Thumbler's & SS Media Techniques

[PLeighton]

I'm starting this thread to chronicle the way folks in the Thumbler's & SS Media club are doing things.
What I would like is for folks to post up whatever procedures are giving them the best results.
Please post up any other tips & tricks you might have with the media or Thumbler's Tumbler.

Please leave all the "That's cool, how do I get started" questions on the other SS Media Thread.
I'd like to keep this limited to tips, tricks, and technique of people that are currently using this setup.

This is currently how I'm doing things:

I take no more than 150 de-primed .308 cases and tumble them for 4-6 hours in 5 lbs of SS Media with
one gallon of hot tap water, TSP of Dawn, and a TSP of Lemishine.
Once it is done, I separate the media from the brass.

The process goes something like this:
- Un-dog lid to tumbler and remove.
- Use magnet to capture any loose media around the outside edge of the lid.
- Put strainer in bowl and pour all the liquid into the strainer.
(It is normal for some media to get through the strainer.)
- Place large magnet underneath bowl and dump.
- Remove magnet and recover any media laying in the bottom of the bowl.
- Repeat process as needed to rinse and recover all brass & media.
(Typically I will rinse the brass three times in hot tap water.)
- I then pour the rinsed brass out onto a "Sham-WOW" or any towel I may have lying around.
- Roll the brass back and forth in the towel and them place in a disposable grill grate.
- Put the grate full of brass in an old toaster oven and put on "Convection Oven" setting at 250F for an hour.

The problem that I'm having is that when I first take the brass out of the tumbler, it is super bright and looks great.
But after I dry it, it is a bit tarnished looking and often has some water spots on it.
Thinking that the oven / tray might be the culprit,
I tried putting the towel straight from the tumbler out onto the bed of my pickup truck in the heat and
got the exact same results.

If I throw the brass into my vibe tumbler with walnut and Flitz for 30 min, the brass is as shiny as a mirror.
But having to tumble a second time kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

 

[bohem]

Re: Thumbler's & SS Media Techniques

I have a pretty similar process.

My process:

Decap with Universal decapping die

Place ~ 3lb of media with 100 pieces of 308 or 75 pieces of 30-06 sized cases in tumbler

Fill with the hottest tap water I get, once filled to the very top (very little airspace) I squirt in about 1 tsp of dawn or joy. I haven't tried liminshine yet.

Let it tumble for about 2-3hrs in the 2gal bucket tumbler I made from an old Carnival Ice Cream maker

I pour out most of the black water into the toilet and refill with warm tapwater and roll the cases around by hand. Pour off the water again, careful not to pour any media down the drain.

Fill back up a third time with warm tap water and sort the cases out underwater. Turn each case with the mouth down and lightly shake for any trapped media to fall out. Keeping it underwater stops any cohesive behavior of the air/water boundary from trapping media in the case.

Shake the cases over the sink, lay them out on a baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet in the oven for 30-60 mins on "warm" (~200F)

Size, Prime, Load, dry tumble loaded rounds, shoot, repeat.

 

[Skyking]

Re: Thumbler's & SS Media Techniques

I think you are getting the discoloring for two reasons. First whenever I would dry my brass in the oven, they would look tarnish after taking them out, or shorty there after. If I don't use the oven to dry the brass I never get the discoloration. Second it may be because you are using to much leminshine. Less is best with that stuff. I would try 1/4 Tsp next batch.

This is my process:

-Deprimed brass
-2 Tbs Dawn, Hot tap water, 1/4 Tsp Leminshine,
-Up to a four hour tumble
-Remove lid to tumbler.
-Brush pins back into barrel.
-Dump out most of the water.
-Hold Tumblers barrel at a 45 angle.
-Take a water source and fill barrel and let extra water run over the edge.(Do this until most of the dirty soapy water cleans up)
-Then fill up my Frankford Arsenal media separator bucket with water.
-Dump brass and media into the separator drum over the bucket.
-SS media falls to the bottom of the bucket and brass stays in the drum.
-Then rise the brass off in fresh water while still in the media separator drum.
-Take the bucket with media and dump off as much water as I can without spilling the media.
-Then just dump the SS media back into the Tumblers barrel ready to go for next time.
-This time of year I take the Frankford drum with the brass still in it and go set it on my Air Conditioner unit to my house. ( When the AC runs it blows that hot air threw the brass and its dry in no time).

-

 

[PLeighton]

Re: Thumbler's & SS Media Techniques

Nice....
I like the AC fan!

Was using less Lemishine before and was getting the same results.
I upped the dosage because I thought it might be my water.

Just air drying outside gave me the same results as the oven, but I will certainly try your forced air method with less Lemishine to see what the result is.

I like where this thread is going.
The innovation and unconventional approaches to these problems are very interesting.
I suppose this is one of the things that drew me to this method of cleaning brass in the first place.
There isn't a book, manual, or established way of doing things.

Please keep posting up your processes...