Food Dehydrator for drying brass?

agent_mango

agent_mango

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I think many of us use water at some point in cleaning our brass. Personally, I tumble with kaytee and a little lyman brass cleaner, then finish with a water rinse in a dollar store strainer (used only for that purpose, never for food). For drying, I've found laying the brass on a towel and blowing a small fan on them overnight seems to work ok. However, I want something a little more positive.

I've read some people use their oven at 200 F. I don't want to put anything related to shooting in a food-preparing device, because there will probably still be some lead salt on the brass. I could use a dedicated toaster oven to achieve the 200 F, but there is the worry about temperature control not being perfect with a small appliance like that. When dwelling on the problem some more, I thought of a food dehydrator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydrator

Blowing warm (54 deg celcius) air through the brass sounds like it would work great. Again, I would only use this for reloading, never for food. What do you guys think, worthwhile idea?
 
Waste of time and money.

Y'know. Just sayin'.

Rinse them under hot water, chuck them on a towel, give it a shake back and forth, and let them dry.

If you are all that worried about brass in contact with your food, you should read about the wonders of Chromium and nickel (in stainless steel) and Teflon on frying pans. Deadly stuff, and yet the human race continues on....

If you are really in to spending the time, (or are OCD to the extent that OCD folks point you out) dry then with a Q-tip.

Me. I shake out most of the water and let them sit on a paper towel to dry. I might resort to a hair dryer if I ever need to speed it along.

Spend $2 on some ratty towels from the Sally-Ann. Save the rest for important stuff.

Cheers
Trev
 
Seems like it may create a really annoying whistling sound.:)

Kidding aside, I've never used water to clean my brass as I have a tumbler - and I sure wouldn't put it in my dehydrator.

$0.02
 
trevj said:
Waste of time and money.

Y'know. Just sayin'.

Rinse them under hot water, chuck them on a towel, give it a shake back and forth, and let them dry.

If you are all that worried about brass in contact with your food, you should read about the wonders of Chromium and nickel (in stainless steel) and Teflon on frying pans. Deadly stuff, and yet the human race continues on....
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The thing is, I've had trouble with just laying them out to dry. If the humidity is too high in the room, the moisture will stay there a while. I had one batch of brass develop some oxidation on the inside of the necks. However I did use cold water that time, not hot water. I expect hot water will heat up the brass and thus help a little in evaporation after the rinsing.

Yeah there's some interesting environmental chemistry research on just how long-lived and pervasive the perfluorinated acids from teflon degradation are in the environment.


agilent_one said:
Kidding aside, I've never used water to clean my brass as I have a tumbler - and I sure wouldn't put it in my dehydrator.

$0.02
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My brass cleaning is by tumbler, I just need the H2O rinse to get the media dust off the brass. I tried dryer sheets and it's still dusty. Maybe there is a media that won't be dusty like the Kaytee I use.
 
agent_mango said:
My brass cleaning is by tumbler, I just need the H2O rinse to get the media dust off the brass. I tried dryer sheets and it's still dusty. Maybe there is a media that won't be dusty like the Kaytee I use.
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Well, you must like really clean brass. Try the dehydrator.....:confused::D
 
I've got a "roughly" 16" x 16" covered plastic container with about 2" of corn cob media in the bottom. I toss my wet brass in it, shake em up for a minute or two by hand and thats it, they're dry. You've then gotta pick some media out of the brass, of course, but it beats heating em up or waiting for days. Its cheap and it works.

I use this same media over and over again, leaving the lid off the container between uses. The corn cob remains perpetually dry, that just seems to be a property of the stuff.
 
You won't get much brass in a food dehydrator. Better to get one of those small electric ceramic heaters, they're cheaper too.
 
I just need the H2O rinse to get the media dust off the brass. I tried dryer sheets and it's still dusty.
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Hoookaay!

You have officially found a new thing to be worried about.

In my 25 years of reloading, I have never considered worrying about a bit of dust on my brass. Which means I never bothered to wash them in water, which means I never had to consider how to dry them.

It seems to me that worrying about something that never will make any kind of difference has lead to a whole host of follow on "problems". My advice would be to stop overthinking the entire thing and stop worrying about a bit of dust.
 
Suputin said:
Hoookaay!

You have officially found a new thing to be worried about.

In my 25 years of reloading, I have never considered worrying about a bit of dust on my brass. Which means I never bothered to wash them in water, which means I never had to consider how to dry them.

It seems to me that worrying about something that never will make any kind of difference has lead to a whole host of follow on "problems". My advice would be to stop overthinking the entire thing and stop worrying about a bit of dust.
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Kinda the point I was trying to make.:agree:

I'd much sooner worry about possible atomized corn cob (which I don't) than possible water inclusion into cartridges. Never missed a shot and thought to myself "damn walnut residue!, it must be the walnut!":D

Don't manufacture issues, just solve the ones you have.:)
 
Hmm, I've never heard of washing brass with water before. If you're getting dust on your brass after they've been in the tumbler maybe try a different type of media. I've never had any issues with dust.
 
noneck180 said:
I have been using the stainless media with water and soap for a few weeks now..yes no more... dusty, dirty, stinky, loud, vibrate the floor, pick media out of the primer pockets with a toothpick, clean the primer pockets with primer pocket tool, vibratory tumbler and can get clean brass in hours......
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noneck180,

I would like to hear more about this stainless media. Perhaps you could start a new thread.

Thanks,
Ted
 
noneck180 said:
So you take brass that you washed off and throw them back into media??? I don't see how this makes one bit of sense.
It doesn't take days to dry brass...a guy just needs to use his head...
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I wet tumble using ceramic media, not that it matters. I was just offering an alternative to those drying methods already posted. Validation wasn't my goal. Not everyone can get their head into the cases. Ever try a Q-tip?
 
I wash my brass all the time! I use an the clothes washer and it does a stellar job. I stick the brass in old pillow cases, tie them up and into the top loader it goes. I use some liquid laundry soap as the powdered one would leave some residue. The beauty of this system is that I can do about 6 thousand cases without problems. I use a pillow case per caliber, this makes it easy to sort after the dry. Yes, you heard right, I also dry the brass in a front loading clothes dryer, it tumbles it nice and dry and I use several dryer sheet too. No dust whatsoever on my brass!

Maytag work well, I had an older GE washer that was ok too. When My loaded rounds get too dirty I usually put them through a quick cycle with very little detergent. With loaded rounds, make sure you dry them on a low heat setting so as not to have a round cook (wife was not too happy the first time this happened..).

I sometimes have to wait a while for my clean brass as there is some household laundry to be done too, it can be a bummer. As a bonus, I thought my wife and daughters to launder my brass adn ammo, so it can be done when I am having a nap. They even sort and fold the stuff for me!
 
I just re-read the manual for my Frankford Arsenal Vibratory Case Tumbler and it does not say anywhere that you need to wash your brass after tumbling.
 
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