Tumbling media. . . Hot Tip

[hydraulic]

Has anyone ever tried making their own walnut media? I have several walnut trees on my place and in the fall the ground is littered with pieces of walnut shells the squirrels have dropped. I'm going to gather them up this year and try mashing them to make my own media.

[codgerville@zianet.com]

I thought I was the only one who made that mistake.

[mike in co]

run it thru a coffee grinder and then bake to harden the shell( walnuts in the shell are"dried" in the shell...)...use to work 500 acres of walnuts in ca...

[Recluse]

I use a Thumler's Tumbler that I bought back in 1988. Takes a little longer than a vibratory tumbler, but it's quiet and refuses to wear out. I finally managed to break the lid a few months ago--and this thing sees use two to four times a week, every week, every month, every year. Simply ordered a new lid and a couple of spare belts while I was at it. Cost me something like twelve or fifteen bucks, I think.

I keep two bins of media under the sink in my shop. One is treated walnut, the other is untreated.

When I clean brass, it normally gets two treatments. First run is with my "treated" walnut which consists of a half-cap or so of NuFinish and a half-cap of mineral spirits. I toss in a couple of unused generic anti-static dryer sheets, then tumble on a timer for twelve hours.

Next treatment is with clean untreated walnut. I keep several boxes of those thick paper towels that come in a large box around my shop and always have a half-dozen laying around that are usually clean to barely used. I tear one in half and toss it in with the clean walnut, then tumble for six to eight hours more.

Brass looks BETTER than brand new. You need to look at it or it'll hurt your eyes.

As the treated walnut gets dirtier, I give it a bit longer to clean the brass. Nice thing about using a timer--fire up the tumbler and forget about it as it'll shut off automatically.

When the treated walnut gets too dirty to clean efficiently, I toss it and replace it with the "untreated" walnut from the bin, then pour fresh unused walnut into the empty "untreated" bin. Been cleaning my brass like this for a long time and it works well.

I store my cleaned brass in those Sterilite clear plastic shoe boxes. I always throw a dozen or so dessicants in the shoe boxes, and this helps keep the brass shiny and new looking for a lot longer.

[JIMinPHX]

I use a few drops of Brasso in the media if I am tumbling tarnished cases. I've been told not to do that for years, but 6 or 8 drops doesn't seem to hurt anything & it does help. I still have about 400 or so pieces of the .45acp brass that I started using with my first press over 20 years ago. Each case has been loaded at least 20 times & probably more like 40 or better. In the last 20 years, I've had maybe a half dozen of those cases split.

[Shiloh]

Many years ago I put jewelers rouge in a tumbler of walnut media. Big mistake. I had to use a rag and wipe the rouge off each case and the inside of the tumbler. It also ruined the walnut media. At that time it cost me fourteen bucks for a small bag. There were no Pet Smart stores at that time.

Been There !! I had powdered red rouge at the time.

IFYou decide to try this, use just a little. It is VERY messy, gets on and stains everything it touches. There are more case polishing alternatives now that preclude its use

Shiloh

[hunter64]

Plastic Rock Polishing Media is the way to go. I gave up on corn cob/walnut stuff years ago. While I was in with my son getting a small rock polisher at a hobby store I was asking the guy behind the counter what stuff do I need for the polish media, he showed me to the section and here beside the usual stuff was plastic polishing media. They are basically small plastic balls etc. that don't get stuck in flash holes and work just as good if not better than walnut. The great part is that all you have to do is wash them off with water and reuse them. Jump over to evilbay and type in "Plastic Rock Polishing" to see what I am talking about, they also use them in dolls/toys for stuffing. I have had the same stuff for about 10 years now, they are supposed to wear out but with the very soft brass that we use compared to polishing rocks, it might take a while.

[Willbird]

I ordered a 40lb bag of ground walnut shells from the local pet store, it was $40 total, it is a very fine grind, seems to work nice tho with some lyman turbo brite.

Bill

[jcwit]

Regarding the question as to whether the 20/40 corn cob gets stuck in the flash hole, in one word NO.

Regarding using Brasso, I believe the ammonia evaperates and is of no problem as long as the brass does not get in contact with the liquid Brasso. But why bother? Most everybody has slightly used cans/bottles/containers of auto polish and a teaspoon in a tumbler is all it takes to do the job for many many cycles of tumbling.

[Cloudpeak]

Went to Petsmart last night to buy another ten-pound bag of "Zilla" ground walnet shells. Went to three different Petsmarts looking for them--all were out.

Finally, at the last one, a nice young lady pointed out that the 25-pound bags of bird litter were the exact same ground walnut shells as the reptile litter. Well, almost the same--they were about HALF the cost.

Thanks for the heads-up, Recluse. I stopped by our "local" Petsmart (110miles away) last time I passed through Casper and they didn't have the lizard litter and the clerk evidently didn't know about the bird litter. Next time, I'll know.

Cloudpeak

[mauser1959]

I've been told there are differences between the green media and the red. Allegedly one of them polishes the brass more than the other.... is there any truth to this?

Green has Chromium oxide in it.

http://www.covington-engineering.com...ng_Powders.htm

Red is Iron Oxide.


http://www.covington-engineering.com...ng_Powders.htm

[jleneave]

This would be a good sticky. Keep the info coming!!

Jody

[Le Loup Solitaire]

GAR, a company/distributor of handloading accessories and equipment that used to operate out of New Jersey and perhaps still does, advocated the use of Jewelers rouge in the tumber media for putting a really brilliant shine on the cases. They expalined that the trick to using it was to add a "carrier" to the mix. One of the carriers they recommended was ordinary kerosene. The success of the trick was to get the proper/correct proportion of rouge and carrier. No big quantities were involved; it was a matter of tablespoons. You had to experiment like we all do anyway with a few variables in this hobby, to determine how much of each added to the media would then work. Once you got that right the cases came out dazzling. The guidelines were; too much rouge and the cases came out red smeary, too much carrier and the cases came out caked up. It wasn't too much of a PITA to play with, nothing got wasted and it really worked well. LLS

[azjohn]

Has anyone ever tried pecan shells as a tumbling media? Tons of it just laying across from a pecan processing plant and just left to rot. I might see if I can get some to try the next time I drive by.

[lurch]

I use a few drops of Brasso in the media if I am tumbling tarnished cases. I've been told not to do that for years, but 6 or 8 drops doesn't seem to hurt anything & it does help. I still have about 400 or so pieces of the .45acp brass that I started using with my first press over 20 years ago. Each case has been loaded at least 20 times & probably more like 40 or better. In the last 20 years, I've had maybe a half dozen of those cases split.

The problem with Brasso (or at least too much of it) is that it has ammonia in it. I'm not a metallurgist, but a metallurgist's son... The generic layman's explanation I got goes something like this:

Ammonia can cause stress corrosion cracking in brass. If you have trace amounts of ammonia left on the brass and then place the brass under a source of constant stress (like holding onto a boolit/bullet), tiny imperfections in the brass start to corrode over time and develop into cracks is left long enough. If you don't have the stress, it doesn't happen.

I know for a fact that this happens as I lost a couple boxes of brass that had been tumbled with brasso treated media. I loaded a bunch up and never got around to shooting a couple of the boxes. Some significant time later I pulled them out to go shoot and noticed that a lot of the bullets were loose in the case necks... Wiggling them revealed that the necks had cracked just sitting on the shelf. Some of them bullets were not loose...yet. I applied just a little sideways finger pressure and almost all of those necks cracked on the spot... Lesson learned - no more brasso. I haven't had a single instance of something like that happening since I quit the brasso stuff and I do have a few loads sitting around that have been a few years waiting to go bang that are in fine shape. Maybe just a few drops of brasso is OK, but I'm not taking any more chances - especially since I have a tendency to load more than I'll shoot at any given time and things are apt to sit a spell loaded (i.e. stressed).

Just relating the experience I had - YMMV.

[Echo]

I believe the secret(s) of using rouge are: 1) Use about half as much as you think you should. I use between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon in my standard vibrator tumbler. Run the tumbler for 30 minutes to disperse the rouge, then 2) use a carrier, as above. I use mineral spirits, a short glug. Run for another 30 minutes, and your tumbler is ready for buisiness.

[JRW]

Has anyone ever tried pecan shells as a tumbling media? Tons of it just laying across from a pecan processing plant and just left to rot. I might see if I can get some to try the next time I drive by.

I don't see why it wouldn't work, if it was ground up to the right size? If you do get some let me know how it works, I 'm near enough to go try some my self. Jim.

[Gunslinger]

I use the Dillon media polishing thing. It doesn't work! And I don't see why, I just add the instructed amount. And my brass won't come out shiny. Sure it's clean... but still kind of dull.... And I like shiny brass!!

Anyone else use this?

[mauser1959]

I get my rouge from a Turtle Wax's Polishing Compound, it will be brick red in color and comes in the perfect carrier... made to stay on a polishing wheel. It is not exactly cheap, but it is convenient , wal mart or any parts store carries it. Turtle Wax has two polishing compounds, one is brick red the other is white ( cerium oxide?), both in a good carrier. I take about 1.5 Tbs by eye of the polishing compound and put it into a zip lock baggie, then I add about a cup of fresh corn cop medium, then squish together after a through mixing then I pour into my tumbler that is at the proper level and agitate for about 5 minutes. Run as per normal.

Gunslinger, if you want your cases to be a perfect brilliant shiny then maybe you should switch to a Cerium Oxide polish, it will take longer to polish the cases, but they should be mirror finish.

I will admit to having a bit of an advantage messing with polishing mediums, I have 15 gallons of corn cob medium down stairs... I did not realize how much I was really ordering.
Next time I will go to my local lumber yard and order it (it is used for "sand" blasting log cabins), or to graingers.

BTW, I use a 1420 grit corn cob medium, someone told me that it was better for .223s, do not know if that is so, but it works good. Lyman uses a 1014 grit in their polishing medium. I not sure which is a better grit, as they both seem to work well, however someone has told me that 1014 seems to get hung up more in flash holes and in small cases such as .223s.

[Gunslinger]

Mauser1959,

what is a Cerium Oxide polish?? Do I just need to look on the back of different polishing compounds and se if it contains cerium oxide?