Too Much Lemishine!!!

[tightgroup tiger]

I tried to put a link on here by Uncle Nick when he was still on the High Road. He is a moderator on "The Firing Line" and is very knowledgeable.
The link isn't working. I will keep working on it. It talks about using Citric acid in ultrasonics.
The OP is talking about tumbling with citric acid and this is about ultra sonic cleaners so it isn't exactly on target with this post.
I was trying to respond to your comment about that being a lot of citric acid but this isn't working out for me.
Again, US cleaners are non contact cleaners so those of us that use them can get away with a lot more than a 9mm case full.
I'll keep working on this link for Uncle Nick's comments but it's not looking good at this point.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/cleaning-brass-using-citric-acid.708100/

This is it, skip to 2nd page and post 31. Go on down through and look for Uncle Nicks comments.
Applies to US cleaners only but helps to explain why I can use so much citric acid

 

[lightman]

Every great once in a while I'll have a batch of brass that comes out grey looking. I'll run the media through with some Dawn and then run the brass again. A 38 Super case of LemiShine is about right for the water that we have here.

 

[kalielkslayer]

Straight vinegar is like 2.4.

 

[AJC1]

Straight vinegar is like 2.4.

Soda is not much higher somewhere in the 2.8 range. The duration matters a lot. Forget things overnight and bad things can happen. All things being relitive were not talking molar acid strengths. I used co2 for melting coral skeletons to add carbonate and bicarbonate.

 

[N555]

Don't toss the tarnished ones. I just keep running them over and over and over till they look acceptable. Some of them get washed 20 times.

 

[Mk-211]

You could just buy some Iosso liquid case cleaner, dump brass in for about 1 minute. Pull it out, rinse and then toss into your oven on low for about 10-15 minutes.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

Straight vinegar is like 2.4.

According to Uncle Nicks comments vinegar can reactivate the brass and make it corrode or cold weld to a jacketed bullet. I've never had that kind of problem so apparently 3.0Ph and above for shot periods of time, as @AJC1 said, doesn't have the same effect that using it for hours would have.
The run time on my ultrasonic is only 10 minutes and they are clean when they come out, including most all of the primer pockets.
They get dumped in the other sink with water and some baking soda to make sure they are neutralized.
It's not better or worse than any other method, just what I have always used.
If I do get some purple marks on mine I use them anyways. Doesn't seem to hurt them at all.

 

[kalielkslayer]

According to Uncle Nicks comments vinegar can reactivate the brass and make it corrode or cold weld to a jacketed bullet. I've never had that kind of problem so apparently 3.0Ph and above for shot periods of time, as @AJC1 said, doesn't have the same effect that using it for hours would have.
The run time on my ultrasonic is only 10 minutes and they are clean when they come out, including most all of the primer pockets.
They get dumped in the other sink with water and some baking soda to make sure they are neutralized.
It's not better or worse than any other method, just what I have always used.
If I do get some purple marks on mine I use them anyways. Doesn't seem to hurt them at all.

I’ve never used vinegar in my tumbling, just boiling water and dawn with SS pins.

My comment was to put acidic PH in context.

I use my method because it works for me. Like someone else said, “Whatever works for you!”

My tumbling sessions can last hours. Start the tumbler, start dinner, clean dishes, work with the dogs, feed the dogs, pick up eggs, pull stuff from the garden. Walk back in and that damn tumbler is still running. Enough to wear the nickel off of brass cases on a couple of occasions.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

I wasn't inferring anything. I was just throwing that out there. We have members that do use Vinegar and water for a cleaning solution and they have learned to use it to their advantage. If it works for them, more power to them.

Start the tumbler, start dinner, clean dishes, work with the dogs, feed the dogs, pick up eggs, pull stuff from the garden. Walk back in and that damn tumbler is still running. Enough to wear the nickel off of brass cases on a couple of occasions

A lot of us have done that, I ended up breaking down and buying a timer for my tumbler and dryer, especially the dryer.
It's an inferred heater mounted on the wall and facing down. I forgot about it one night and the next morning my .357mag cases were all pretty shades of blue.
Not good.

 

[AJC1]

I wasn't inferring anything. I was just throwing that out there. We have members that do use Vinegar and water for a cleaning solution and they have learned to use it to their advantage. If it works for them, more power to them.

A lot of us have done that, I ended up breaking down and buying a timer for my tumbler and dryer, especially the dryer.
It's an inferred heater mounted on the wall and facing down. I forgot about it one night and the next morning my .357mag cases were all pretty shades of blue.
Not good.

Never herd of a drying issue. I'll add that tidbit to the knowledge library.....

 

[kalielkslayer]

A timer would definitely save on electricity, good idea!

 

[Highland Lofts]

A lot of us have done that, I ended up breaking down and buying a timer for my tumbler

What kind of tumbler do you have?
Yours must just have a on - off switch.
The FARTS do have a timer setting. I set mine for an hour on range brass and 1/2 an hour for the brass that I shoot.

 

[kalielkslayer]

What kind of tumbler do you have?
Yours must just have a on - off switch.
The FARTS do have a timer setting. I set mine for an hour on range brass and 1/2 an hour for the brass that I shoot.

I have a Franklin Arsenal and didn’t know it had a timer!

Now I’m going downstairs to check.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

My rotary tumbler is homemade,

my dryer is an inferred heater mounted on the wall.
a dehidrater doesn't get near as hot as this thing does,

 

[Poper]

a dehidrater doesn't get near as hot as this thing does,

That's true. However, the dehydrator cycles air though it so it is also wicking the water away with air movement as well as with heat which is why it doesn't get so hot.

 

[Highland Lofts]

I have a Franklin Arsenal and didn’t know it had a timer!

Now I’m going downstairs to check.

It should have a timer, I'll be using one of mine tomorrow, I seperated a bucket of range brass today and will tumble some of it tomorrow and need to dig out my Sawzall to cut up some big chunks of lead to get melted down into ingots.

 

[LoadingPirate]

We have city water and for me I use 1/2 a teaspoon of Lemishine Booster, a cap full of ArmorAll Wash n Wax, a small squirt of Dawndish soap and a cap of Finnish Jet Dry.

I use hot tap water and let my FART run for an hour.

Drain the black waste water & rince in the drum.

Fill it back up with just warm tap water and let it go for another fifteen minutes.

Drain the water and then hang my brass on my drying racks I made a couple of years ago.

I buy & sell lots of range brass thati wet tumble before it goes to the new owner.
With my drying racks I get to handle each piece of brass so I can discard the trashed brass.
I get an accurate count on the brass and it is guaranteed 100% dry.

If you retumble your brass with the pins and just Dawn it should come out just fine.

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dam you must have a lot of time for that project

 

[Highland Lofts]

You only have time until you get thrown in to the hole in the ground.

 

[Highland Lofts]

I guess the smaller Lite Frankford tumbler with the single cap doesn't have a timer like the two bigger tumblers I have.

 

[Airborne Falcon]

Wow, interesting thread. Deja vous all over again.

As an avid wet tumbler I think I've done it all, tried it all. I buy my litmus paper in bulk from Amazon. I measure my Lemishine with a measuring spoon. I'm on a 267' deep well below the fall line in sandy beach soil so I have fairly hard water. I'm a stickler for using only Dawn. I use hot water to wash, cold water to rinse. I keep rinsing until the water is crystal clear.

I always decap and resize before wet tumbling. (If my brass is really dirty I'll dry tumble in walnut media with Nufinish before decapping and reaizing) I almost always use pins or chips when wet tumbling and I only air dry during low humidity months (Winter), otherwise I use a dehydrator or an oven on the lowest heat with a fan rigged to pipe air through it during the process (for really big batches). I'll shake and toss my brass inside a bucket with a lid and with a towel thrown-in before I dry it just to get 99% of the excess moisture off the brass as quickly as possible ... helps to prevent any hard water spotting from the rinse water. I have a buddy who final rinses with distilled water ... too anal for me. Lol

I run straight-walled cases for an hour in the tumbler, necked-down rifle cases or SIG 357 for two. I never use pins or Lemishine on nickle plated cases.

My brass turns-out pretty nice, often like new, but there is one thing that affects color sometimes. Well, let me rephrase that. The occassional purple brass is a rarity for me and is always the fault of the type of brass used imho.

Now, when my brass starts looking more golden yellow than shiney brass color ... it's my pins or chips getting dirty. When that happens I clean my pins and chips with an alkaline degreaser cleaner who's name escapes me at the moment but it's purple. I bought a gallon of it and it'll last me the rest of my life I suspect. Once I clean the pins it's back to bright shiney brass rather than yellow gold brass.

I do use a Frankfort tumbler, the smaller one, most of the time except for very large batches. It's fine for up to 650 9mm cases or a couple-hundred x51 cases, more 5.56 cases, etc. I bought a mechanical timer for it ... one that is used to set on/off light-timers when one is away from home. It is a small box that has two timer wheels on it, one to turn it on, one to turn it off. They make modern ones that are electronic. None of them are expensive. You plug it in, set your on/off wheels, then you plug your tumbler into that.

You most certainly can overtumble imho.

This hard water thing and the need for Lemishine. It's a real thing that usually only affects those of us on sandy or rocky deep water wells. Less is better when it comes to Lemishine. I have found that it only takes ⅛ of a teaspoon to soften up even my hard water. ⅛ of Lemishine and a cap full of Dawn is the trick for me ... pne must remember that Dawn is an alkaline-based (base) chemical made for cutting grease on the higher end of the scale than most dishwashing liquids. If I remember correctly, Dawn is around an 8-8.5 whereas most "light duty" liquid dish soaps are nearer the 6-7 range. So what we are doing when we add Lemishine is we're, to some degree, slightly counteracting the Dawn while softening the water at the same time. The reason so many tout the properties of of Dawn is because it starts--out higher (base) than most soaps which means it retains its dirt and grease and carbon cutting properties even after the water is softened with the Lemishine.

If I didn't have such hard water (dissolved minerals calcium and magnesium are not actually ionized and removed using Lemishine) I wouldn't use Lemishine at all because we already have a sodium and resin system on the drinkable water and washing/bathing lines in the house. The Lemishine is more about neutralizing the lime found in hard water and, among hardcore brass obsessed handloaders, Lemishine is just as important in the rinse cycle as it is the cleaning cycle. In other words there are those who rinse with citric acid infused water in buckets and consider it the most important step to combat hard water spotting and to achieve the shiniest prettiest multi use brass.

It's all relevant and it's become somewhat of a science, like everything else, but there are so many things that can and will affect the final product when it comes-to brass ... I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that's it's always the amount of Lemishine used.

Remember Lemishine is citric acid. It's basically like squirting a wedge of lemon in in tea or drinking water. Canners use more citric acid in a quart jar when canning tomatoes than you'll use in your tumbler when tumbling brass. Lemishine is marketed as a way to de-lime your dishes and dishwater ... to remove spots on your drinking glasses. Thinking of it that way puts it all into perspective. If you're using enough Lemishine to affect the molecular structure of the brass and to turn it purple ... then you're either doing it wrong or it's not the Lemishine, it's the particular brass.

 

[Series70]

Please share how much is too much, because I plan to use Lemishine for the first time soon.

I don't wet tumble, just use Lemishine to clean my de-primed brass before using vibratory tumbler with walnut media. I've been using two teaspoons of Lemishine Original (crystals) to a quart of water. Swish brass around in a porcelain pie baking dish for between about 60 or 90 seconds. Strain the Lemishine for future use. I use a basket from a dishwasher silverware tray that I picked up at a second-hand store. Immerse the wet brass in a bucket of water to neutralize the Lemishine. Dry brass with towels/rags and place somewhere to air dry. Next day dry tumble.
The first few times I tried 5 to 10 minutes of immersion and yes, I saw that the brass turned red. So maybe if I used less Lemishine I'd be OK at 5-10 minutes but 60-90 seconds has been working excellent for me.

 

[RashQuestion]

Less Lemishine is more. You have to experiment with the amount to find the best to work with the water you have. Good Luck with finding the best process for you!!!