Turn old tarnished brass into "like new"

blacksmithden

blacksmithden

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
25   0   0
Location
I live among the creatures of the night (Edmonton)
I don't know if someone has already come up with this 2 step process before, but I just figured it out and had to share.

At the range, I've seen tons of 9mm and .40 in the bin that were so ugly that nobody bothered with them. I always thought that there must be a way to clean that stuff up without days of hand buffing each one. I've finally found it.

I'm using a Lyman 1200 turbo tumbler by the way.

Take your standard Lyman walnut/rouge media and fill the tumbler to about half full
Add your "OMG this stuff actually smells rotten" brass
It's best to add the following slowly with the tumbler running. If the media starts to really slow down, back off and let it run for a couple of minutes. If it's still tumbling very slowly, don't add anymore.
Add 1.5 to 2 oz of brasso metal polish
Add 1.5 to 2 oz of Nu Finish "once a year car polish"


Tumble for a couple of hours (I left my tumbler going overnight, but I'm sure that a couple of hours would be fine).

Sift out the media and you'll be left with brass covered in dirt, car wax, and brasso. Pretty ugly looking stuff. You can wipe this off with a paper towel very easially, but man, that's a lot of hand work on 400 9mm cases. Wipe off a few and make sure all the tarnish is actually gone.

Now, put dry corn cob media into the tumbler, and put your "dirty, but detarnished" brass in and tumble for a couple of hours. (NOTE: If you're using corn cob from the pet store, don't use it on smaller necked cases....expecially .223. It'll jam up inside the case because the nuggets are large enough to work their way in, and it's a pain to get them back out. This stuff works great on straight sided cases though.)

Man, the brass looks like new, inside and out. I couldn't believe how well this worked.

Hope this helps somebody recover some extra brass somewhere.

Cheers !!!!
 
Last edited:
I'm glad it came up though because I have some very bad looking .308 brass that 5 hours in dry corn cob medium couldn't fix, I'm hoping this will be more effective.
 
I didn't have any luck with Nu-Finish. For me it tended to plug up the media and didn't polish very well.

I just use walnut with an abrasive additive like Lyman Turbo Brite. (This is not the reactivator stuff)

Sometimes it takes overnight to get the brass really shiny.

When I had really big batches of range brass (a couple 5 gallon pails) I would use a lot of additive, and then finish polish in corn cob to remove any polishing residue. The large amount of abrasive additive would quicken the polishing to several hours.
 
Last edited:
My system:

Dump used brass into a plastic jar with the lid. Add one part of the water + one part of white vinegar + drop of liquid soap. Put the lid and tight it up. Shake well and set aside for couple of hours. When it is shiny, and clean rinse with hot water and let it dry.
Decap and throw into tumbler with fresh crush walnut media. NO add-ons no dust Tumble for 2 hours.
 
I was speaking with somebody last year, and he recommended TSP (the same stuff I use to clean my paint brushes) and boy does it work. So well, in fact, that you don't need to tumble your brass.

I add a 1/2 cup of TSP to 3 litres of HOT water, mix it to dissolve, add my brass and let soak for a day. rinse thoroughly, and let dry. they come out like new.

give it a try... you'll giggle like a little girl
 
rmckeon said:
I was speaking with somebody last year, and he recommended TSP (the same stuff I use to clean my paint brushes) and boy does it work. So well, in fact, that you don't need to tumble your brass.

I add a 1/2 cup of TSP to 3 litres of HOT water, mix it to dissolve, add my brass and let soak for a day. rinse thoroughly, and let dry. they come out like new.

give it a try... you'll giggle like a little girl
Click to expand...
I gotta try this! thanks
 
I use a bit (less than one tsp.) of Brasso + Lyman Turbo Brite. If you cut way back on the amount of liquid stuff you dump in the tumbler the brass comes out nice and shiny - and dry too! No need for re-tumbling in dry media.

If you stay on top of keeping brass clean, it only takes a couple hours or less to keep it clean in the tumbler. Really dirty stuff can take all night.

Great idea to add a bit of car polish too - never thought of that!!!!
 
BC Bigbore said:
I have lots of brass in various calibers to shine up. So just add Nu-Finish directly to the walnut media while the tumbler's running Ted? How much do ya put in?
Click to expand...

You got it! I put 1/4 of the bottle in a tumbler full of crushed walnut hulls (Lizard Litter) and let it run the first time for about half an hour before adding any brass. Ran it for two hours and the brass looked like new. :)

That was three years ago, and I have added a quarter bottle two more times since then, and polished hundreds of cases in that time. Usually an hour is plenty, unless the brass is really grungy.

Best of all, it leaves no residue whatsoever on the brass.

Ted
 
Jim Sweet in his book "Competitive Rifle Shooting" noted that wet cartridges did not grip the chamber and back pressure increased. He didn't apply this to cleaning cartridges, but I have wondered because of what he said, and from practices in some of the old target shooters I have met, whether one can't overclean and make too slippery a surface, or increase slipperiness by using various chemicals. I can certainly see cleaning cases so there isn't any potentially abrasive or fouling stuff on them, but I can't see trying to make them brighter than bright. It's one of those things that I can't prove, but kind of lingers in the back of my head all the time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom