How long should it take to clean when tumbling brass with pins?

I did use too much lemi shine the first time I ran the tumbler and did not rinse the brass long enough and it ended up having a lot of water spots on it. Had to run it again thru my vibratory and corn cob to clean it up.
 
Originally Posted By: DultimatpredatorI put in a second load at 9pm last night and took them out at 8 this morning. They look awsome...again. so overnight works as well and wasn't too long. I have left them in too long in the past like 2 days straight with the minimal amount of lemi shine and they look like green military brass when they come out if somebody likes that look. I would describe it as a satin olive color.

that was probably the detergent breakdown mentioned above.


all your carbon that the pins broke loose came out of the emulsion and got rolled neatly and evenly back right onto your brass.
 
experiment started. I found 107 30-06 cases that need to be resized & decapped. They had been cleaned a long time ago, so I ran them through my press.

They're now in my US cleaner. I set it to run for an hour & will see what it does.
 
solution is 1 tablespoon dawn platinum & 1/2 tablespoon of lemishine to about a quart of tap water.

this may work better with distilled but I didn't bother to try that this time.
 
after 2 hrs they look pretty good. solution is very dirty. I think my mix needs some adjusting as I have some streaking and discoloration
 
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That's brass that had been fired, cleaned in ground corn cob & put in a ziplock some years ago. Possibly as long as 10 years. The primer pockets were dirty, as they just got decapped before this cleaning & the insides were carbon black as is typical from the other cleaning.
 
I need to adjust my solution, maybe more dawn, but if I can get my brass looking this good I see no reason to buy a tumbler & SS media.

My US cleaner held 107 30-06 cases easily, I'm sure it could hold 200 or so. For my purposes that's enough capacity for my typical needs.
 
If you follow the directions they gave me mine look like brand new bright polished brass in 3 hours. Your brass looked like mine after tumbling...the whole reason I started this thread. You aren't putting in enough lemishine and dishwashing liquid.
 
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I based it on that, didn't get it quite right.

I need to measure how much water this cleaner holds & then make sure my mix is correct for volume & try again. I'm pleased with the results of my first attempt.

I should also make sure to use distilled water.
 
I'm guessing you ran the same brass through with a better mix? That cleared up the issues with the finish on that brass?
 
it actually holds 2 quarts, so I'm trying 4 tbs dawn and 1 tbs lemi in 2 qts water, will see how that does.
 
1 tbsp lemi shine in 2 quarts is WAYYYY to much from my testing [edit] in the tumbler [/edit]

try it at 1/4 tsp or less.

i'm running 0.5cc per quart (1/10th tsp) in the tumbler, on very hard well water.

i started out at a measured teaspoon per quart and was getting spotting and quick tarnish after cleaning. i had to back way way way down, i just kept cutting the lemishine in half until the spotting went away.
 
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