Stainless Steel wet Tumbling

[velvetant]

Okay, I brought this up once before and this time I'm going to do it.
BigDawg, great tumbler but too big and pricey for my needs. $$$$$
STM, this is the one I keep leaning toward but over the edge on my price range. about $240
Thumler's Tumbler Model B, I can just barely afford this one. about $205 (about $180 with Cabelas coupon but out of stock)
Lortone QT12, another option, a little smaller and just out of my price range. about $250
Harbor Freight dual drum, to small but can get for really cheap. about $60
Prices are without media. I can get 5lbs .047"x0.255 about $37.00
Seems when I find something cheap they make up for it with expensive shipping so those are delivered prices.
I had to leave my job to take care of a sick family member so about $250 max for complete set up.
Just picking everyone's brain, maybe I missed an option out there.

Thanks
Randy

 

[Dr. Vette]

I use the single drum Harbor Freight one. It can hold about 30 pcs of brass, and will take a bit more time than a Thumlers or similar but it's hard to beat the price. If I were to do it again I would buy the 2 drum model you've mentioned.

There are days I wish for a much larger one, but I rarely shoot enough in one day for this to be a problem.

 

[double_d]

this is the one I have, and it comes with the media

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/pro ... ctId/27279

 

[Wyo7200]

I use the thumblers model B. I ran it nearly 24/7 to clean two 5 gallon buckets of range brass, and sporadically for a lot of months (3-5 times a month) before the motor started to heat up to the point where I could smell burning electrical plastic. I contacted the company and the owner was the one to reply. He was awesome. He hooked me up with a new motor and a few more pulleys. Now I run a small desk fan next to the motor just to keep things cooler.

I see the thumblers on sale sometimes from SSM.

 

[velvetant]

Thanks guys,
I went with the Frankford Arsenal tumbler kit.
I watched some videos and it seems good.... Hopefully it'll last.
I used to be a high volume shooter so when things get back to normal around here it will get a good workout.

Thanks again
Randy

 

[DrMike]

That looks to be a great system. I'll be interested to see how it works for you.

 

[velvetant]

After it arrives I will give it a little review for you all

 

[double_d]

just a quick note on the Frankford tumbler.......I had it running in the garage one day and came out a couple hrs later and it was not running (timer was set for 4 hrs). Could not get it running and thought I just got a bad one, I had had it for about 6 months. You could hear something had come loose in the motor housing.

I emailed Frankford and they informed me that the motor would shut itself down if it started overheating. They also included instuctions on how to reattach the fan blade....sure enough that is what was rattling around in the housing. Pop the bottom off and put the fan blade back on the shaft (with a dab of glue) and you are GTG.

You may want to go ahead and glue yours on from the get go, or this may have been a running fix. Anywho, mine has been fine since.

 

[DrMike]

Maybe they could just send it unassembled and you could build your own? :wink:

 

[grry10]

I tried the stainless wet tumbling but found it to be no better than the current process that I use and not as fast. My current process 4 minutes in Ultrasonic, soak 30-60 minutes in this solution and 4 more minutes of ultrasonic. Rinse in distilled water and stand to dry. Note that I have used the oven to dry brass faster. This does a good job of clean but occasionally I will follow with tumbling in corn cob media (e.g. brass that will be used in semi-auto). For my use I want brass that is clean but it doesn't need to have that high polish shine like new. The cons of stainless were shaking it from each of my .17 Remington cases and washing and picking up the stainless sticks when you're through. The pros is that it does a good job of polishing if you follow the process that they recommend. I tumble my brass in a lapidary tumbler so did not have to purchase a new tumbler to try the stainless and the ultrasonic cleaner was a gift from my son. Prior to owning an ultrasonic cleaner I just tumbled and cleaned primer pockets by hand.

 

[Wyo7200]

Separating cases from pins was terrible until I got the rcbs media separator. I use a paint strainer bag found at lowes stretched over one half of the media separator basket to catch all my pins and shake/sift most of them out. After a good rinse, I'll snap the other side of the strainer and rotate them in the rcbs bucket, under water. I place a couple of magnets on the bottom of the bucket to collect the pins that fall out of the cases while tumbling. I also put a couple in the sink (during the paint strainer step) so if any get past the bag they'll stick to the magnet and not go down the drain. Makes for easy pick-up as well. After another good rinse I'll dump them onto a shamewow and pat dry before oven drying them for a few minutes. Use the water in the bucket to fill my next batch or pour over the pins on the paint bag to rinse them off for next time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[HomerOz]

G'Day Fella's,

Velvetant, I do a fair bit of shootin and reloading and wanted to start annealing cases on a commercial basis.
From what I have seen (on-line), the best way of achieving this, was to first clean the cases, and the pick of this was to use S/Steel pins in a liquid bath.
I have the annealing machine half made and the case tumbler is also about half made
Here are a few images of the case tumbler drum, that I lined with sheet rubber yesterday.


FYI, the outer diameter of the drum, is about 405mm or 16" and 205 or 8" wide.
Also, I made the drum itself out of 18Gauge sheet stainless steel and rolled, folded, welded and bolted it together.

Doh!
Homer

 

[DrMike]

That is pretty darned skookum, Homer. That will work, for sure.

 

[velvetant]

Short review:
Got it today, gotta love FedEx Saturday deliveries.
Did a quick 20 minute run with just the media and soapy water...No leaks, media already clean.
Set up again, media and soapy water...Ran for 2 hours, still no leaks. nice clean soapy water.
Will get to the store tomorrow and get some Lemishine and Dawn soap.
It's a 30 pound system so 5 pounds media isn't enough.
5 pounds media, 4 pounds brass, 1 gallon water (8 pounds) leaves lots of room.
Should be 10 pounds media, 8 pounds brass, 1 gallon water...that would be perfect.
Tub weighs about 2-2.5 pounds.
Once I get caught up on my brass I really won't use that much capacity but nice to have just in case.
I'll update after I get some brass done.

Randy

 

[velvetant]

So I ended up tumbling a total of 467 6.5 Creedmoor cases, not all at once.
All cases were sized and still had lube on them.
Like all the things you hear, cases are clean inside and out, primer pockets clean.
First batch was 1/4 tsp Lemishine and 1/2 tbsp Dawn blue dish soap. 1 gallon water
I ended up using 1/8 tsp Lemishine and 1 tsp Dawn soap by the last batch. Each batch ran 4 hours.
Soap is still to much but I'll use a little less each time until I get it right.
Found on the first batch you need to rinse them really good or they get tarnish spots on them quickly.
After I learned that the next 3 batches are perfect.
Out of the 467 cases 12 had a piece of media stuck cross way in the neck. Nothing stuck in flash hole.
No big deal to me, Same as walnut media getting stuck in flash hole.
The media is .041 dia. they vary in length from .250-.320.
As for the Frankford tumbler, time will tell how it holds up.
But I give it two thumbs up at this point.

 

[Wyo7200]

You should be able to get the tumbling down to an hour, hour and a half once you find your combo.

I use an extra lee 1.0 dipper that came in a set of dies to measure the lemishine. Lemishine is a double edged sword- too much and it will turn your brass pink. Too little and your brass will not be as shiny as well as tarnish faster. I also use 1 ½ tblspoon of the blue dawn dish soap, filling the water to be 2” above the brass and media. It’s done well for the hard mineral-rich water we have here in Wyoming.