Wet Tumbling Issue

My brass looks like that if I don't add enough dawn soap for brass that have been heavily lubed with lanolin. Try adding more dawn.

Yup, play with your mixture

When it comes to the citric acid, more is NOT better.
I use a 1/4 tsp per barrel load.
I found that a table spoon of soap worked just as good as two.
Extra soap doesn't seem to be an issue.

Also make sure you rinse & clean your pins really well between tumbling batches.

Way back in the day when I was trying to do a bunch of brass in a day, I would dispose of the dirty water and start again without cleaning the pins.

After a couple of batches, the brass started getting a bit "yucky".

Use HOT water and a little more dawn dish soap to cut the lubricant.

I see you are using steel pins, as I do also ! I just use about 1/2 cup, or a little less, of simple green and water. Nothing else. I do fill my thumbler tumbler about half full of brass, fill with water to just cover the brass and add the simple green. . My cases come out looking brand new. Then I just rinse and dry. No second tumbling for me

I would clean the pins and the inside of the barrel, then try some more soap.

When it comes to the citric acid, more is NOT better.
I use a 1/4 tsp per barrel load.
I found that a table spoon of soap worked just as good as two.
Extra soap doesn't seem to be an issue.

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I agree with the above, to much acid is bad.
I use auto wash and wax and within reason it's not picky as long as you use enough, I don't even measure it I just pour in a dollup and call it good.
Auto wash and wax seems to help keep the brass shiny if it sits for a while.

PS
As far as citric acid goes you can get enough to last a long time from amazon for $15
https://www.amazon.com/Milliard-Cit...=1&keywords=citric+acid&qid=1613063925&sr=8-2

5lbs $15, 2lbs is $12 so I fuigured for $3 more get twice as much.

I was buying it at the supermarket in the canning section but a small bottle was $7

At a couple 9mm case fulls a batch I figure 5lbs will last me a long time.......

When pins are coming out black indicates not enough soap to suspend all the dirt. I never measure I add a blob of W&W and go on. Depending on your water hardness it may take more or less citric acid.

Run a load with just the pins to clean them up, soap only.

Another thing to try is to run zep purple degreaser with just the pins. I do that every once in a while to clean out any lube that may have built up on the pins and drum.

I have been wet tumbleing for two years now. When starting out I used cold tap water and I used Lemi-Shine Booster, ArmorAll Wash & Wax and Dawn Dish Detergent.

As time went on I found what works best for me is HOT TAP WATER, 1/2 a teaspoon of Lemi-Shine Booster, a cap full of ArmorAll Wash & Wax and a small squirt of Dawn Dish Soap.

I fill the tub a little over 3/4s of the way with brass, (about 1,100 pieces of 223 - 5.56)

Add the HOT TAP WATER, add the ather ingrediants.
I run the tumbler 45 minutes to an hour.
Drain the black water off. Flip the tumbler a couole of times to get most of the water out of the cases.

Then add WARM TAP WATER, run the tumbler another 5 to 10 minutes,
Drain & dry the brass.
Comes out nice & clean.

I tried all of the above suggestions and sometimes my brass was still dull. The brass was clean, but not shiny. Somewhere on this forum I saw a suggestion that worked.

What worked for me was to make absolutely sure that all the steel, aluminum and nickel plated brass was removed. Then all was well and the brass was shiny every time. I give my nickel plated brass to a friend who uses a dry tumbler.

Using more or less AAW&W, Lemi-Shine, hot or cold water, or tumbling the pins by themselves made no significant difference as I recall. It was a very frustrating experience at the time.

Try running a batch of just HOT water, your pins, and a 3 second squirt of dawn dish soap for 30-45 minutes then rinse and run HOT water and a 2 second squirt of dawn for 15 minutes. That should get any crud off the pins and then clean out the drum. Now run a batch like normal and see if that corrected your issue.

No harm in using extra soap.
I make sure I have a lot of soap foam after tumbling. I probably use too much soap (wash&wax), but more doesn't hurt anything.

Highland Lofts said:

As time went on I found what works best for me is HOT TAP WATER, 1/2 a teaspoon of Lemi-Shine Booster, a cap full of ArmorAll Wash & Wax and a small squirt of Dawn Dish Soap.

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I use almost the same mix. I do use citric acid instead of lemi-shine (lemi-shine is just citric acid with fragrance added - some folks did a full lab chemical analysis of lemi-shine).

I also don't add any wash & wax to my initial run. I found the cases didn't come out as shiny with wash and wax in the cleaning process. I only use citric acid and dawn and after that is done and separated from the steel pins, I run the cases again for 5 minutes with a small amount of citric acid (1/8th teaspoon) and the wash and wax. This way the clean cases get coated with the wax and it doesn't get in the way of cleaning the cases. This mixture is clean of contaminants and can be reused on additional batches of clean cases that just need to be coated.

Once I went with the wet tumbleing I totally stopped useing the dry tumbler.
I have two of the Frankford larger wet tumblers. One for tumbleing dirty range brass with out the pins to get it 90% clean. I flip a whole lot of range brass.

My other Frankford tumble is set up with the stainless steel pins for super clean brass.

I always drain the dirty water and the retumble the cases in warm tap water to get them rinsed off.
I might add a little ArmorAll to the rince water so they have a small coating of wax on the cases.

OP -

You said you never changed your technique and use citric acid and Dawn. What is your recipe and how long are you tumbling?

My recipe is 1 ounce of auto wash and wax and 1/4 TSP of Lemi-Shine in a Thumler’s high speed tumbler (15 pound drum). I use only cold water. Tumbling times are 2 - 4 hours depending on the degree of tarnish.

Possible reasons for for discolored brass include too much citric acid, contaminants or a steel case mixed in.

Pics of typical results from my wet tumbling using the above recipe:









Bayou52

9mmepiphany said:

Assuming that they were cleaned before you sized and you're just trying to clean the lube off, you don't need the citric acid. What you have us a buildup of lube.

The easiest way to get that off, if you insist on wet tumbling, is to tumble with Woolite.

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Not familiar with Woolite product. What about it that makes it good at removing lube vs using more Dawn or other cleaning products?

Cleaned the pins and tumbler twice with Dawn and water. Holy cow were they filthy! I had absolutely no idea. I will now, though. Thank you all!!

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Problem solved?

PS and just think all that curd was on your cases.....