Wet tumbling

[usmc1974]

I am new to wet tumbling Brass. But, God I love what it does to it.  inside and out and primal pockets. It has also lowered my standard deviations.

Edited May 7, 2022 by usmc1974

[SIGcurious]

What tumbler are you using?

[usmc1974]

Frankford Arsenal Platinum Series Polishing, Cleaning Rotary Tumbler

[SIGcurious]

Thanks.  Trying to decide between that one and the "Lite" version. 

[Boomstick303]

41 minutes ago, SIGcurious said:

Trying to decide between that one and the "Lite" version. 

 

You can always tumble less in the larger tumbler, but you can never tumble more is a small tumbler.  

 

Probably depends on how much you can tumble for a given batch.

[N7VY]

I have the larger one and it has at least 100k pieces through it and the inside looks as it did when I bought it. Great value. One thing I do is open one side only and I wet the o-ring prior to closing and it seals very well. 

[usmc1974]

I don't believe the smaller version is rubber lined to make it quieter like the large 1 is. But I could be wrong Either way I love this Tumblr and the little tiny Stainless Steal pins that come with it

Edited May 10, 2022 by usmc1974

[SJBriggs]

I had a FART, but the noise was driving me crazy. Picked up a Rebel 17 which has a slightly smaller drum, but it's WAY quieter. The only other option for me would be a Harbor Freight cement mixer. 

 

[usmc1974]

41 minutes ago, SJBriggs said:

I had a FART, but the noise was driving me crazy. Picked up a Rebel 17 which has a slightly smaller drum, but it's WAY quieter. The only other option for me would be a Harbor Freight cement mixer. 

 

Lord, what the hell, was you doing?  tumbling brass in the living room? while you was drinking wine, trying to watch a game of thrones? lol

[RudyVey]

8 hours ago, SJBriggs said:

I had a FART, but the noise was driving me crazy. Picked up a Rebel 17 which has a slightly smaller drum, but it's WAY quieter. The only other option for me would be a Harbor Freight cement mixer. 

 

My fart noses also driving me (and my wife) crazy....

[SJBriggs]

9 hours ago, usmc1974 said:

Lord, what the hell, was you doing?  tumbling brass in the living room? while you was drinking wine, trying to watch a game of thrones? lol

Haha... It was actually Gone With the Wind, but seriously, that thing is really damn loud to the point that I didn't want to even be in the garage while it was running.

[broadside72]

I changed last year to wet tumbling. So much nicer and while not much quieter, it's a lot less irritating than a old dry setup. 

A bit of wash-n-wax, a tbsp of citric acid, water and stainless pins make for pretty brass. Built a 2ft x 4ft drying rack to lay then out with fan blowing across. Drying them is the longest part since I don't want to use the oven or my dehydrator. 

[Tom S.]

21 hours ago, SJBriggs said:

Haha... It was actually Gone With the Wind, but seriously, that thing is really damn loud to the point that I didn't want to even be in the garage while it was running.

Get a large cardboard box, stick some 4" or 6" fiberglass insulation in it and put it over the tumbler when running.

[Intheshaw1]

20 hours ago, broadside72 said:

I changed last year to wet tumbling. So much nicer and while not much quieter, it's a lot less irritating than a old dry setup. 

A bit of wash-n-wax, a tbsp of citric acid, water and stainless pins make for pretty brass. Built a 2ft x 4ft drying rack to lay then out with fan blowing across. Drying them is the longest part since I don't want to use the oven or my dehydrator. 

I picked up a used dehydrator for like $20 after doing the fan thing. So much better! It pretty much works out that if I'm running multiple batches of brass by the time the second is done tumbling the first is done drying. I usually just run a 5 gal bucket of brass one day and be good for most the season.

[WaltK]

22 hours ago, broadside72 said:

I changed last year to wet tumbling. So much nicer and while not much quieter, it's a lot less irritating than a old dry setup. 

A bit of wash-n-wax, a tbsp of citric acid, water and stainless pins make for pretty brass. Built a 2ft x 4ft drying rack to lay then out with fan blowing across. Drying them is the longest part since I don't want to use the oven or my dehydrator. 

I  highly recommend the Lyman Cyclone brass dryer. It has five trays, is compact, has a timer, and works very well.

I dried 1000 ( 10 lbs.) of  9mm cases  in about 1 1/2 hours.  

[usmc1974]

22 hours ago, broadside72 said:

I changed last year to wet tumbling. So much nicer and while not much quieter, it's a lot less irritating than a old dry setup. 

A bit of wash-n-wax, a tbsp of citric acid, water and stainless pins make for pretty brass. Built a 2ft x 4ft drying rack to lay then out with fan blowing across. Drying them is the longest part since I don't want to use the oven or my dehydrator. 

I have a 2' x 4' drying rack,  it's called electric cook stove oven and it dries the brass really nice, set it 170 and leave it in the for an hour. I use ss pins, lemishine and dawn dish soap brass comes out looming like new.

[Farmer]

3 hours ago, WaltK said:

I  highly recommend the Lyman Cyclone brass dryer. It has five trays, is compact, has a timer, and works very well.

I dried 1000 ( 10 lbs.) of  9mm cases  in about 1 1/2 hours.  

Got one too and love it. If you watch Midway for coupons and get it on your b-day discount their pretty reasonable. 

[Seanzky]

On 5/11/2022 at 6:58 AM, Intheshaw1 said:

I picked up a used dehydrator for like $20 after doing the fan thing. So much better! It pretty much works out that if I'm running multiple batches of brass by the time the second is done tumbling the first is done drying. I usually just run a 5 gal bucket of brass one day and be good for most the season.

I use an empty protein powder jug that I fashioned to work with the tumbler (Frankford Arsenal) and I lined the inside with a towel. I would then tumble the wet brass until they were dry. I used to just put maybe 600-800 9mm on a regular size bath towel and then make a "hammock"-shaped thing with the towel and then shake it back and forth. That worked pretty well, too, until I became too lazy. Both methods could dry each batch of 600-800, sometimes up to 1,000, within minutes. I also have a dehydrator that simply took too long.

 

This video was way before I did the protein powder jug method: 

 

Edited February 6 by Seanzky

[Sigarmsp226]

Rebel 17 user here also. Love my rubber lined tumbler when wet tumbling. 

[nkresho]

Just to throw this in to the necro post...

 

I run my fa tumbler in the trunk of my car in the garage.  Lower one of the back windows like 2" and run the ext cord in.  Pass through the "ski" hole into the trunk.

 

So quiet my wife approves when wah directly above the garage.