problem with SS tumbling....

[melliw]

I have been tumbling for some time now with a Thumler, Dawn and Lemishine. The problem I have experienced is that I have never gotten the clean and shiny brass that everyone talks about here. Mine are dull.....always. I put them into corn and they polish up quickly. So many loaders here seem to have bright brass from the tumbler. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

[jwest]

What size of stainless steel pins are you using?

[guje55]

I've read before that using distilled water helps remove water marks. Also how ever you dry your brass always make sure there is no droplets on the brass before you start your drying process. Hope it helps.


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[melliw]

as for the size of the pins....not sure. they are very small though. Will this make a difference?

[RickD427]

How long are you running the tumbler?

[jwest]

The media size is .047"x.255"

http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/reloading-products/media/stainless-tumbling-media.html

You have to clean it too obviously after every run.

[stilly]

I have been tumbling for some time now with a Thumler, Dawn and Lemishine. The problem I have experienced is that I have never gotten the clean and shiny brass that everyone talks about here. Mine are dull.....always. I put them into corn and they polish up quickly. So many loaders here seem to have bright brass from the tumbler. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

The trick to doing the thumler tumbler with the dawn and lemishine is to follow the MEASUREMENTS EXACTLY. That SHOULD just about make you able to make nice bright shiny brass each time. You can use distilled water but that is not necessary, and I will not even address having droplets on your brass before you dry them... You WILL have water on your brass before you dry them or else they are already dried...

SO, Try this, use WARM water or HOT water and follow the measurements exactly.

Now for the pins, if you do not know what size of pins you have then we do not know either. You are a reloader so take a pin and measure it with your calipers. If you have the itty bitty first gen pins, then you should be able to put about 3 lbs of them in your thumler, 4 lbs if you feel like a boss... Then as long as you are using the HIGH SPEED thumler, you should be able to run it for 2 hours, maybe 1 hour, but I suggest 2 hours. If you have the slower tumbler, then you will need to run it for 4 hours typically... When you rinse your shells off you should rinse them in warm water and the hotter the better. It will heat them up and when you take them out to start your drying process they will already be making water evaporate from being warm. If you have water with salt or calcium in it then you might notice white spots form here and there...

You could also get some citric acid and mix about 3 ccs of that into VERY HOT practically BOILING water and then run your brass through that for about 20 minutes with the pins if you wish, that might even be better for you.

:\

Good luck. Hope you catch it soon but if you do not, no worries, your gun does not care if your brass is shiny or kinda dull..

[___M|9||___]

first and foremost what size tumbler are you using, 2nd, what calibers are you tumbling, 3rd, how much of that caliber are you tumbling, ie halfway, 3/4 or less than half of the tumblers volume, how much of dawn/lemishine are you using, how many lbs of media are you using and lastly how long are you letting it tumble for? Youtube has many informative videos on how to tumble your brass with SS. If you can answer some of those questions we might be able to help you out a little more. Until then, dont tumble anything unless you still want dull clean brass.

[ihasacookie]

How much lemishine are you using? A very small amount goes a long way. I've noticed that if you use too much it tends to give the brass a dull and possibly a reddish color.

[cgornet]

I have never had a problem. Use a small amount of lemishine and dawn. Be sure to dump the water when done. If you reuse the water, it willl dull your brass.

Every ten or so rounds, I'll just clean the pins by running clean water and dawn for 20 minutes. You'd be surprised at how dirty those pins can get.

Next, you need to dry them quickly. If you let water sit on them, they'll tarnish and dull quickly.

[Michael in California]

Provide your exact recipe. Amounts of brass, water, soap, lemi, tumble time, etc.

[bubbala]

You could also get some citric acid and mix about 3 ccs of that into VERY HOT practically BOILING water and then run your brass through that for about 20 minutes with the pins if you wish, that might even be better for you.

so,,, i too have had hit or miss results with my franklin tumbler.
stilly, you think 3 cc's of citric acid and dawn(that's all i use) is the right amount? with long pins of course.

['ol shooter]

Too much Lemishine for too long. I don't use it in the tumbler. When the brass comes out clean and bright, I soak the separated cases in warm water and Lemishine for a max of 20 minutes then rinse, toss in a beach towel, then bake a t the oven's lowest setting for 30-45 minutes, until dry.. I use Stilly's larger pins, like them a lot. They look like this when done:

[___M|9||___]

Here is my brass that i processed recently.

[IMG][/IMG]

[cgornet]

Some from last weekend.