► First step is to drain off most of the water by simply holding a hand over the mouth of the container and tilting it over. Use of
Wash & Wax and
Lemishine requires 3 to 4 rinses with clean water. Multiple rinses are important to stop the acidic action of the
Lemishine. After each rinse, the water gets poured off the same way.
► Then the pins are separated from the brass in an inexpensive "rotary
separator" from
Grafs.
HERE It's important to spin for about 15 seconds,
then reverse and spin for 15 more. Then repeat as long as pins are flying out. This can most easily be done with the top of the separator box removed. It all happens really fast and usually requires less than 1 minute. The remaining water ends up in the bottom box with 99.8% of the pins. Excess water can then be poured off directly from the separator bottom box.
► Then I pour the
still wet pins back into the FART container in preparation for the next tumble. Leaving wet pins in the FART container doesn't seem to hurt them at all. I do leave the cap off the FART container and the water will slowly evaporate, but I
don't take any additional action to aid or speed this natural process.
► Then the basket full of wet brass is poured into a 1/4" mesh sieve.
HERE The sieve is sitting atop a 5-gal bucket with $3 thrift store hair dryer (1200 Watt). While the hair dryer runs, the sieve is
shaken to reposition the brass every ~5 minutes... which also dislodges the last of the tumbler pins. The last of the pins end up in the bottom of the hair dryer bucket where they are recycled. This contraption looks like this....
► I do use a stick magnet, but only to pick up the 10-15 wayward pins that get onto the floor during pouring operations. Using a magnet on a long stick keeps me from having to bend over.
• I know tumbling pins have been lost by pouring water off the container, but it has not been that many. After a year of ownership I still have about 95% of my pins and tumbling effectiveness has not been hurt. In 3 or 4 more years I'll order more pins, but loss has not been a big issue at all.