- Thread starter Charlie Papa
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What is it? I need one!
Boon Grass Countertop Bottle Drying Rack : Target
I just load up a cookie sheet with the brass and pop it in the oven at 170 F for 20 minutes.
I just load up a cookie sheet with the brass and pop it in the oven at 170 F for 20 minutes.
It's called "Boon Lawn" and they also make a smaller one called "Boon Grass." Amazon lists them, as does Bed Bath and Beyond, but I wanted one immediately, so I tracked it down at a local Target. Works great! 25 bucks.
Uhhh ohhh! Here come the hoards of people who have no idea how annealing works...
p.s. thanks for the link, this is on my list of must haves for sure!
Luckily, I don't have any kids (that I'm aware of), but I did first see this at a buddy's house who has a newborn and immediately began thinking of how to apply it to shooting. He had all the latest stuff, including an IR camera baby monitor that alarms if the kid quits breathing!
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Let see, you handle each and every case and contaminate your kids baby bottles. You should be shot with a dull bullet and have your library card revoked!
Just thought I would get the subject a little heated.
Spread your brass out and it will dry faster.
that's a pretty neat idea...ive just been laying them primer hole facing up on a piece of cardboard tell dry.
I've done the oven thing and without distilled water my brass comes out looking like shit.
I've done the oven thing and without distilled water my brass comes out looking like shit.
They dry in less than five minutes, and if you spread them out the hair drier can't heat them all.
Thanks for the bad idea.
I just roll them in a bath towel(like a bowling ball) after they come out of the media separator after rinsing, then I transfer to another completely dry bath towel, spread them out and put a cheap box fan on them. But I do 2000-3000 cases at a time so putting each case on one of those fingers would take FOREVER.
Whoa! That's a lot of brass! I was standing them up on a paper towel, but it was taking too long to dry. My reloading room is in the basement and even with a space heater, it stays about 62º, which is why I suspect it takes awhile. I thought running them through the annealer would let me cheat, but the energy needed to evaporate the water messed up the annealing process. With this thing, they were dry 12 hours later. And it prob didn't take that long, I just didn't check any sooner.
They dry in less than five minutes, and if you spread them out the hair drier can't heat them all.
Thanks for the bad idea.
Any time. Glad I could help.
I do more brass and just use a bigger fan. When they are too close they dry slower
Best dryer I have seen is a simple 2x4 square frame with 1/4" wire hardware cloth screen stapled to the bottom about 2' square with a couple scraps on the sides to keep it from sliding off the AC condenser outside. Load up and place over the fan blowing hot air when the AC is running and leave it there for 15 or 30 minutes. Don't have to run anything extra on the light bill to dry, just use the hot air you generate normally.
Doug Giraud
Giraud Tool Company, Inc.
Doug Giraud
Giraud Tool Company, Inc.
+1, but I generally throw it in the oven once my biscuits are done, the oven is switched off, and the temp is down somewhere <400°F.
From "Handloader's Manual," A Treatise on Modern Cartridge Components and their Assembly by the Individual Shooter into accurate Ammunition to best suit his various purposes, by Earl Naramore, Major, Ordnance Department Reserve, The Army of the United States, 1937, p.28:
A number of other Internet web sites and forums have cited this figure as 482°F, but I believe this is an error resulting from someone transposing the last two digits of Naramore's figure. And once it's on the Interwebs, even an error dons the mantle of truth, which is why I posted an image of the pertinent page instead. 300-350°F will never do your brass any harm, but it will dry it most riki-tic.
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Really easy solution. Laundry bag. Fill it with your wet brass. Hang it above a fan. Done. Summer time, your AC fan is a perfect fix too.
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I want one of those!!!!!!!!! Where do ya get one?
LOOKS LIKE IT "MIGHT" BE A LIFETIME SUPPLY,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe? How many is that? And how much dinero? I'm half serious.
Its cheaper when you buy in bulk!
LOOKS LIKE IT "MIGHT" BE A LIFETIME SUPPLY,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe? How many is that? And how much dinero? I'm half serious.
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I think around 105-110k of LC(was supposedly 90% LC, but I havent seen a single piece that wasnt LC). Not saying how much I paid. I think only have around 60k pieces left. Use it for 300BLK brass conversion mostly, but just did an order for a guy for 10k pieces of fully processed 5.56 and of course I use it for 5.56(I processed 5k pieces for myself and a few buddies). Ill probably have to order another 100k pieces come this summer.
I never thought I could say this considering how CDO I am, but you guys are working too hard at it. In Houston, where the A/C runs nearly year round, my indoor humidity stays below 50%. I have never done more than towel dry them and leave them on the same towel, single layer thick, and in 6-8 hours (probably less), all the water has evaporated and they are bone dry. I usually process 1000 cases at a time (not in a single batch, the thumblers won't hold that many, but over a few days), so I am not in any great rush to load them.
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Fruit/vegetable dehydrator from Harbor Freight over a box fan - I use some PVC pipe to span the box fan face so the dehydrator doesn't press on the fan hub. Low heat for the dehydrator which has an open bottom section. Doesn't take too long before warm dry cases come out.
Not pointing at you Fred, just making a preemptive strike on the inevitable misunderstandings that come anytime somebody mentioned drying their brass with heat.
Annealing is as much about time as it is temp. There really is no "magical" number like "482F" you can anneal metals at 300F just as well as you can at 700F or a 1,000,000F. Temp doesn't matter; it's time at temp that matters.
I beg to differ.
Yes, there really are "magical" numbers because there are temperatures at which the material is either too hot or too cold for (non-phase transformation) annealing to occur. And time is irrelevant when either of those conditions exists.
The annealing of brass starts with getting rid of the old "work-hardened" grain structure. Doing that necessarily means getting the atoms so amped up that they break their molecular bonds. Atoms don't get that excited on their own. Point of fact, they never get that energetic below the lower critical temperature, AKA the lower transformational temperature. It's an intrinsic and immutable property of the material. The odds of brass annealing [MENTION=89035]300[/MENTION]°F is the same as of water boiling @120°F (under 14.7 psia).
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I use two old rimmed baking sheets ($1 ea. @ Goodwill) covered in 2 layers of old bath towel. Dry the brass like the aformentioned "bowling ball" method to get the majority of water off. Then lay them out on the baking sheets in a single layer with space around each. Into the oven on the "Warm" setting (175 degrees) for 30 minutes, then roll them around a bit and another 30 minutes with the oven off. Works great.
I think I will try this after the oven trick. Good stuff.
So what you're saying is that we should just drop our brass off at the Dry Cleaner? Pair of slacks, 2 shirts and 1000 5.56 cases cleaned please.
Good idea.
I just blow all of mine out w/ compressed air after wet tumbling.
I just blow all of mine out w/ compressed air after wet tumbling.
This is correct. All metals have a specific temperature they must reach in order to be annealed. Take a loom at the iron carbon equilibrium (ICE) chart. It is a steel based chart, but it a visual depiction of what the above post is talking about.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...m+chart&v=134000000#biv=i|2;d|ZCIe8yCpzMKXuM:
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Well that's an interesting theory but there really are not any magical numbers in this context. In layman terms, everything in the world works on curves i.e. a continuum ( a “Limit” in calculus terms). What you propose is in effect a straight line which doesn’t exist in nature. There are sublimation points for all chemicals but those points are FAR higher than the temperatures than we're talking about. Time at temp is how annealing works and there are NO magic voodoo numbers in this context. Again, you can anneal brass at 300F if given a sufficient amount of time, which in this case would be weeks maybe even months. You can also anneal B7 at 1,000,000F and again the time at temp is the key so your b7 would take less than a millisecond at such a temp.
Do you understand what annealing is vs a phase change? (Hint: Were not even close to talking about phase changes here.)
Posting links to graphs that you don't understand/are out of context doesn't prove your point. Like I've been saying: TIME has an inverse relationship to temp in terms of annealing and the time factor is just as important to annealing as temp.
Yes, annealing can be done at lower temps with enough time. Now is that a practical amount of time? Not typically.
Will putting brass on the oven at 170 degs f hurt it? Maybe if forgotten about for a week.
My intent was not to start a debate about phase change vs annealing or even the ICE chart, but to show metals (particularly ferrous metals) have specific temps which changes happen. These metals must be held for a specific amount of TIME at these temps for the change to fully take place. I do understand the chart and that there are not perfect linear motions in mature. Hence why the chart is even drawn with curves according to the amount of carbon in the steel aand the temps required.
Anyway, now that this thread is completely derailed. How about we yet back on topic.
I am fabricating my own wet tumbler and plan to use stainless media, water, and limi-shine. I was thinking about different ways to dry the brass. The bottle rack looks cool, but I like the blow dry over a bucket idea the most so far. Simple and effective.
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Will putting brass on the oven at 170 degs f hurt it? Maybe if forgotten about for a week.
My intent was not to start a debate about phase change vs annealing or even the ICE chart, but to show metals (particularly ferrous metals) have specific temps which changes happen. These metals must be held for a specific amount of TIME at these temps for the change to fully take place. I do understand the chart and that there are not perfect linear motions in mature. Hence why the chart is even drawn with curves according to the amount of carbon in the steel aand the temps required.
Anyway, now that this thread is completely derailed. How about we yet back on topic.
I am fabricating my own wet tumbler and plan to use stainless media, water, and limi-shine. I was thinking about different ways to dry the brass. The bottle rack looks cool, but I like the blow dry over a bucket idea the most so far. Simple and effective.
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I do the same thing in the summer time. In the winter i just use the register inside the house
I'm good with all that's been mentioned here! Only wish to point out that the drying cycle, when optimized, only occurs when the hair dryer is precisely placed at the 18" mark on the ruler. Enough said!!! I rinse my brass in extremely hot water thus raising the temp of the brass and enabling them to dry mostly on their own. I then tumble in in a dry beach towel by holding each end of the towel with the brass in the center like tobacco in a homemade cigarette alternately raising right and left hand ends of the towel. I then tumble in CC media that's been treated with liquid car wax that finishes the drying process but also adds a thin protective coating to the brass. Bullet seating is nice and smooth this way too.
Yeah, quit derailing my post!
All of my gun-related shenanigans have been relegated to the garage/basement by the wife, where I have framed out and built a small room to house all my wares. I've got a small space heater for the winter, but I purposely built it without any ducting so as not to interfere with my powder weighing. That said, I've got no hot water, no sink, no supply of warm air, but I do like the hairdryer idea. May give it a try. Any issues with water spots?
All of my gun-related shenanigans have been relegated to the garage/basement by the wife, where I have framed out and built a small room to house all my wares. I've got a small space heater for the winter, but I purposely built it without any ducting so as not to interfere with my powder weighing. That said, I've got no hot water, no sink, no supply of warm air, but I do like the hairdryer idea. May give it a try. Any issues with water spots?
I dunno about you guys and all these drying shenanigans but I've been using a bowl of 95% alcohol for years now. So here's my process: I tumble in SS, then rinse with warm water and drop the rinsed brass into the bowl of alcohol, then I pull them out lay them on a towel and they're dry as a bone as soon as the excess evaporates (few mins on a cold day).
the thing i like about cp's grass mat is the fact that you can inspect all the flash holes easily. im super paranoid about sending one of those pins down the barrel.
i do mine in the kitchen sink. i line em up on the edge of the counter ontop of a large towel so i can shine flashlight in the case mouth and behind to be sure flash holes are clear. then , slide the towel back and do another row. then i shingle them as shown and put a high speed fan on them over night. next they go into an open top box till im ready to load.
l
i dont trust the alchohol. it displaces water it does not remove it.
if i need to drop powder on 243 , i will process 260 and give it PLENTY of time so i know its lock stock dry. i think trying to rush from the drying stage to the reloading bench is just poor planning.like leaving late to go to an appt.
i will be making the screen rack for the hvac unit outside for this summer definitely though.
looks good cp! always thinkin how somthing could apply to the game.i can totally relate.
i do mine in the kitchen sink. i line em up on the edge of the counter ontop of a large towel so i can shine flashlight in the case mouth and behind to be sure flash holes are clear. then , slide the towel back and do another row. then i shingle them as shown and put a high speed fan on them over night. next they go into an open top box till im ready to load.
l
i dont trust the alchohol. it displaces water it does not remove it.
if i need to drop powder on 243 , i will process 260 and give it PLENTY of time so i know its lock stock dry. i think trying to rush from the drying stage to the reloading bench is just poor planning.like leaving late to go to an appt.
i will be making the screen rack for the hvac unit outside for this summer definitely though.
looks good cp! always thinkin how somthing could apply to the game.i can totally relate.
DITTO!
Been using the 90% plus alcohol rinse with great results. I prefer it because I have never seen it leave any significant amount of water/liquid on the brass especially the inside & flash hole.
I tried a lot of "heat drying" techniques, but they all seemed to oxidize/turn the brass a slightly darker color.
With a cold water rinse, followed by the alcohol rinse, then rolled around in a bath towel, I get very dry & bright brass quickly.
As they say, more than one way to skin a cat!
Did you know that whiskey is ethyl alcohol and water? They form hydrogen bonds and when it evaporates water is taken with it. Alcohol is used in lab environments to remove the faintest traces of H20 left from cleaning items. I've used everclear in a pump motor to help burn up water in the gas.
Yep, in layman's terms alcohol 'dries' water, plus it's reusable for quite some time. The only downfall is that you need to wear gloves when picking brass (if you have a lot) out of the booze otherwise it'll dry you fingers too.
did you know i use large amts of isopropyl alcohol at work every day? i see it displace the water to the btm of the containers.
get a drinking glass. fill it a third with alcohol, then a third with water.put your hand over the top and shake it up. set it down and tell me how full it is.
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This is a very good example of a deviation from "ideal solutions"
Though the Gibbs free energy of mixing is always negative, and the entropy of mixing positive for miscible liquids, the enthalpy and change in volume can be either positive or negative.
This lays the foundation for partial molar quantities. Pretty awesome stuff!
that glass and the water is still gonna be there when you quit facepalmin yourself. i got some ammo to load
Did you know you can take a glass, fill it up with ice, add whiskey, and leave it on my workbench, and it will disappear?
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