I was prepping a bunch of brass, put it in the cleaner with the usual detergent/Lemishine mix. I figured it was a good time to clean the resizing die too. Well the die turned black and the cases that were in contact with the die were blackened and the ones nearby turned to copper color. I have them in the tumbler to see hoe they clean up but righ now they don't look too bueno.
chemical reaction in ultra sonic cleaner
- Thread starter savagefan
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Copper inside the die? Some sort of accelerated oxidation on the tool steel? High carbon steel used for dies? Someone will be along.
My thing is put some water in the cleaner. Then I put my cleaning solution and stuff to clean in a big Ziploc bag in the water. All the mess stays in the Ziploc, super easy to clean the ultrasonic.
My thing is put some water in the cleaner. Then I put my cleaning solution and stuff to clean in a big Ziploc bag in the water. All the mess stays in the Ziploc, super easy to clean the ultrasonic.
I don't know what happened, but I have a guess.
You said you used "detergent". Is that dishwashing detergent? Dishwashing detergent is usually alkaline. Lemishine is acidic (citric acid). Maybe you have a precipitated salt formation from the reaction of mixing an acid and a base, and the carbon residue stained it black?
For your dies made of steel and aluminum, an acidic solution is not good for cleaning.
The brass turning copper colour is the classic symptom of too strong an acid solution. Too much Lemishine will eat away some of the zinc in the brass, causing that copper colour.
I use Lyman brass cleaning solution in my Lyman ultrasonic machine. I note from their MSDS sheet on their website that it does contain citric acid. They provide water mixing instructions on the label and I generally follow those, and have not seen that copper colour on my brass. Whatever their concentration is, Lyman (and Hornady's ultrasonic brass cleaning solution which I also use), have figured out the water to solution mixing ration to be effective on brass, and not eat away at the zinc.
Lyman's "Turbo Sonic Steel & Gun Cleaning Solution" is chemically quite different from their brass cleaning solution. Their MSDS sheet lists Triethanolamine and Potassium Silicate as the active ingredients. Potassium silicate is strongly alkaline. Commercial chemical mixtures for ultrasonic cleaning of steel vs brass are very different.
Hope this helps.
You said you used "detergent". Is that dishwashing detergent? Dishwashing detergent is usually alkaline. Lemishine is acidic (citric acid). Maybe you have a precipitated salt formation from the reaction of mixing an acid and a base, and the carbon residue stained it black?
For your dies made of steel and aluminum, an acidic solution is not good for cleaning.
The brass turning copper colour is the classic symptom of too strong an acid solution. Too much Lemishine will eat away some of the zinc in the brass, causing that copper colour.
I use Lyman brass cleaning solution in my Lyman ultrasonic machine. I note from their MSDS sheet on their website that it does contain citric acid. They provide water mixing instructions on the label and I generally follow those, and have not seen that copper colour on my brass. Whatever their concentration is, Lyman (and Hornady's ultrasonic brass cleaning solution which I also use), have figured out the water to solution mixing ration to be effective on brass, and not eat away at the zinc.
Lyman's "Turbo Sonic Steel & Gun Cleaning Solution" is chemically quite different from their brass cleaning solution. Their MSDS sheet lists Triethanolamine and Potassium Silicate as the active ingredients. Potassium silicate is strongly alkaline. Commercial chemical mixtures for ultrasonic cleaning of steel vs brass are very different.
Hope this helps.
Yep, my point I guess is don't mix dissimilar metals in the US cleaner. The solution blend I have been using for several years gets the brass squeaky clean in 30 mins with no issues. Reason for the thread is a cautionary tale for others. Ordinarily I give my dies a clean up with WD40, this time I thought I'd get super lazy. Anyway after a good shuffle in the corncob/Lyman red walnut all is normal again.
You put a ferrous and non ferrous metal in an electrolytic solution together with agitation. At the least some acidic action on the die (black on carbon steel can be corrosion in the absence of oxygen because it was submerged). On the longer end probably some galvanic corrosion of both materials.
