I looked though some of the threads here and didn't find what I want to know at this time.

I'm revisiting the idea of wet tumbling with SS media. There are some things I'd like to know before diving in. So I'll have an idea of the cost involved.

I use the home made lube.  Will wet tumbling remove this lube with out making the SS pins sticky ?

What is the ratio of brass to SS pins ?

What is the mix of soap, lemishine  and what ever else is added to the water per Gallon ?

I'm looking at doing about 80 lbs total wt for everything at a time. Is this a mistake ?

I was just going to send you an IM , but didn't want to bother you.
Thanks !

I was thinking the brass to pin ratio would be closer to 1to1.  What you just described sounds like 2-3 lbs of brass to 5 lbs of pins.

The Frankfort Arsenal tumbler recommends not tumbling more than 30 total pounds, including water weight. That also includes the 5 pounds of pins. If I know I'm doing a big load I'll add cases to the tumbler full of water with the tumbler on a scale so I know when i hit the limit. I think the weight is hard on the rollers.



I always run all the pins regardless of how much brass I'm cleaning.

Ratio of dawn to lemishine sounds right but again depends on your water. I've heard too much dawn can actually hurt the brass and I've also heard to much lemishine has the opposite effect in terms of shine. Unsure if either of those statements are true.





 


The FA tumbler advertises it can run 1,000 223 in a single load.


 

Well that's  more like 14lbs of brass to 5 lbs of pins.  I'm thinking the more pins the faster the cleaning will be . With a capacity of 80-160 lbs that's a whole lot of pins. Maybe bigger is not always better.

What about adding some of that dishwasher stuff that is used to stop water spots to the final rinse water ?

Yep I found your big 44 page thread.

Thanks I'm good for now. Going to just get the FA unit as a kit just to get my feet wet doing this.  Experiments in small lots will be much easier.

Do the magnets to pick up the pins really come in handy ?

As usual your a well of information. Thank you Sir !

I use the FA magnet to pick up the pins that fall on the ground. Not required to have, but it makes it easier.

I have a 1.7gallon tumbler, and I use 12 pounds of pins with 8 pounds of brass.

My recipe is: 4 scoops of leminshine (I use a 45 case as a scoop)
1.5oz of Armor All Wash and Wax car soap
3.5 hours of time

So you do the same mix regardless of caliber ?

Yep, find the correct ratio for your water chemistry, then let 'er rip (or tumble).

As a caveat- I never weighed brass before this new tumbler. I started out on a Thumbler's (1 gallon- I think), and used 5lbs of pins with about 260 cases of 9mm (or, I think, 180 .223/ 45).  Recipe then was 1.5 cases of leminshine, and one ounce of armor all car wash.

Point is, caliber doesn't matter- the trick is to find the proper leminshine/soap mixture for your process. It may take a few batches, but it's worth it.

I must be screwing up somehow. I run a Thumlers Model B and don't use even half of the Lemishine & car wash soap you guys seem to favor. I still run 5 lbs of media with about 10 lbs of brass.

Do you have a water softener ?

I'm on well water now. The water here is much softer then the city water we had before. I can see were that can make a difference.

Another ?
I was planning on not wet tumbling this .223 brass till after it has been processed. Will that affect  the outcome in any way.

I use lanoline based case lube too and it's difficult to wash off.  My brass comes back clean from the range, so I lube, decap, neck size, and body size first.  I put the brass in a bucket with a couple squirts of Simple Green and swish them around while I'm heating a tea kettle of boiling water.  I use the very hot water to rinse the cases.  

Then I tumble in my FA machine full of water with 5# of pins no matter how much brass.  I tumble .223 cases in lots between 100 and 400 cases, but I think more would be fine too.  I use automatic dishwasher detergent and a teaspoon of Lemishine and I tumble for 90 minutes; works great and that's all that is necessary to give me clean primer pockets.

I use the FA deep colander type separator (less than ten bucks) in a 5 gal drywall bucket along with some rinsing and shaking.  A "release style" pick up magnet isn't mandatory, but if I lost mine I'd replace it immediately.  It really helps.

I shake the cases in a bath towel "bowling ball style" for a minute and then dump them in a metal baking pan.  I put the pan on the tennis shoe rack in my wife's clothes dryer for a 30 minute run on "cotton high".  Then I anneal the cases.

Well did my 1st lot today. Did 10 lbs brass with  the 5 lbs of pins that came with the FA tumbler. All I had here was the dawn . But this brass had Benn tumbled twice any way. Once to clean it, then again to remove the case lube.  I think I'll keep dry tumbling to remove the lube before exiting the wet.

One thing I'm surprised at though. Was I didn't get any water spots.  I did do the three rinsesand in cold water.  Poured them out on to a vinyl screen  to drip off. Then into a old pillow case for awhile. From there spread out on  big towel with a fan blowing on it in the sun. Then boom 15 mins later it was dry enough to bring inside the air conditioning.

It's a work in progress. Got to try the lemishine.  Tomorrow gonna do a lot that starts as range pick up brass.

I use these strainer bags to dump the pins + brass into after tumbling. The pins don't fall through the material and it's flexible enough that you can rinse it all in the bag and shake out the water. Best part is they're cheap at your local HD.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-1-gal-Elastic-Top-Strainers-2-Pack-11572-36WF/202061359

Already had the big Dillon separator.  Dump everything in that and spray with a adjustable nozzle set to shower.  Rinse, dump ,rinse , dump rinse , dump. It did a good job of catching all the pins.

FA makes a media separator that's enclosed. Top and bottom section. The top section has a screen to let water out. After wet tumbling I pour everything (including dirty water) into the media basket in the bottom section and put the top on. Rotating the media separator while it's still sitting in the dirty water helps get all the pins out of the cases. They fall to the bottom while the cases remain in the basket. Having the top section on helps keep the pins from flying everywhere (they're like Mexican jumping beans when rotating the separator).

With most of the pins in the bottom section I tilt the entire unit to start draining out the water. There's a small screen at the corner to help with this.

Next I take the top off, put it in the sink, and dump all the shells in and rinse with cold water. That's where the screen comes in handy because it lets all the soap and dirty water out. The screen also catches the remaining pins (the majority are still in the bottom section). Then I lay the cases out on a cookie sheet and cook for about 45 minutes at 170 degrees. If they turn orange I put them in a bucket with a little lemi-shine, they turn yellow, then I cook them again.

While they're cooking I use the magnet to spread all the pins out on a towel to dry. Overall it's a neat little unit.

Last night I cleaned 1,500 .45 ACP cases at once. It brought the tumbler right to 30 lbs.

For my second load I mixed in the remaining 300 .45 ACP with 9mm, .40 S&W, 38 Special, and .223 cases. Big mistake. They turn themselves into Russian nesting dolls. Not only do they stack inside each other trapping pins, but those pins often wedge the cases together really tight, especially .40 cases inside .45 ACP cases. What a PIA.

Here's the media separator I use. I definitely helps contains the pins after tumbling:

LINK

Did 20# of that range pick up brass today.  It must have been raining the day they shot this stuff. It sitting in a box for two years didn't help any.  

Lessons learned today.

When doing rough brass with primers in.  Rinse off the brass before putting it in the wet tumbler. Not that this brass had a lot of lose debris on it .

Doing the 1st cleaning of the brass before processing . Takes way less time in the wet tumbler. This stuff was ugly but ended up looking 100 % better after only 1/2 hour tumbling wet.

Drying this brass with primer in takes way way longer to get dry. Not that I didn't expect it to.

I need to build a 12'X2' screen decked table to dry brass.  That way I can do way more at a time then I have room for now.