How Long To Wet Tumble Brass

Traditionally, reloaders would clean their brass using a vibratory tumbler and a dry media such as crushed nut beat out or corn cob charged with red rouge. In recent years, we have seen most switch over to the moisture tumbling method using stainless steel media. The wet method has a number of advantages over dry tumbling:

• More often than not works faster compared to using an ultrasonic cleaner or vibe tumbler.
• Will clean and smoothen much more than effectively both outside and inside the brass. Even if they are heavily tarnished, you can make clean and shine your brass like brand new!
• The media will concluding indefinitely - it does not wear out or lose effectiveness.
• Uncomplicated and predictable process - it just works.
• No dust generated during tumbling - this is safer for you.

Wet tumbling requires a slightly college initial investment compared to a cheap reloader vibe tumbler with dry media only once you are gear up, the ongoing price is minimal and the tumblers are very robust.  If you practice a lot of reloading, you volition go your investment back easily but the start-up price is a trivial college.

Starting time affair is to cull the appropriate size tumbler - you need to work out how many pieces you want to do in a batch and how much space that batch will take up.  Compare to the available choices from our range of tumblers using the barrel size dimensions and effective volume measurement in the datasheet and you are set up to go.

By and large yous volition run about i.5 times as much stainless media (in kilograms) as brass so if you lot are cleaning ii pounds of brass, plan to tumble this with 3 to 4 pounds of stainless pins. The pins are heavier of course so they volition not have up as much room as the brass inside the tumbler barrel.  Aim to make full the barrel with brass/media about one-half to 2/three full - add together water upward to the level of the media and the recommended corporeality of burnishing compound. Experience free to experiement with these proportions - they are merely a guide to help y'all become started.

At that place are many options for burnishing chemical compound - you will see the American sites recommending Liquid Detergent and Lemishine.  In our experience, non all liquid detergents are suitable and some are potentially damaging to the safety barrels.  If you want to use this choice, look for a type that has few addiitonal additives equally these can sometimes adversely touch on the result.  We recommend and supply a specific burnishing compound chosen MP103 which is designed specifically for tumble polishing metals such equally brass - it is a specialised powdered soap which is used at the rate of approximately 20 grams per litre of water. Lemishine is optional - many reloaders do not bother with it - if you desire to try this, just get some Citric Acid powder from the supermarket and see if it gives a better shine.

Information technology is important non to tumble for too long - as the brass is cleaned, tarnish and rest from within the base will be held in break in the water. If you tumble for also long, the water can be overloaded and start to redeposit back onto the contumely and then you demand to refresh the water earlier that indicate. By and large y'all will be happy with the brass well before that point.  However, we do recommend checking every half 60 minutes or and so for the first few batches until you go a feel for how long information technology volition take - usually only an hour or two. Exercise Not run the tumbler overnight every bit this risks overdoing it.

Once you lot accept finished tumbling, empty out the barrel and rinse everything thoroughly, separate the cases from the pins using a separator or sieve and dry the brass completely.  When storing your stainless pins, either store them in a jar or the butt under h2o or dry them completely. The pins are fabricated from 304 Stainless Steel and then are extremely rust resistant but they CAN rust if stored damp in an enclosed container. If you lot are using them again soon, it is usually fine to only leave them in an OPEN barrel or jar gear up to employ.

To see relevant products for tumbling contumely, please see our Reloader Category .

Delight follow the links below for tutorials, reviews and discussions on the moisture polishing method:

• Stainless Steel Media video tutorial
• Accurate Shooter review by Jason Koplin
• Video using a QT12 tumbler
• Mass Reloading review on wet tumbling
• Shooting Australia forum - i discussion here just many others

WHAT TYPE OF TUMBLER:

Practice I demand a Thumler Model B?  These ones are popular but information technology does non really matter what brand you lot choose. Tumblers are rated for weight (usually in pounds) - this weight rating does include the weight of the barrel and all contents. Often you take a bit of leeway here for this short-term type tumbling but effort non to exceed the rated weight too much. The main matter is to assess the effective volume of the different sized tumblers and cull the best fit for your batch size.Note though that the Lortone QT12 is a very similar size and in some ways has better features.  Encounter this blog article for a detailed comparison of the two models.

And so what type of tumbler does not really affair as long as you choose one of appropriate size. Many people brand their own tumblers and this is fine - or yous can make your tumbler base and buy a barrel from us.  The basic design is relatively simple and very doable for someone handy in the workshop.  If y'all need to become very big capacity, consider our commercial series tumblers.

How do you choose the right size?

Showtime step is to work out what size batch you desire to practise by measuring how much volume a certain number of cases consumes - use a kitchen measuring jug to piece of work out how many cases fit in 1 Litre. And so employ the information in the size document below to select the nearly appropriate size barrel:

Data on Tumbling Barrel/Bowl Size and Media Density

For reloading, nosotros propose filling the barrel about half full with brass - add the relevant amount of stainless pins and water up to the level of the brass/media. Add about 1 tablespoon of burnishing compound PER litre of water.  Arrange the recipe to conform equally yous get more experienced - sometimes tweaking it simply a chip gives better results.

If you lot have any queries well-nigh moisture tumbling, experience free to contact us any time.

Source: https://www.aussiesapphire.com.au/buying/tumbling-rifle-brass-with-stainless-steel-media-in/

Share this post