Well the tumbler proper was finished a long time ago, but the challenge was to find a suitable container. Well, I finally found one....the large tubs that gym-junkies like to take! This particular one used to contain 4.4 lbs of whey.
This pix is actually a video in my picasa album, but I couldn't figure out how to make it run in CGN.
My first test run was with HOT water, and about 100 9mm cases, 4 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of lemishine and a teaspoon of whatever dishwashing soap my wife was using. I used about a pound of Stainless Steel media. I ran the setup for 30 mins and the results were great!! There was some small leakage due to the hot water expandinng the tub and breaking the seal at the mouth.
I was so encouraged that I doubled the 9 mm to about 200 pieces and threw in 30 pieces of pre-full-length resized brass that I had cleaned with steel wool prior to letting them near my dies. They were all generally clean, but dark and discoloured.
Well, after 2 hours, the results speak for themselves!!
Damn things turned to gold!! And of course, the primer pockets were clean too!
To separate the media from the brass, I used a wire netting basket (that my buddy left for me to collect our water-quenched boolits, nothing like dual use eh!) over another steroid-junkie pail (this one didn't work as it leaked as soon as it was put on its side).
I only used about half my media (2.5 pounds) and about 6 cups of lukewarm water together with 2 teaspoons of lemishine and 2 teaspoons of dishsoap.
Clean up of any stray media was easy with a magnet.
I originally had these two pieces of plastic glued into the sides of the jar using contact glue. Well, they came apart in about 2 minutes during the first test, and well, I decided to just throw them into the mix as I reckon they help to stir things up a bit. I would like to figure out how to glue them down eventually, but even without, the results were great.
The only things I paid for were the pulleys and belt ($6.00 I think), threaded rod ($real cheap at home depot) and of course the media ($40.00 shipped, or was it $30, for 5 pounds). The media is magnetic and this alone is worth the money.
Yes...SS media tumbling can be had on the cheap. You just gotta be a cheap bastid to begin with.
This pix is actually a video in my picasa album, but I couldn't figure out how to make it run in CGN.
My first test run was with HOT water, and about 100 9mm cases, 4 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of lemishine and a teaspoon of whatever dishwashing soap my wife was using. I used about a pound of Stainless Steel media. I ran the setup for 30 mins and the results were great!! There was some small leakage due to the hot water expandinng the tub and breaking the seal at the mouth.
I was so encouraged that I doubled the 9 mm to about 200 pieces and threw in 30 pieces of pre-full-length resized brass that I had cleaned with steel wool prior to letting them near my dies. They were all generally clean, but dark and discoloured.
Well, after 2 hours, the results speak for themselves!!
Damn things turned to gold!! And of course, the primer pockets were clean too!
To separate the media from the brass, I used a wire netting basket (that my buddy left for me to collect our water-quenched boolits, nothing like dual use eh!) over another steroid-junkie pail (this one didn't work as it leaked as soon as it was put on its side).
I only used about half my media (2.5 pounds) and about 6 cups of lukewarm water together with 2 teaspoons of lemishine and 2 teaspoons of dishsoap.
I originally had these two pieces of plastic glued into the sides of the jar using contact glue. Well, they came apart in about 2 minutes during the first test, and well, I decided to just throw them into the mix as I reckon they help to stir things up a bit. I would like to figure out how to glue them down eventually, but even without, the results were great.
The only things I paid for were the pulleys and belt ($6.00 I think), threaded rod ($real cheap at home depot) and of course the media ($40.00 shipped, or was it $30, for 5 pounds). The media is magnetic and this alone is worth the money.
Yes...SS media tumbling can be had on the cheap. You just gotta be a cheap bastid to begin with.
