Armory Sponsor
Posted: 12/26/2010 6:32:39 AM EDT
|
Recently someone said they used citric acid to clean their brass. I can't find the post and would appreciate an update since I have citric acid powder.
THANKS |
|
Usually people use LemiShine, which uses citric acid as the main ingredient, but what you have is probably better. I take a 5 gallon bucket dump the brass in (although I only do this w/ really grungy nasty range brass), dump in about 2-2.5 gallons of hot water, some citric acid and some Dawn (or similar) dish soap. I agitate it every once in a while. Dryflash says he has noticed that at about a half hour they don't get any cleaner, so I usually leave them for a half hour to an hour, then I dump them into a spaghetti strainer and rince w/ cold water.
Then I tumble them in walnut. Some of them will turn pink, you can search here for threads about it, I don't remember exaclty why, something to do w/ the tarnish and the citric acid reacting. Anyhoo, the walnut will tumble the pink off, so don't worry about it. |
|
Quoted:
lemishine works well, but be sure to rinse your brass well after using it. Can't imagine long term acid exposure would be a good idea. If left long enough it will remove the zinc and weaken the brass. If the cases appear copper colored (pinkish) the zinc has been removed. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
lemishine works well, but be sure to rinse your brass well after using it. Can't imagine long term acid exposure would be a good idea. If left long enough it will remove the zinc and weaken the brass. If the cases appear copper colored (pinkish) the zinc has been removed. I think you got that wrong on both counts. Last time there was a thread on this subject, it was all explained. Searched, for the thread but didn't find it. |
|
Quoted:
Recently someone said they used citric acid to clean their brass. I can't find the post and would appreciate an update since I have citric acid powder. THANKS I think that would be me. I take a plastic Folgers coffee can. (They go through them like paper clips where I work.) I put in a spoonful into it with some hot water. I toss in the brass. Depending upon whether I use a tea spoon or a table spoon, and upon how many times I have recylced the solution, I leave the brass in the solution for as little as a few minutes, or as long as overnight. It depends on whether I can attend to it right away, how strong/fresh my solution is, how dirty the brass is. Genereally, when the brass is shiny, I drain and give it two rinses. Sometimes, I add a dash of Simple Green. I really like clean brass, so after a quick drying out in the oven (I toss it into a small cardboard box, or pack them standing on their ends into a big pickle jar lid) at 150-200 degrees (sometimes with a dehumidifier sack in there for good measure) I toss them into the tumbler....but then again, I am into clean brass. It is the only "bling" I care about. My friend just does the citric acid solution and has sold his tumbler. Somebody on YouTube just does the Simple Green and the hand crushing method (holding a few in his fist, feeling for bad cases, then taking another handful.) Sure...LemiShine has citric acid in it, but why not go directly to the active ingredient? |
|
Nothing wrong with citric acid, it seems to be more active than acetic acid for cleaning brass. Lemishine is convenient when local stores don't carry canning supplies.
Simple Green will destroy brass if it is left too long - way longer than needed to clean, but still, don't forget a batch that is soaking. I tried it one time and left a couple of pieces to see how they fare over the long haul, and the result was the worst corroded mess I've ever seen. I'm not a huge fan of Simple Green because I don't like the feel it leaves behind. Unfortunately I have a couple of projects underway where this is one of the good choices of cleaner! |
|
Quoted: Nothing wrong with citric acid, it seems to be more active than acetic acid for cleaning brass. Lemishine is convenient when local stores don't carry canning supplies. Simple Green will destroy brass if it is left too long - way longer than needed to clean, but still, don't forget a batch that is soaking. I tried it one time and left a couple of pieces to see how they fare over the long haul, and the result was the worst corroded mess I've ever seen. I'm not a huge fan of Simple Green because I don't like the feel it leaves behind. Unfortunately I have a couple of projects underway where this is one of the good choices of cleaner! Which makes me wonder. Since Simple Green has a Ph of about 9.5, I wonder if it would be a good choice for a quick dip to counter any remnants of an acidic cleaning bath. I sometimes use a mild acidic chemical bath to refresh badly tarnished cases, and it works well. I do however have concerns about the solution remaining in the PP. I normally dip in a baking soda solution afterwards and triple rinse, so I'm probably ok anyway. |
|
Apparently all the threads on the pink lemishine brass are gone or have been archived, but if you search through Yahoo or Google you can find them. Here are 2 of them, but there are a bunch more.
Pink brass thread take 1 Take 2 |
| Running the citric acid in glasses inside the sonic cleaner did a really good job on most brass...the range pickups of speer, SB, Federal and especially blazer brass all shined up nicely. Winchester brass looks horrible still....do they stick dirt in their powder? I have a hard time cleaning once fired Winchester brass..takes me atleast 2 reloads and 3 cleanings to get the stuff to shine up right. |
| I guess I failed to mention that I did give it a 1 hour pre-soak before throwing it into the sonic cleaner. Like I said..everything looks great...except once fired Winchester White Box...the .45 ACP white box is always tough for me to get clean....and I use Bullseye when I reload and it comes out cleaner after I shoot it. |
Armory Sponsor