I just got a wet tumbling set up. I picked up one of the frankford arsenal due to the amount it claims it can handle. It says a 1000 pieces of 223. It has gotten pretty good reviews, and the few people that have had problems claimed they were taken care of. If it does not work out I will go with the new model ssm is selling.
What im looking for is what your using for tumbling. Do you use lemishine? How much? What do you use for soap? How much?
Im planning on using car wash soap with wax. I have heard it works really well, because it creates more suds, and the wax left on the case prevents tarnishing. I also plan on using lemishine.
Im actually just getting everything set up, and decapping some brass for my first run. So 2hat iw your wet tumbling procedure?
You don’t need to overthink the initial soap lemishine ratio. It doesn’t need to be that exact. The best way I’ve found by far to produce the most amazing bright yellow brass was to double rinse.
I wouldn’t use car wash soap. Car wash soaps are very mild, and are designed to clean w/o stripping wax. Dawn will sud plenty, and has much more power to cut carbon etc. Some principles as soaking a pot with burnt on crud.
After your initial tumble, rinse off the brass and seperate it from the media. Fill up a pot with very hot water and a scoop of lemishine. Dump the brass in the water. Even if tarnished, just from the chemical action of the lemishine it will brighten up instantly. Leave them in for about 5 min or so to transfer some of the heat. Use a slotted spoon or similar item to scoop them onto a large towel. Roll them in the towel to dry them off as much as possible. If needed, you can put them in a cookie sheet and put them in the oven set to warm (about 125F ).
I have the car wash and dish soap on hand so I will try both. I got the car wash idea from a buddy that said that it works better than the dish soap.
I will give your method a shot. I waw wondering about the amounts because I have heard to much lemishine turns brass pink. I have some brass I have been leaving outside for over a year to test out wet tumbling. So I will divide it up and try a few different methods and amounts of soap/lemishine.
Edit: bp7178 or anyone have you tried the lemishine rinsing liquid? I just got to the store to buy the lemishine, and I never realized there was so many different types. Im going to get the standard one that everyone uses.
Oh, this is good news. I’ve been wanting to start wet tumbling for years, but I was always put off by the low capacity (Thumler) or high price (Big Dawg) of the equipment.
I’ll be ordering one of these as soon as I’m back in the States…
That was always my problem as well. Now that I have it, it seems like it is well built. I will be running some loads in the next couple days when I have time I will report back to let everyone know how it works.
A teaspoon or so of lemishine. And a table spoon or so of Dishwashing liquid. ADD the dishwashing liquid LAST as it will bubble up if you are silly enough to add it before the water and brass.
I tried to upload some pics but it says they were all to big. I only have my phone to post with so I will try and figure a way out. The results are great.
Thanks for the tip markm, I almost put in the soap first. The three 45 acp cases is a little more than a teaspoon and I put 25 cc’s of soap half car was with wax the other half dawn.
If anyone want pics pm me your email address and I will send them to you, but I would say they are your typical stainless tumbling results. I just wish I would have started sooner.
I definitely wont need a cement mixer. I ran all the 223/556 brass I had that was dirty probably 200 cases. Th3 drum weighed 19 pounds so I had room for 11 more. That should be more than enough for me.
I have been wet tumbling for a few years now and I would not ever go back to vibratory tumbling for cleaning my brass. I do use the vibratory tumbler for deburring chop sawed .300 Blackout cases before they are formed but the cleaning is done in the Thumler’s Tumbler.
I am not at all a fan of any of the Frankford Arsenal products as my experience has been they are cheaply made disposable crap.
I’ve been running the Frankfort for six weeks now non-stop and it runs like a champ. It is a very well built unit. I’m pretty much done with dawn and lemi-shine. I run a gallon of water, 5# pins, brass to about 2" below the water line and 2oz. of Hornady One Shot brass cleaner for the ultrasonic. That recipe will clean anything in 2 hours.
Not sure about the Frankfort, but the one thing the dishwashing liquid does for me… it keeps the pins flowing. I forgot the liquid once and the pins were like sticky oatmeal.
Lemishine isn’t that much trouble, and our water here in AZ is hard as hell, so I continue to use it.
I agree about most of frankford arsenal stuff being junk, but this is one of the products they got right. I also have a pocket scale I got years ago that is just as accurate as all my other scales.
I have only heard of a few problems with the tumblers that were taken care of with not problem. The mqin one I have heard of is the timer stops counting down. So you manualy have to turn it off. If that happens to mine I won’t even care.
While I have only been using it for a while my best batch came out using bp178 method. After seperating the pins I threw the brass in hot water with lemishine stirred it up then rinsed. I only did it once, because I dont need it that bright.
I have settled on 25cc’s of soap (12.5 of mthers car wash w/carnuba 12.5 of dawn) and 4 45acp cases of lemishine. Which works out to around half a tablespoon. I use cold water, I have not tried warm yet.
Anyone on the fence about buying one do to quality concerns. Dont worry about it I have no complaints. The capacity is pretty good, I think there 1000 223 cases is optimistic, but 500 was no problem. Fully loaded with 500 cases I still had about 5 pounds of capacity left.
While I have only been using it for a while my best batch came out using bp178 method. After separating the pins I threw the brass in hot water with lemishine stirred it up then rinsed. I only did it once, because I dont need it that bright.
Don’t rinse after the lemishine soak. The last water to touch the brass should be lemishine treated. A year later it will still be bright. Straight from hot lemishine water onto a towel, then dried in the oven set to warm or in a food dehydrator.
I dry tumble the brass in walnut to get most of the grime off it. I then resize and decap (and trim if rifle brass).
I wet tumble as follows:
Thumblers 15# tumbler
4# brass
5# SS pins
6# water (6 pints)
1 TSP Lemishine
1 TBS Dawn dish soap
I use tap temp water and run for 3 hrs ±
After pouring off soapy water and a couple of rinse/pour offs, I separate the pins using a small Dillon media separator filled to over flowing with fresh water.
I roll the cases back and forth in a large bath towel and if I an going to use them in the next 48 hrs I dry them in a 200* oven for 2 hrs. I put a coffee cup of water in the oven as a precaution. If it boils the oven is too hot.
Got it. Even with the rinse it was very bright. If I ever process any brass to sell or process it for pay I will use your process. My method get it just fine for me, but when I used your method it stepped the shine up to a new level.
I thought I would update this a little. My frankford arsenal wet tumbler has been running virtually non stop since I bought it. The logest break it has had is about 12 hours, and has been running about 16 hours a day. I do not run it while sleeping.
I have found my method and it comes out just as good as when I used bp7178’s method. I just no longer do the second rinse. I use hot water 4 45 acp shells full of lemishine, 25 cc’s of mothers California gold car wash with carnuba, and just a small squirt of dawn. The hot water seems to add the shine I got with bp7178’s method, while still leaving behind the wax from the mothers California gold.
If anybody is on the fence about wet tumbling due to the volume or price. The Frankford delivers the best of both worlds. It is roughly the same price as the thumlers, but will handle twice the amount. The large model available from stm is 899 dollars and does I beleive 40 pounds. Which is 10 more than the frankford, but the frankford is 1/3 the price. The results blow away anything achievable with a dry tumbler. I only wish that I would have switched sooner. I was pissed that I burned out my vibratory tumbler, now im glad. I will pick up another one for tumbling lube off of rifle cases.
Dont be affraid of Frankford arsenals reputation this is one product that they knocked out of the park.
The limited capacity of the Thumler is a good thing for me. It’s about 130 pieces, which is all I can stand to size, trim, etc. in one sitting. It’s a perfect sanity batch size for me. When I run two of the Thumlers at the same time, I get a bit overwhelmed.