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Posted: 4/7/2013 4:33:58 PM EDT
| I've been using my Harbor Freight dual drum rock tumbler to wet tumble my brass with great results. However, I resized/trimmed all of my 223 brass yesterday and have been tumbling them a 2nd time to remove any brass shavings and case lube. I've probably tumbled 2500 pieces so far and all have turned out great except one batch today. It seems the more I tumble them, the worse they look. I've been using 1/2 9mm case of lemishine and a few drops of dawn. Any ideas as to why they're turning out so dull instead of shiny new like the rest? |
| I don't know the volume of your HF Tumbler but in my Thumbler which I process about 350 223 cases per batch, I use 1-1.5 teaspoons of Lemishine and two very long squirts of dawn with hot tap water, never had any problems alway come out looking better than new. Use more Lemishine and Dawn. |
| I've currently got them running again and will post pics afterwards if no improvement. The case lube was wiped off with a towel before tumbling. This is the 2nd batch of post-lube tumbling and the first batch turned out great. When the original tumbling did not polish them with a couple drops of dawn I drained the water, refilled with hot tap water (which was used from the get-go) and added additional Dawn and lemishine (probably 5-7 drops per drum if I had to guess). I'd assume each drum holds roughly 50 .223 cases. The water has been excessively suddy/soapy after tumbling. |
| I'd like to say thanks for everyone's time and advice. I have no idea what the deal with this batch was, but I've finally got them clean and shiny. A couple drops of dawn and half a 9mm case of lemishine with 45-60 minutes in the tumbler worked wonders for probably 15 other batches. This batch took copious amounts of dawn and a full case of lemishine with a total time of 4 hours in the tumbler to achieve the same results. Again, I appreciate everyone's time. |
| When things go wrong with wet tumbling it is often because of too much water. Add more dawn. You should not be able to see the top of the water when the drum is sitting level. There might be one (or more) cases in the batch that has zinc which is plating to the other cases. |
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Quoted:
There might be one (or more) cases in the batch that has zinc which is plating to the other cases. I have thought the same thing with some of my batches. I've had from deep gold color, very light and shiny white gold-ish, blue hue brass, peach colored, and deep bronze with a rainbow effect to it. tis a mistery 
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| I just posted a thread about turning my brass green with this setup i think i was using too much lemishine.... also I looked on the stainless tumbling media website and they said to just run the media and the dawn to clean the media after tumbling every so often. |
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to be honest, it all depends on how clean you want it. I have a larger unit and I can let it tumbler for 1.5 hours. primer pockets aren't perfect but they're clean. now let it go 3.5 - 4 hours and the cases are flawless.
you just need to experiment with different tumbling times and find what works well with your setup. but to get you in the ballpark, I would let them run 3 hours and see what you have |
of dawn.
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I am using a small HF 2 drum rock tumbler. I do not let it soak(although I should, as I have an outlet timer set up) and let it tumble for 8 hours or so.
I did a little experiment 2 weeks ago: I let the brass stay sitting in the drum for a week after it was done tumbling. I rinsed the brass, set it in the food dehydrator, and it was as shiny as anyone elses. You CAN let it sit in the drum with no worry of discoloration or it getting dirty again. Set it and forget it 
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| I stopped by Hazard Fraught yesterday to pick up a dual drum tumbler and decided against it once I got my hands on it. How in the world does the lid stay watertight? The drums are very small and seem unfit for the volume shooter. Nevermind that the whole unit was Chinese built to the low standards of HF. |
| U shouldnt knock it till u try it. The lids have a metla plate covered in rubber to seal it. No a drop of water comes out and the only problem i had with my tumbler is the need to WD-40 the places where the shafts contact the frame. my fault but works like a BAUS! |
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Quoted:
I've found that if I let it sit for an amount of time after tumbling that I get splotchy cases, but if I rinse them as soon as they're done tumbling it's all bling.. plus it needs to be really nice and sudsy. I agree. with my thumler I could let them sit over night, then tumble them for a few minutes the next morning. now with my larger unit if they sit over night, my cases turn dark after rinsing.. not sure what the difference is. 
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Quoted:
I stopped by Hazard Fraught yesterday to pick up a dual drum tumbler and decided against it once I got my hands on it. How in the world does the lid stay watertight? The drums are very small and seem unfit for the volume shooter. Nevermind that the whole unit was Chinese built to the low standards of HF. They actually work quite nice, but like you said if you are a volume shooter you may want to look into something bigger, or build your own. |
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