Zilla brand walnut media suddenly got very dusty

[IMtheNRA]

I recently started using Zilla "Desert Blend" ground English walnut shells in my tumbler. The first five or six cycles went great - the brass came out very clean.

Tonight, I dumped the latest batch of .223 brass from the tumbler and I noticed a huge amount of light-colored dust. It wafted from the tumbler, and all the brass is now coated with this very fine flour-like dust.

Any idea what happened to the media and what, if anything, I can do to get rid of the dust?

 

[Bassleg]

Try some RCBS or some other brand of case cleaner it helps keep the dust down and makes
very good lookin cases, all you need is a cap full every couple loads.

 

[thump_rrr]

Cut up a used bounce drier sheet in 1" wide strips and throw it in with the media. it will pick up a lot of the dust.

I gave up on the vibratory tumbler and went to wet tumbling. I won't go back to vibratory tumbling.

 

[kingmt]

It's probably to much polish.

 

[JLDickmon]

now that I understand what the Bounce sheets are for, yeah. Just chop one up and toss it in the media

 

[Blue68f100]

If you did not add polish to the mix, do so. It helps control the dust too. You need to add some every 3-4 load. Just remember to let it run for about 15 min before adding brass. I use paper towel instead of dryer sheets. But I'm also use a good grade of Blast media which does not have the dust.

 

[LeonCarr]

Nu Finish Car Polish.

Does not contain Ammonia, does not weaken brass, great at keeping the dust down and the shine up .

Good Stuff.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

 

[jcwit]

Nu Finish Car Polish.

Does not contain Ammonia, does not weaken brass.

Good Stuff.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

I'll also add that the Nu-Finish puts a film of polymer on the cases to retard tarnish. The other polishes such as RCBS, Lyman, MidWay, etc do not do this.

Actually any liquid auto polish works just as good as Nu-Finish. Only add a teaspoon to a tumbler, thats plenty.

 

[IMtheNRA]

So what caused this sudden increase in dust? Is the media grinding itself during tumbling? If so, how would adding a little polish stop this?

 

[jcwit]

Have you been adding any kind of polish? If so, what kind and how much and how often?

Was the light different so that you noticed it more?

Did you tumble this last batch longer than what you normally do?

Did you tumble heavier rifle cases this time?

Did the humidity get appreciably lower with this last batch?

Many variables to take into consideration.

 

[Waywatcher]

I doubt it's a problem. What I do to reduce the dust on my 'plain' walnut is: pour it back and forth from one bucket to another, outside, on a windy day. I also tumble rifle brass with case lube in the 'plain' walnut, which probably also helps keep the dust down.

I keep two batches of Zilla going; a 'dirty' batch that gets Nufinish and dirty brass, while my other batch is 'plain' and gets used as a sort-of rinse-step to clean any dirty grime from the 'dirty' batch. (And case lube from resized rifle brass.)

 

[IMtheNRA]

jcwit - I did not add anything to the walnut shells and I got great results in terms of cleaning my brass.

Clearly, there is a ton of dust this time, and the only difference between this and previous uses was that I had a larger than usual batch of .223 brass in the tumbler. About 150-180 cases, which is still within the specs for this machine.

I tumbled them for about three hours, which is my average time. I think the larger than normal amount of rifle cases crushed some of the walnut media and created all this dust.

In the past, I have never had a dust issue with Lyman walnut media. Perhaps the larger particle size of Lyman's Toughnut (with rouge) is more resistant to crushing.

 

[Jonzer77]

I just bought some Nu Finish for about $8 at the local auto zone and put in a cap full of it. Make sure you run the tumbler and when you see clumps of the polish, take them and break them apart. Keep doing this until you dont see anymore clumps of it and run the tumbler for about 30 minutes to let it mix in. Adding nu finish made my brass nice and shiny

I tried using the Lyman turbo charger in the walnut originally and it didn't work well at all.