumbling nickel plated

L

lugerstew

New member
Maybe its been brought up before, but I learned a lesson yesterday on wet tumbling nickel plated brass. If you want it to stay nice and shiny, don't do it.
I found 20 rounds of once fired shiny new 30-30 brass at the range and brought it home and wet tumbled with my other brass for about 4 hours.
When I took them all out, the nickel plated was not shiny no more, but instead looked like dull nickel and my other brass was not as shiny as I'm used to.
I also noticed when I was handling and inspecting the brass, my hands had a lot of grey on them, I assume it was pulverized nickel.
I don't own a 30-30, but I pick up any good brass and clean it and put it away for trading material. I guess if I find any more nice looking nickel brass, I will just clean it awhile in the dry tumbler.
I know!, before anyone says it, shiny brass don't shoot any better than dull brass. :D
 
I’ve tumbled nickel brass many times and it always came out shiny. I think it’s what medium you tumbled them in and/or what you used for a polish. You don’t say in your post.
 
NoSecondBest: Do people use polish in a wet tumbler?, I just use Dawn soap, a smidge of lemishine, ss pins and hot water.
 
I use Frankfort Arsenal Brass Polish in my tumbler. I don’t use SS pins. Never had a problem and I’ve been doing this for about 50+ years.
 
Never had any dull nickel plated cases after tumbling.

I use Dawn, Lemi-Shine, cold water and SS pins for 1.5 to 2 hours max.

Sounds like you may have just beat the daylights out of them.
 
Only time I've seen brass of any description come out less than great, from the ss/dawn cleaning, was when I was light on the dawn soap. It is supposed to suspend, and hold the gunk.... If you don't have soap suds when you open the drum, you are a bit light on soap.
 
lugerstew said:
I found 20 rounds of once fired shiny new 30-30 brass at the range and brought it home and wet tumbled with my other brass for about 4 hours.
Click to expand...

What headstamp was the brass?
I'm not sure that I would assume that every brand of nickel plated brass is the same.
 
That’s an awful long time to run the wet tumbler.

Eventually the detergent will stop suspending the dirt and it will re-deposit on the cases.

Try running it for 30 minutes. You might be surprised.
 
Thanks Crunchy Frog, next time I will give that a try, wow if that works, I've been wasting 3.5 hours of electricity!:mad::D
 
Also, if your cleaning solution has citric acid in it, as many do, you may be seeing a chemical reaction due to the slightly different electronegativity of nickel and the copper and zinc in brass. Try the plain Dawn next time around.
 
I sort out my nickel plated cases & tumble them separate. Nickel cases clean much faster than the brass because normally there is no tarnish to remove.
I just use hot water & dawn then tumble no more than an hour, there is no need for the citric acid because of there is no tarnish to remove.
 
Unclenick said:
Also, if your cleaning solution has citric acid in it, as many do, you may be seeing a chemical reaction due to the slightly different electronegativity of nickel and the copper and zinc in brass. Try the plain Dawn next time around.
Click to expand...
from https://lemishine.com/pages/ingredients


Lemi Shine® Booster Ingredients
Ingredient Description CAS#
CITRIC ACID A mild, organic acid used to optimize pH levels. It is a naturally occurring raw material, biodegrades easily 77-92-9
FRAGRANCE (ingredients may include those found at http://www.ifraorg.org/) Blended composition of natural essential oils (lemon oil and natural extract from citrus peels) + synthetic ingredients. Fragrance components: Citral (CAS# 5392-40-5), D-Limonene (CAS# 5989-27-5). Proprietary
 
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