After reading quite a bit here about how clean wet tumbling leaves brass I decided to dive in and ordered a FART from Midway. I have gone over a few posts here but am hoping to get some clarification on a couple things. First up: LemiShine. I have seen references to using a cap full per batch, so I ordered what was pictured in one of the threads and was expecting it to be a liquid. The bottle that showed up is dry / granular and is labeled Booster. Is this the right stuff? It does not have an actual cap, just a flip lid like a spice bottle, so I would guess a cap full to be teaspoon / tablespoon-ish, if this is the right stuff. If not I will just run it in the dishwasher and buy the correct product.

Second up is the car wash. I have read Meguiars and Armor All. I found the Armor All locally and bought a bottle of it, but was curious how much of it to use as well.

I ran the pins in plain water for a couple cycles as suggested in the other threads to break them in, or season them. I got one of the FA transfer magnets, but returned it as it would hardly pick up any pins at all, nothing like the pics showing the pins stuck together and hanging off the bottom. Is there a better magnet to use?

I have seen references to using a paint strainer to aid in separating, but the ones I have seen are paper and would not hold up to a single use.

I still need to get a clean bucket to use for this, but am excited to give it a try.

You bought the correct Lemishine.  How much you should use will depend on your water hardness.  I probably use about a table spoon or a little less.  Too much and your brass will come out pinkish.

Sometimes I use a car wash solution.  When I do, I don't measure, I just splash some in.  Mostly I use a healthy squirt of Dawn dish soap.

The FA magnet is disappointing but I think it still has a use for managing stray pins.  To separate the pins from brass, I use an RCBS rotary sifter meant for separating brass and dry media.

To separate, I first dump the brass, pins, and dirty water into a 3 gallon bucket.  I carefully pour off most of the dirty water, then using a hose, flush the pins and brass with clean water while the bucket is tilted at an angle.  I do that until the water runs clean.  Once the water is running clean out of the bucket, I will agitate the cases and pins and flush them again quickly with clean water.  Then I carefully pour off the remaining water and dump the pins and brass into my separator.   I spin the separator and then dump the brass out on a towel.  I'll roll the brass around in the towel like I'm trying to polish a bowling ball, then spread them out in a single layer to dry in the sun.

How do u dry your pins?  Been thinking about using a t shirt.

I'm using about 1/8th of a teaspoon per 1k 9mm, or 500 .223.  For the full sized FART, that's 1/8th for being about half-full and 1/4th for being full.
The Armor All you should be using is the Wash & Wax.  I usually put in a cap full or two... basically you want suds.  The Wash & Wax is what I normally use, unless I am removing case lube.  For that, I use Dawn dish soap instead.  Again, enough to create suds.

I never seasoned my pins, nor have I washed them separately.  My brass still comes out shiny.  For extremely dirty brass I may change out the water and add more soap/lemishine, if the brass needs another round after running for three hours.

My FA transfer magnet works fine.  Sometimes the magnet gets stuck before settling all the way to the bottom, and just needs a push to free it up.

After shaking brass/media by hand for years in a sink with the FART's built in straining caps, I finally recently bought the FA platinum series wet/dry media separator.  Get one of those, it's worth it.

Also of note, my brass comes out a slightly different color based on the soap I'm using.  Both of these are roughly the same amount of the same batch of dirty cases, with the same amount of lemishine, run in the tumbler for the same period of time. One is with Armor All Wash & Wax, the other is Dawn.  Unfortunately I don't remember exactly which is which, but I think the W&W is on the left.  The difference is much more noticeable in person.

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That's the correct stuff.  

I use two .45acp cases of it, give or take.  For soap, a squirt of Dawn is good.  I've also used a cap full of a couple different car wash soaps and they work too.  As you use the tumbler you'll figure out what works for you.  I don't get worried about water spots or discoloration on the brass.  Just want it clean.

Another hint, don't use the SS pins with straight wall handgun cases.  Just de-prime and clean.  They will still come out looking great and you don't have to mess around separating/chasing SS pins.

For drying I just spread the cases out on a towel in the sun.  In the winter I'll lay them on a towel in front of a space heater.

I really like my wet tumbler and pretty much don't use my vibrating tumbler any more.

I don't worry about it.  After separating, I pour off any water that is in with the pins and dump them back in the drum.  If I won't be tumbling again for awhile, I just leave the lid off the drum.

Put on a sheet pan in the sun.  AZ drys things fast.  Same with the brass.

I use these to drain the dirty water out - Sifting caps

I don’t use a magnet to separate the pins from the brass. I use a Lyman Tubo media separator. Makes quick work of getting the pins separated. Then I either just pour the pins back into the tumbler ( leave off one of the lids) or just leave them in the bottom of the separator and let them air out that way. One of the advantages of living in a place with really dry air.

I have had a FA-RT since 2014. When I moved to NV from MD my base got damaged and had to buy a new kit so now I have 2 barrels as they dont sell a replacement base.

This is now my process:

Tumble in one barrel for an hour with no pins and just Dawn dish soap prior to resizing. I got the screen cap to go under the lid so I will drain and rinse.

If I am not resizing immediately I will just let them air dry. If I am resizing right away or doing the final tumble I will use a food dehydrator to dry

Final tumble I use the second barrel with the pins with  Armor All Ultra Shine Wash and Wax and Lemishine. I have a diabetes testing strip container that I use for measure the soap and Lemishine. I will usually tumble this for 3 hours.
Rinse then use a FA Platinum media separator then food dehydrator to dry.

Harbor Freight makes the same magnet you can get from FA except it has a long shaft its great for getting pins off the floor.

A standard media separator works great.  I do use magnets to collect any pins that end up on the floor.  There's always just a few...

I dry by spreading the brass out on a towel and letting them lay in the basement floor for a couple days.

Ok, couple more questions for clarification:

Are nickel plated cases Ok to wet tumble or should I separate them out of the batch before I run it?

I have seen statements saying not to wet tumble straight wall pistol cases. The main reason I bought this was to clean my handgun brass. Seems like plenty of people run 9mm and 45 ACP brass with no issues.

I don't separate out nickel cases.

I also wet tumble my handgun brass.  I think the reason some people recommend against it is because wet tumbling, at least with Dawn and Lemishine, doesn't leave a residue so the cases can get a little sticky on the expanding die when progressive reloading.  It hasn't been a problem for me.

Nickel cases are ok to tumble with stainless media, but don’t overdo it.  With brass, if you leave the tumbler going longer than you planned, it’s no big deal, but the stainless pins can remove nickel if you leave them running too long.

I run my tumbler in the garage, but separate everything indoors.  I lay an old tee shirt in a good-sized colander, then pour the brass and pins into it.  The tee shirt keeps pins from going down the drain while the water is draining out.  Then I take the tee shirt full of brass and pins out of the colander and pour the whole mess into my rotary media separator.  Mine is from Barry’s Manufacturing:

It’s the same thing you’d use to separate out walnut or corn cob media.

The key for me is to not drain the stuff too much.  The pins will stick to the brass if it’s too dry.  So I get most of the water out in the colander, and when I toss it in the separator.  A few spins in the separator (with the top closed), and the brass is 99.99% free of pins.

I pour the basket of brass onto an old towel, then dry them in a food dehydrator.  Quick and easy, and lots of bling!

DF, do you use the powder Lemishine too? I have some liquid Lemishine I'm using now, but wondering if I need to switch to powder to get your results. Mine are decent...but nowhere near yours. I'm using a 45 ACP case full of liquid, but assuming I need to add more per gallon of water. I'll try some more and see if mine turns pink.

Lemi-Shine and Dawn work great. I've tried other acids like vinegar, but you need to be careful as it will leach the zinc from the brass.

Drying, I use two hornady case baskets and my masterbuilt food dehydrator to force air dry. I can get about 4k 9mm or 2k 223 cases into those two baskets and they'll be bone dry in about 2 hours depending on how well I shook the water out in my RCBS media separator. YMMV

To keep from starting another thread in a few weeks.  If you turn the brass pink with lemi shine is it still ok to use?  I'm assuming it tarnished it a different color but want to be sure.

I wouldnt, there's no telling how much zinc was leached from it.

The pink you see is essentially a single layer of alloy; we’re talking about molecules.

If you use too much Lemishine, instead of protecting the brass (in a process called “passivation”) it over-reacts with the zinc.  But it can ONLY interact with the surface of the metal.  So tumbling in walnut should just scrub the overly coppery stuff off.

“Too much Lemishine” can mean more than the .45 case full (that’s less than 1/4 teaspoon, by the way) in a gallon.  And since you can reuse that filthy soapy water several times before it no longer works, it can also mean leaving the brass soaking in the water/soap/Lemishine for too long.

It’s important to note that EVERY tumbling operation does some sort of abrasion of the metal.  You cannot infinitely tumble brass in media, even corn cob, without eventually removing enough metal to notice.  But since the surface impact of Lemishine is so exceedingly shallow, you won’t damage the brass enough to be concerned about in the usable lifetime of a case.

Thanks for the answers on the lemi shine.

Something I found for drying is a cheap mesh laundry bag from Walmart.

Pretty much this.  

And I can't imagine doing this without the tumbler media separator and a bucket. I use RCBS' version, which I like a little better than others.

I use a tee shirt to drain the brass and pins because I couldn’t find a fine enough strainer.  I may wind up looking around for a really fine strainer, as the tee shirt has to hang out and dry after use.

Of course I wound up having a number of tee shirts left over when I retired from the Air Force (vee neck tee shirts, which I despised), so it’s not like I don’t have extras.

I either leave the pins in the drum with a lid OVER (not on) the studs, or in the media separator.  Since both the drum and the separator “live” in the garage, when it’s at all warm out stuff dries pretty quickly.  The separator is stored under my table saw stand, keeping stuff out of it.  I haven’t bothered with spacers to let the pins dry in the tumbler drum, as it’s stored upright and also under a cover to keep it from collecting stuff.

I am, however, at the point where I’m considering using some alcohol to clean the drum liner and gasket.  While the Lemishine helps manage the substantial amount of calcium in my tap water, the other stuff that winds up in the drum is another issue.  I’ve emailed Tru-Square (the manufacturer of Thumler’s Tumblers) to see if that’s OK.

Ive got these 2 on my wish list, not sure which i'll go with yet. The ones for the FART are nice cause they are small and purpose built. The lyman is nice though cause itll work with everything.

Lyman trays.

FART caps.

Any idea what mesh the FART caps are?  It looks like an 18 or 20 mesh screen will stop all pins (opening sizes are 0.0394” and 0.0331” respectively).

Some of the feedback I’ve read on these caps says that the mesh is small enough that you should pour out the liquid carefully, otherwise the water blocks air flow into the drum and really slows it down.  It’s gotta be due to surface tension across those tiny spaces...

I don’t have a FART, but this points me in the right direction to find an appropriate strainer.