I ordered stainless steel pins. I have never used them. Seems I read you add soap when you tumble. How much soap and what kind?

I use powdered soap.

It is supposed to have lemon in it!

It is in my workshop, and I will post the name tomorrow.

Amount to use is really up to you, but not much.

We use a rotary tumbler and normal use is about an hour.

Cases come out spotlessly shiny.

Once washed, rinse in water and dry.

It seems like a lot of people use Dawn liquid dish soap and a product called Lemi Shine (for the citrus). The container I use the most holds about 1/2 gallon of water, to it I'll add about 1 cup of pins, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of Dawn and 1/8 teaspoon of Lemi Shine. Your water hardness can have an effect on the results I'm told and you can experiment with the amounts to get your desired results. Probably about any soap type stuff will work as Saeed uses powdered soap. I put in to much Lemi Shine once and it turned my brass (50 BMG brass) a weird pinkish bronze color. Make sure you rinse it good to get rid of any citric acids and soap of course.

Steve.........

I clean my cases in hot water and a small teaspoon of powdered citric acid. Just shake them round in a small plastic container for a minute and then rinse with clean hot water and allow to dry. They do attain a slight pink colour which is not harmful, in fact actually conditions brass to prevent discolouring for sometime.
Even quite dirty cases clean quickly in citric acid as do the primer pockets and insides of the case.

I once stood a whole bunch of Win AA shotshells in a bath of citric acid water and it cleaned the badly tarnished brass case heads instantly.

Citric acid is good for cleaning electric jugs and kettles too. Noisy appliances when boiling water quieten down immediately after a boil with a teaspoon of citric acid.

Just a dab of liquid dish soap and a little lemi-shine works.

Can you use a regular vibrating tumbler with the s/s pins?

kinda sorta.


Ray.
citric acid [380-9mm case full] hot...hot water, and 2-3 drops [literally] of shampoo or dish soap.

I use the cheap wal-mart shampoo it works better than the dish soap with our water.

you can get citric acid in the canning aisle or get lemi-shine by the dish washer soap at the wal mart too.

I noticed several lemi-shine products. Is there a particular one that should be used?

This is what I use, I think a lot of people use it also.



We definitely have hard water and it does great here. I have been using this bottle for several years so far and still have quite a bit to go.
Last time I was in San Angelo I noticed Sunset Grill was closed, man they had great Club Sandwiches.
You still can't beat Hulio's for breakfast Burritos though.

Steve..........

Steve E. were you stationed at Goodfellow?

just check the ingredients on the lemi-shine.
it'll list something like 96-98% citric acid and some sort of binding agent.
if you can't find it a brewers place has it [expensive] or you can use some lemon juice it's 9% citric acid.
or the last option, but one that works, a pack of kool-aid [lemon is best] is mostly citric acid.
just keep your hands out of it or they'll get stained.

A little bit of citric acid goes a long way. I was making a liquid concentrate of the stuff one day in the shop and spilled a few gallons on the floor. The concrete started foaming so I hosed out the door and into the limestone parking lot where it ate a 20' dia. circle 6" deep. And to think they put that stuff in soda pop. Anyway I learned a new brass cleaning trick today!

I have a large size Dillon vibrating tumbler + I built an extraction roll cage to separate the brass from the medium which falls into a tray beneath through 1/4" screen. Will the S/S pins go through that mesh + if so where are the pins available.

Before buying pins....don't

Look up Southern Shine stainless steel tumbling media

It won't get stuck in cases like pins can

carpetman1

I worked at Lodging after I retired from the AF until my Wife retired from the AF also. We lived off of S. Chadbourne past Johnsons Memorial Gardens.

ted
I count myself lucky as I have been using stainless steel pins for about 5 years now and have never had one stuck in a case and I do a load of cases at least once a week sometimes two weeks, my pins are from Gun Tap and are .255 long x .047 diameter. I may actually have had some get stuck but if I have they came loose in the media separator. Now that I have said that I will get one the next time my tumbler is running.

Steve........

quote:

Originally posted by ted thorn:
Before buying pins....don't

Look up Southern Shine stainless steel tumbling media

It won't get stuck in cases like pins can

I have to agree with Ted on this one. I have used both the pins and the media from Southern Shine, I like the media from Southern Shine better.
John

Thanks for the info, guys. I think I will continue with my age old tried + proven medium system.

Ted Thorn, would you post this in product review so that someone like me couldn't remember the name of the product could find it?

Still using walnut hulls and clean is good enough for me, don't really care for bight and high shine.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Still using walnut hulls and clean is good enough for me, don't really care for bight and high shine.

This place can always count on Ray to tell us that change is unnecessary....

quote:

Originally posted by Steve E.:
This is what I use, I think a lot of people use it also.



We definitely have hard water and it does great here. I have been using this bottle for several years so far and still have quite a bit to go.
Last time I was in San Angelo I noticed Sunset Grill was closed, man they had great Club Sandwiches.
You still can't beat Hulio's for breakfast Burritos though.

Steve..........

Yes.

This is the one we use too.

Works great!

I think that Ray gets a bum rap too often.

quote:

Still using walnut hulls and clean is good enough for me, don't really care for bight and high shine.

I just can’t get a good shine on my brass using walnut in my Lyman Turbo. The cases below were vibrated for over an hour in Lyman walnut, look how dull they are!




j/k, they are plenty shiny!

Ok somebody tell me the effect of bright and shiny brass over well cleaned but not shiny brass..All that is required of brass is to not damage your die and chamber with grit..not to impress your friends..same with my saddle and my rifle no need to shine..but if it blows one skirt up then be my guest..Thanks Ted, I think!

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Ok somebody tell me the effect of bright and shiny brass over well cleaned but not shiny brass..All that is required of brass is to not damage your die and chamber with grit..not to impress your friends..same with my saddle and my rifle no need to shine..but if it blows one skirt up then be my guest..Thanks Ted, I think!

Ray....

When penicillin was invented you probably shrugged your shoulders....

Shiny brass is no better but I can clean with pins faster then I ever did with walnut.