Share Your Tumbling Recipes

5-cu-ft cement mixer, 75 lbs/15 gallons of Zilla lizard litter, one pint NuFinish, and 75 pounds of brass. The NuFinish was only added for the first time, each load after I add one cup of odorless mineral spirits. Let it run for 3-4 hours, nice clean brass.

My recipe is the 6mmbr guide to ultrasonic cleaning with the "cheap and clean" solution.
http://www.6mmbr.com/ultrasonic.html

5-cu-ft cement mixer, 75 lbs/15 gallons of Zilla lizard litter, one pint NuFinish, and 75 pounds of brass.

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Daaaaaamn, son - you don't mess around! I'm tickled with my little 1.5cf mixer, and getting 25 lbs. of brass together for one load is a chore.

I like the Lyman ultvasonic with the cleaner that came with it.About 8 min if real dirty 16 min I let it heat before I put the brass in.

I use an older Lyman 1200, walnut media I get in the pet section of Walmart and a little NU-Finish every few loads. I like the Nu-Finish polish because the cases come out slick as well as shiny.
I just started using cut up dryer sheets in the hopper when I'm tumbling and it sure does work to take some of the dust and crud out. Great idea to whoever thought of it.

+1 for Stainless Steel

I also use a Thumler's Tumbler and stainless steel media. After tumbling I rinse with alcohol and hit them with a heat gun on low to dry the cases and avoid spots. It's the only method I've found that cleans the brass inside, outside and gets the primer pockets clean all in one fell swoop. I've found that with my tap water 6ml of Dawn and 1/4 teaspoon Lemishine does the job. Bottleneck cartridges can take a little longer to get the insides totally clean. Before stainless steel I tried: corncob, walnut shell, and Iosso Brass Cleaner. I was never satisfied with any of those methods.

Triumph, I buy my media at Tractor Supply Co., Northern Tool (I haven't purchased from Northern in a long time, they may still carry it or not) & Grainger. Their prices seem to be the best I have found locally.

Triumph said:

So I have a Berry's 400 tumbler with a bag of Cabela's corn cob. Do I also need Walnut? If so, what's the best brand?

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I also use a Thumler's Tumbler and stainless steel media. After tumbling I rinse with alcohol and hit them with a heat gun on low to dry the cases and avoid spots. It's the only method I've found that cleans the brass inside, outside and gets the primer pockets clean all in one fell swoop. I've found that with my tap water 6ml of Dawn and 1/4 teaspoon Lemishine does the job. Bottleneck cartridges can take a little longer to get the insides totally clean. Before stainless steel I tried: corncob, walnut shell, and Iosso Brass Cleaner. I was never satisfied with any of those methods.

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Pretty much the same as me. I don't do the alcohol and heat gun. I drop them in a tub of water with a squirt of LemiRinse in it (also found on the dishwashing aisle at the grocery store) as they come out of the tumbler, and then a rinse with cold water. Then towel off the brass and dry it usually in pie pans in the oven at lowest setting. No discoloration problems.

Mine is a Layman 1200 Turbo dry tumbler.

50/50 mix of corncob and walnut (Lizard Litter)
A couple cut up used dryer sheets to cut down on dust
about a capful of liquid car polish well blended into the media before brass or dryer sheets are added.

I use a cheapie Harbor Freight lamp timer, set it on 3 hours in another room and forget it. When finished I put a blue plastic media seperator over a 5 gallon bucket, swirle the shiny brass with gloved hands to get all the media out of the cases - then into a plastic bin for reloading..

Lyman Turbo 1200 with Lyman media (green stuff that came with the tumbler).
I have tried Nu-Finish, and it works okay. Then I tried Flitz, and the cases are mirror-like.

50/50 corn and walnut media. Add some meguiars polish and a squirt of nufinish. Tumble until they shine.

Old March 27, 2013, 10:47 PM #1
Triumph
Member



Join Date: October 19, 2010
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 318 Share Your Tumbling Recipes

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Wanted to see if everyone would be willing to share Tumbling recipes. Whether it be dry or wet, materials you use, how much time and any other tips & tricks.

I know some use walnut, corncob or some mixture of the two. Some others have all kinds of different wet tumbling methods.

Please share & pictures also - if you have them.
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I use corm ground up media and nothing, for the worst of the cases that would require 3 days of tumbling I use vinegar and nothing for 15 minutes once for the life of the case.

When showing off and short runs I use a home made spinner.

F. Guffey

50:50
Lyman Corn and Lizzard walnut from Petco in a Lyman Tumbler.

I add a cap of NuFinish car wax and let her rip, two hours or longer.

Works for me.

Walnut media and Brasso work well for me. I plan on trying the NuFinish thing after I run out of this bottle of Brasso. I toss in a used dryer sheet every now and then to keep things cleaning well. Don't know why that works, but it seems to...

Lyman red walnut and flitz treatment in my Lyman 1200 turbo. I have the walnut because it came in a package deal. I have the 40 lb bag of the drillspot stuff that will be used when I get tired of red dust.

2 hours gets it as clean as I need.

Dry- a vibrator with conrcob and a 1/2 tsp or so of Brasso per load(No sermons, please. Haven't had a case fail in 20 years of using Brasso)

Wet- Harbor Freight tumbler, SS pins, Dawn and Lemi-Shine.

35 Whelen said:

Dry- a vibrator with conrcob and a 1/2 tsp or so of Brasso per load(No sermons, please. Haven't had a case fail in 20 years of using Brasso)

Wet- Harbor Freight tumbler, SS pins, Dawn and Lemi-Shine.

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But...But...Brasso!...

bigfinger76 said:

But...But...Brasso!...

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When I used cob to clean I had one that I put my old small primers in with the cob this was to clean rill dirty brass. This cut down clean time. The old primers do a very good job in the cob.

Another 50/50 corncob/crushed walnut shells here.

I have found corncob makes the brass nice and shinny but takes a longer time than walnut to clean the brass. Crushed walnut shells are faster at cleaning than corncob but don't make the brass as shinny. I figured if I use a 50/50 mix I get the best of both. Does it work, I'm not sure because I never did a test with all 3 options but the 50/50 mix seems to work well enough so that's what I keep doing.

I add a cut up used dryer sheet to the mix too because the sheets remove a lot of the dirt from the media and lengthens it's useful lifespan.

I now use a combination of 3 parts NuFinish to 1 Extra part Mineral Spirits for used brass on the first pass. Always in CC from drillspot- until this bag empties itself, anyways.

I use full strength NF for tumbling loaded rounds.

Crushed walnut to clean the brass and corncob with some nu finish and turtle polishing compound for a super shine. This combo seems to get the best looking brass or atleast for me. I can get a 50lb bag of corncob here locally at any grit size for 16 bucks

Some 20-40 grit nut or corn, add cases, turn the viberator on and somewhere between 2 hours and 2 days later it'll all look done and I'll take it out. I got over the fastination with glitter many years ago. ??

I use ground walnut shells, and add either nufinish, or any other polishing compound that I have. I use to build and repair guitars so I have some left over very fine polishing compounds. It is a very good thick compound, so I take a little out and let the moisture evaporate over a few days, crumble it up and add it to the media. They all seem to do a very good job.

The idea of adding dryer sheets or small pieces of cloth to cut down on dust is a great idea I am gonna try.

When the media gets dirty, I dump it all in a 5g plastic bucket, about a tblspoon of laundry detergent (low sudsing) and some HOT water, just to cover the media. stir it about and then rinse off the dirt and junk, slowly with cooler water. You will lose a very small amount of media, but the shells are soo dense they sink in the water.

Now, get an OLD sheet or pillow case to pour the cleaned media thru to get rid of the water, lay it out to dry and you can reuse your walnut over and over. Just re add new compound and there you go.

Po-boy Harbor Freight tumbler, cup of hot water, some lemishine and a squirt of dawn. With stainless media.

Used to tumble 4 hours, was told it was too long. Now I shoot for two.

Last weekend, took drunk and forgot, tumbled about 18 hours. Dayum! Everything seemed ok.