Brass Shining Made Easy!

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

I was playing with different methods of shining brass.

Wet tumbling, I used 2 cups water and added one tablespoon lime juice.

This is the result:



I hope this helps someone!

Regards,

Josh

[Red9]

How long did u tumble?

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

1/2 hour to an hour, while I was doing some real work in the shop.

Regards,

Josh

[Christopher761]

Do you have hard water? (Calcium?)

How did they look a few days later?

[Josh Smith]

Do you have hard water? (Calcium?)

How did they look a few days later?

The water was run through a softener. Lots of limestone here, but it's mostly replaced with sodium ions.

The brass looks about the same. Loaded, but as shiny.

The key is to rinse them well after tumbling.

Regards,

Josh

['ol shooter]

Lime juice=Citric Acid

Lemishine=Citric Acid

[wbunning]

Did you use pins?

[sbsyncro]

I just did a pre-tumble wash of a bunch of FILTHY range brass I picked up (smashed into the mud, sticks, twigs, you name it). For each 3lbs of brass I put in about 2 gallons of warm water, a squirt of Dawn and a teaspoon (ish) of Barkeepers Friend. I swirled the brass around and agitated it for about 1-2 minutes then dumped it and rinsed it. I was ASTOUNDED at how shiny the brass came out! It was an experiment and I need to make sure whatever is in Barkeepers Friend (oxalic acid I think) doesn't weaken the cases, but as I said it was an experiment and it was only in contact for <2 minutes. Seriously it was almost shiny enough to reload without tumbling!

[BajaJames83]

Try white woolite as the soap next time. It made a huge difference for me.

[Pardini]

Lime juice=Citric Acid

Lemishine=Citric Acid

Yup. Just buy citric acid. A teaspoon will shine your brass right before your eyes, just like magic in minutes, no tumbling needed.

[03fatboy]

The picture of that brass looks like it is plenty clean enough to reload.

[stand125]

I have pretty much stopped tumbling brass and just swish it around in hot water and soap. I find shiny brass shoots just like dull clean brass.

[bazineta]

I find that making them shiny is pretty easy with a pin tumbler; keeping them shiny is a different story. For that, I put in some Armor-All Wash and Wax, probably about a cup in a full Frankford Arsenal tumbler load; keeps them from tarnishing for quite some time afterward. Wash and Wax is reasonably cheap; I'll probably get about 30,000 cases out of one bottle.

[divingin]

Is that a cup or a cap per load? If you're adding a cup full and cleaning 30K cases per bottle, you must be buying 55 gallon drums.

[Christopher761]

In a harbor freight tumbler, I use a cap full of car wash for about 120 9mm. Add a pinch of lemishine. I run for about an hour to an hour and a half.

You could also use clothes washing detergent, or dawn, or whatever.

When I used dawn and a pinch of lemishine, they came out as shiny as the OP's picture, but then they would tarnish. I am not sure what was causing that. Maybe hard water. Maybe not rinsing good enough. (I was going to try to add baking soda to neutralize the acid, but I heard about the carwax and tried that.)

The carwash with wax and lemishine came out the same, but were stable. I have some that were cleaned a year ago that still look great. (Maybe a little duller, but very clean and shiny.)