Onepocket Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 I would like to clean brass once a year. Anyone on here wet tumble with a small cement mixer? I am thinking of buying one from Northern Tool. Another question where is a good place to get the Stainless steel pins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeRush Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Depends on how much media you need but if you are buying 50 lbs of media your per pound cost is reduced by 40+ %. There are instructions for building a wet tumbler or "big dawg tumblers" makes great high capacity tumblers and drums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Youngeyes Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 There are a few threads about this..this is one of them....http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=141593 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max It Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 i saw Jerry Mikulec (sp?) on youtube use one for cleaning .223 brass. I envy him the open space and barn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polizei1 Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 (edited) I use one, just converted over a few weeks ago from a Lyman vibratory and crushed walnut. I bought a small one from Harbor Freight (http://www.harborfreight.com/1-1-4-quarter-cubic-ft-compact-cement-mixer-91907.html) I think with the coupon code it was ~$130. I purchased 10lbs of media from http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com, and I was able to clean ~1,500-2,000 .223 cases at a time. I just cleaned probably about 3k mixed pistol. Notes* First I just used Dawn and water, the brass looked great coming out, once it dried, it started to tarnish. I solved this by using Lemi-Shine, the stuff really works... I use a media separator, if you don't have one, you'll need one to separate the pins. It's not that hard, I use a small bucket/cup to get the brass out of the mixer. You only need to clean for about an hour. I noticed a difference when I ran for ~30min, dumped the dirty water, and then cleaned for ~30min again with fresh water, dawn, and Lemi-Shine. Obviously, you need to sort by caliber, where the cases won't get stuck inside one another. I was hoping it wouldn't be an issue, because of the metal blades and the pins...but I was dead wrong! Haha Overall, I MUCH prefer it to dry-tumbling. Edited October 25, 2014 by polizei1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Doc Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 I bought the harbor freight cement mixer and took me 4 hrs to put together the motor lasted 2 hrs so I bought a $300 cement mixer at Home Depot comes already built and cleaned a 5 gallon bucket of 223 brass in 2 1/2 hrs came out looking new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Doc Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 If you get a cement mixer remove the blades they aren't needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 I built some large tumblers for a reloading business that tumbles wet. 15 gallons of brass in each drum, they use and electric winch on a gantry to load and unload them. This was a dry run while I was putting the first one together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onepocket Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 Mad Doc what brand did you get? Do you use the steel pins? I could care less about super shiny brass on the inside. Just as its clean enough to load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve RA Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 If you don't care about the inside you don't need to use pins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Doc Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 I didn't use pins I used a large bag of crushed walnut that I bought at petco per info I've got in this forum and nu finish liquid wax, this is the cement mixer I bought is very quiet and I have had it run for 4 hrs continuously without any issues. http://t.homedepot.com/p/Kushlan-3-5-cu-ft-3-4-HP-120-Volt-Motor-Direct-Drive-Cement-Mixer-350DD/203195233/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spencerhut Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 I use a cement mixer, blades are still in it. I do 5 gallon buckets at a time with crushed walnut I buy from the feed store in 50lb bags. Not pretty enough for the brass lovers, but plenty good enough to shoot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onepocket Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 Spencerhut what size cement mixer do you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spencerhut Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 (edited) Spencerhut what size cement mixer do you use? It's a US made one we got at Home Depot over 10 years ago. I still use it for concrete occasionally as well. It will hold two 90lb bags of concrete, plastic tub, metal blades bolted to the tub. I usually run it for ~2 to 4 hours per batch. Takes a while to sort out all the brass from the walnut after each run. Edited January 2, 2015 by spencerhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louu Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 The best deal on pins I found is on ebay. Just type in stainless steel media pins, they are in Arizona I think. Its about $78 shipped for 10# and comes with a little pack of lemishine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russel Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I bought the small cement mixer On sale plus a 30 % discount with a two year warranty for $150. If your looking to just clean the outside of the brass just use liquid laundry soap and lemi shine. If you want inside and outside get the pins as well. Do not install the paddles when assembling the mixer. I wash 2500 pcs of 5.56 at a time no problems at all. Have cleaned about 40k without any issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onepocket Posted January 3, 2015 Author Share Posted January 3, 2015 Russel how do you dry the brass? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spencerhut Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 You don't need to use liquid to clean brass, especially in a cement mixer. The entire process of adding in liquid adds considerable time and a bit of cost to a process that simply does not require it. Plain old walnut shell from the feed store in 50lb bags along with a small amount of mineral spirits or your favorite brass cleaner (Dillon or Flitz) and toss in a couple of used dryer sheets to cut down on the dust. Simple as that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDA Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 You don't need to use liquid to clean brass, especially in a cement mixer. The entire process of adding in liquid adds considerable time and a bit of cost to a process that simply does not require it. Plain old walnut shell from the feed store in 50lb bags along with a small amount of mineral spirits or your favorite brass cleaner (Dillon or Flitz) and toss in a couple of used dryer sheets to cut down on the dust. Simple as that. The cost of liquid (dawn is real cheap, lemishine if desired is cheap per load and water is really cheap) is less than the cost of the walnut shells, mineral spirits and polish. I like to wash brass, well before I used stainless steel media tumbling I used to wash my brass in water and dawn in a tub with some hand agitation (pretty high tech). Those results alone were pretty good and one could have easily loaded the brass after that process. Washing the brass is more effective for some of the brass I pick up as a result of the amount of grit, sand and small stones that find its way into the brass. My drying technique is pretty expensive too, I let the brass air dry... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spencerhut Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 (edited) You don't need to use liquid to clean brass, especially in a cement mixer. The entire process of adding in liquid adds considerable time and a bit of cost to a process that simply does not require it. Plain old walnut shell from the feed store in 50lb bags along with a small amount of mineral spirits or your favorite brass cleaner (Dillon or Flitz) and toss in a couple of used dryer sheets to cut down on the dust. Simple as that. The cost of liquid (dawn is real cheap, lemishine if desired is cheap per load and water is really cheap) is less than the cost of the walnut shells, mineral spirits and polish. I like to wash brass, well before I used stainless steel media tumbling I used to wash my brass in water and dawn in a tub with some hand agitation (pretty high tech). Those results alone were pretty good and one could have easily loaded the brass after that process. Washing the brass is more effective for some of the brass I pick up as a result of the amount of grit, sand and small stones that find its way into the brass. My drying technique is pretty expensive too, I let the brass air dry... You are using a cleaning technique intended for benchrest shooting with extensive brass prep investment on pistol brass churned out by the thousands. Are you depriming your pistol brass before you clean it? If you are there is one more brass handling step most people don't have. If you are not de-priming then at some point you will have water contamination in your primer pockets. It's just a matter of time. Using any liquid cleaning method on pistol brass, or rifle brass for intended for blasting ammo is a complete waste of time and effort. If you have time to burn, knock yourself out, I've got better things to do with my life than fuss over how shiny my brass is. Edited January 3, 2015 by spencerhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaskillo Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I have an commercial cement mixer with Poly drum that I use to "dry clean" the brass once I get it from the range, then I sort. Brass is clean enough to go thru any of my presses then I remove the lube and polish on other tumbler using water, Dawn, Lemishine and SS media. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Are you depriming your pistol brass before you clean it? If you are there is one more brass handling step most people don't have. If you are not de-priming then at some point you will have water contamination in your primer pockets. It's just a matter of time. More often than not, I do not deprime before I tumble. This is a batch of 3000 or so cases (after 1hr tumbling in my $50 homemade tumbler) drying in the TX sun in August. In 2.5 beers they were not only dry but you couldn't hold a hand full of them unless you had gloves on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spencerhut Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Are you depriming your pistol brass before you clean it? If you are there is one more brass handling step most people don't have. If you are not de-priming then at some point you will have water contamination in your primer pockets. It's just a matter of time. More often than not, I do not deprime before I tumble. This is a batch of 3000 or so cases (after 1hr tumbling in my $50 homemade tumbler) drying in the TX sun in August. In 2.5 beers they were not only dry but you couldn't hold a hand full of them unless you had gloves on. Great, now do that in the winter in Idaho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaskillo Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 (edited) I do like to wet tumble when its hot outside.....brass dries quick and no dealing wilth ice cold water! Edited January 3, 2015 by Kaskillo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDA Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 You don't need to use liquid to clean brass, especially in a cement mixer. The entire process of adding in liquid adds considerable time and a bit of cost to a process that simply does not require it. Plain old walnut shell from the feed store in 50lb bags along with a small amount of mineral spirits or your favorite brass cleaner (Dillon or Flitz) and toss in a couple of used dryer sheets to cut down on the dust. Simple as that. The cost of liquid (dawn is real cheap, lemishine if desired is cheap per load and water is really cheap) is less than the cost of the walnut shells, mineral spirits and polish. I like to wash brass, well before I used stainless steel media tumbling I used to wash my brass in water and dawn in a tub with some hand agitation (pretty high tech). Those results alone were pretty good and one could have easily loaded the brass after that process. Washing the brass is more effective for some of the brass I pick up as a result of the amount of grit, sand and small stones that find its way into the brass. My drying technique is pretty expensive too, I let the brass air dry... You are using a cleaning technique intended for benchrest shooting with extensive brass prep investment on pistol brass churned out by the thousands. Are you depriming your pistol brass before you clean it? If you are there is one more brass handling step most people don't have. If you are not de-priming then at some point you will have water contamination in your primer pockets. It's just a matter of time. Using any liquid cleaning method on pistol brass, or rifle brass for intended for blasting ammo is a complete waste of time and effort. If you have time to burn, knock yourself out, I've got better things to do with my life than fuss over how shiny my brass is. Who said I was doing just pistol brass? My "brass prep investment", particularly with pistol, is not "extensive" or expensive. No matter what method you use, it takes some effort unless someone else does it for you. I let machines do most of the work for me these days. You have made your opinion clear, but your comparisons and observations aren't always accurate (cost, time, etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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