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Posted: 8/23/2011 7:14:34 PM EDT
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At present I am doing my drying outside in the sun, takes about an hour in my AO.
A reloading friend of mine had an idea. Why not use a dehydrator to dry wet tumbled brass? His brother had just got a food dehydrator from Harbor Freight and thought it might work. So I got one to try. Notice a Tier 5 model. (GD joke) 
$24.99 + tax at the local HF store. 
Out of the box. 
Pictured with 500 223 cases to test capacity. 
500 223 cases and bottom of dryer. Just a heating element, no fan. Remember the price. 
Time to test a load. Started with 500 300 blk cases I recently made on a friends 1050. Formed from Rem 223 once fired cases. Start time was 0930, pic taken at 0950 and the next pic will be of the thermometer at the bottom rack. 
Half hour run, temp at 140 degrees. In an oven, normal drying temp used is 200 degrees. 
At 1033 temp is up to 154 degrees. After an hour the flasholes were still wet. I kept going. Checked temp at 1101, was 154 degrees, brass almost dry. 
After 2 hour run brass was dry and temp was 154 degrees. So now I have a quicker drying method for the winter when not using my wood stove. |
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Whenever I make jerky I bungie cord a few of those big square air filter things (the specific purpose of them is escaping me now) to a large rectangular fan and lay the meat inside the ridges on the filters. Works very well even without heating. I might try that next time.
Gabe |
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Quoted:
Whenever I make jerky I bungie cord a few of those big square air filter things (the specific purpose of them is escaping me now) to a large rectangular fan and lay the meat inside the ridges on the filters. Works very well even without heating. I might try that next time. Gabe I don't get it. This is a brass drying thread. I have a smoker to make jerky. Not sure if you are serious. 
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I usually put my brass in loading blocks and blow dry it with a regular old hair dryer...temps don't exceed 185 degrees when I temp check them with my IR thermometer and it's quick...I load blocks up, blow dry that side a couple minutes, put another loading tray on top and then flip the brass so I can get the second side for a couple minutes and then my brass is dry and ready to load.
I like the dehydrator idea but I'd want one with a fan to speed the process. 2 hrs is a bit long to dry brass. |
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Looks like a good ideal for large lots of brass.
Since I only do 100-150 cases at a time in batches to keep the brass separated I leave the brass in a strainer and use a hair dryer, it only takes 5 mins or less to completely dry 150 cases but would get old fast doing 500 or more cases at a time. |
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