Hello to all, rogues and gentlemen alike,

When I put nickel plated brass in my Crest ultrasonic cleaning unit (it hold 1&3/4 gallons) along with regular brass brass, the nickel plated units will often turn roseate (red/pink). No good.

When I fill the unit with just nickel plated brass, the pieces come out a very dark gray. Much tumbling in polish and corn cob media gives a somewhat shiny gun-metal gray color at best.

I use Citranox cleanser, diluted with distilled water.

1. Has anyone experienced this little tragedy?

2. Are there any recommendations for a different cleaning potion to use so that the nickel plated brass will come out nice and shiny???

My humble gratitude in advance.

lawndart

Your ultrasonic cleaner has a big tank at 1 3/4 gal.
To experiment with different cleaners you could put a few cartridge cases in a ziploc baggie and fill the baggie with experimental cleaning solutions. With the baggie sealed, place it in the ultrasonic cleaner with the tank filled with tap water.
The sound wave should penetrate the baggie and go into the experimental cleaning solution and vibrate the cases.
After you find a solution that does what you want, stock up enought to fill the tank of the ultra sonic cleaner.

As for cleaners I don't know Citranox, sounds acidic to me, I think acid and brass might not be compatiable, de-zinc the brass?

For a home made cleaner I would try TSP, distilled water and a liquid car polish (one of the aggressive types noted for restoring badly faded paint).
The TSP is a powerfull degreaser/cleaner and the polish may put the shine back on the nickel plated brass.
The water is to disolve the TSP powder, now this mix will form an emulsion with the polish.
You could throw in a few spoonfulls of a non disolving hard media like reqular walnut shell media to supply some mechanical scrubing action.

By containg such experimental mixes in a baggie you won't need or waste alot of ingredients filling the whole tank.

uh - sell the pink ones to them funny boys

Believe me,

The tank is just big enough for my needs. For now, I will just tumble the pistol cases in walnut first, then in corncob with some polish.

I will mix the nickel plated rifle cases in with pure brass cases, and save the pink ones for whomever wants them.

Citranox works extremely well for cleaning cases, so I will stick with that for the present.

I do not have problems reloading once fired nickel plated cases. The main thing is to make sure they are absolutely clean, and slightly lubed, even though I use carbide dies.

Just wash the nickel plated one in hot water and dawn dish soap. They well come out plenty clean.

John ; Dam lad never use an acid based cleaner to do Nickel or plated nickle .

http://www.miltex.com/prodinfo/productcare.aspx


3-720 MILTEX Surgical Instrument Cleaner, 8 oz. (0.24 liter) bottles (case of 12). Contents of one 8 oz. bottle makes 32 gallons of solution. Neutral pH and phosphate-free liquid concentrate formula for manual and ultrasonic cleaning or soaking of surgical/dental instruments, accessories and glassware. Biodegradable and rinses free.

There are far better choices of cleaning products available .

It is common for medical device manufacturers to wash their products before packaging with Alcon Liquinox. It has to be safe if it is going into the human body.

My nickel-plated brass got kind of rosy when shaken, rattled and rolled, too. I don't think it really matters. The plating provides nothing to the strength of the case...