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A word to the wise

M

milo 2.0

Guest
I've reloaded for almost 30 years now, today I had a first. I tumble my brass with dry media, mixing in various brands of polish, whatever I buy at the time if the price is right. My polished brass will never take home the Blue Ribbon, but it's always nice and clean.
I've mixed many brands of polish together over the years, just to ease the clutter if for no other reason, Lyman, Flitz, Rooster's, Frankfurt Arsenal, etc..
But today I had a 1/5th full bottle of Frankfurt, 32oz, and a 7/8th's full can Iosso, well I didn't like the pouring qaulities of the metal Iosso can, so I dumped it into the Frankfurt bottle and mixed it up, big mistake. These were both pourable liquids, now I have a thick paste from hell, consistancy of toothpaste, or chaulking. I'm afraid it's going to set up like concrete, I may be wrong, but I know I don't like it's properties at the moment.
So don't mix these two brands!
 
It's not a wise idea to mix any chemicals, period.

I put this right up there with "I had a 1/5 full can of WST and a 7/8 can full of WSH, so I just poured them together, they're both gunpowder."

:D
 
Milo, thanks for the heads-up.
I'll have to admit, I never thought such a thing with polishes, could happen. Because they're just that.... polishes. What does it matter, right? It's not like you're going to eat them, and you sure as heck are not "relying on their capabilities" as you would be (the alluded to) powder right?

And in general, what is a polish? A micro-fine abrasive compound suspended in a convenient medium. Again, I said 'generally'. One expects MASSIVELY DIFFERENT reliabilities on it, than powder.

So yeah, this is all coming from one who DOESN'T see the comparison.
 
Thanks Sean,
I failed to see the correlation between powder and a citrus based polish myself, but?????
 
Ok, maybe a poor comparison, I'll admit. But the point is that mixing chemicals, be they polish, gunpowder, or cleaners (I had a couple listed but decided for safety's sake to take them out) is just not a good plan. Coagulation is irritating, but a caustic or violent reaction could have been much, much worse.