How do you keep FARTed brass shiny?

[Marco Califo]

How do you keep FARTed brass shiny? Lemi-shine will oxidize a surface layer, but I want to clean well once, sort and vacuum seal for ready availability, possibly primed before sealing. I have noticed that my year or three old brass tarnishes, and that is what I want to avoid.
I seem to have seen a couple of mentions of auto polish liquid in the final rinse water.
It is occured to me that new corn cob pre-run with some bee's wax pellets might work, maybe a spoonful per tumbler load.
I am looking for ideas on what you have used with good results.

[RC20]

Get a Thumblers and dry clean!

[Marco Califo]

Get a Thumblers and dry clean!

If you had read my post you would realize that I do have and use dry tumblers, also. Your response is useless for the question stated, but I kind of think you intended that?

[Bill DeShivs]

Brass tarnishes.
You could nickel or gold plate it!

[Sevens]

Well, since it's getting snarky right from the get-go, let's just poke fun at why brass gets stored 1 to 3 years and needs to be shiny for that expanse of time...?

Take out the tarnished brass after 24 months, shine it up and enjoy the bright aura for a good run.

[Six Pack]

Marco, seriously, without snarky intent, I think you will need to wax/polish each case and then vacuum pack in lots for use. Think I would wait to prime but that's just my opinion. I have no idea if that would be OK or not. Maybe put wax on each one and then run them through your tumbler to clean it off. Just a thought.....

[hounddawg]

as long as the snark has been set free - shoot it before it tarnishes and reload it again

[Marco Califo]

why brass gets stored 1 to 3 years

Because I just acquired several thousand pieces of brass in new calibers, and have gone to considerable effort to decontaminate it, and clean it, so that I know this brass is fully processed and ready to load. Same for another several thousand LC 7.62 dated before the fall of Saigon, and a like number of 5.56 LC. Since I am bulk batching, I am cleaning it all. Underlying time constaraint factors are that I own real estate, have mortgages and have one of those JOB things to pay for my Life. You guys seem to be lacking in at least one of those (I am thinking the last one).

needs to be shiny for that expanse of time

No, of course not! It does not need to be shiny through that "expanse of time".
Only when I need it.
I don't look before then.

Actually, I searched this forum and found that some people, present posters excluded, actually post useful information. Maybe that went out of style for Easter Sunday.

This is from post #22 of https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...=fart+nufinish

"I switched to wet tumbling with an FART with Stainless steel pins. I do still use the old dry vibratory tumbler when taking lube off of loaded tapered cases like .45-70, or .30 Carbine. I use cleaning patches, and dryer sheets. I put NuFinish car polish on a couple of patches, and then run the tumbler",

. . . which was at least related to what I asked, but I could not find where someone once wrote of adding car polish to a FART final rinse.

[Nick_C_S]

Yeah, brass tarnishes. Used to bum me out; after getting them so nice n bright n shiny. I'm over it now.

I do put silica packets in my coffee cans that store them - that seems to help some. I have near unlimited access to silica packets.

[Unclenick]

Let's drop the snark and focus the few brain cells it leaves intact.


MC,

Treating brass with a citric acid cleaning is a common thing to do when the brass is to be stored for an extended period because it reduces the oxide and leaves the surface relatively passive. It probably also leaves citrate compounds behind. I have watched my own citric acid-cleaned brass darken some with time, but no verdigris shows up nor do the purple or green oxides that vinegar brings on appear. My assumption has been this is good, if not shiny, from the standpoint of brass durability and immunity to ambient conditions. If it needs to shine and stay that way, follow the wet cleaning with a separate dry tumble with ground walnut. There is walnut oil in it which helps preserve the shine it imparts. You could also add the car polish to further preserve it.

[Marco Califo]

Thanks Unclenick. I thought the citric acid would be a good, but not shiny solution. I had not heard about walnut oil. I have some new walnut, and new corn cob. I think I will experiment with plain walnut for one bowl, and corn cob with car polish for the another and compare the results. I will do a 3rd sample of RO and Lemi-shine as a final rinse for comparison.

I have a bottle of this: Frankford Arsenal Brass Cleaning Solution 32 oz Liquid, which is supposed to be the same as the sample you get in a FART box. The specs on MidwayUSA do not say whether it includes citric acid. So I am guessing, I need to the Lemi-shine as a final rinse, drain and dry as an additional step after tumbling in the solution.

[F. Guffey]

How do you keep brass shiny?

I don't, and there is something I will not do: I will not walk across a street to watch an ant eat a bale of hay.

I clean the worst of cases with vinegar, I am the only one that does not have 'his own' formula, I use vinegar, straight vinegar of 5%. I clean the worst of cases in vinegar for a maximum of 15 minutes.

The rest? I tumble. After tumbling I put the cases away and I expect the cases to dull. All of the work comes before storage, it helps to keep the cases in boxes and containers.

I expect to tumble cases after removing from storage before loading.

F. Guffey

[Marco Califo]

Bale is what hay comes in. Bail is $ to get out of jail.

[snakeye]

MC, Unclenick asked people to drop the snark...

[langenc]

I never farted on any brass but if I wanted to clean it-corncob media and tumble about 1-2 hrs.

[jmorris]

I often don’t prep all the brass I have because as noted brass tarnishes. I sort it and store it dry and clean more as my supply of ready to go brass dwindles.

Keeps it from being years before use and having to do the same thing twice. Because nothing will keep them good looking forever.

I might have 5 gallons or so of my most common stuff ready to load though and after I load them I post load tumble in corncob and polish to knock off the case lube and that does the trick.

I’m not real sure what you are talking about corn cob pre run but anything you do before a wet cleaning, would be cleaned off subsequently.

All that said, looks are not everything, some of my most accurate groups were fired with brass than have never seen a tumbler after I worked on them, just cleaned by hand.

[waldens]

MC, I wet tumble with 1/2 tsp. Lemishine and 1/4 cup Armor All Wash n Wax. I have brass from two years ago, still shiny. None older, didn’t wet tumble then.

Other wash and wax brands may work fine, I don’t know. I’ve only tried one other, Blue Coral, when Walmart was out of Armor All. It didn’t seem quite as effective at cleaning. And as for the Lemishine, when I finally use up my first bottle, I’ve got 5 pounds of citric acid on standby.

I rinse in a sifter pan with cold water, and just until it looks clean and suds-free.

If my wet-tumbled brass does ever tarnish, I’d probably just tumble again, no big deal. I don’t vacuum-seal brass, just store it in cat litter buckets or screw-top gallon canisters. If I did tumble a second time, I’d at least try it without pins, since there’s no carbon to scrub away. Should only take a half hour with the Armor All and Lemishine again.

[mrdaputer]

I use Dawn a pinch of lemishine and Johnson and Johnson wash and wax.

[cw308]

When I switched to wet tumbling with Stainless Steel Pins , I followed the instructions , Dawn , a pinch of LemiShine and water . Brass looked like new inside and out . Some of the time if I added too much LemiShine my brass had a pinkish look . What helped the most was my wife , I asked her why she didn't use Dawn liquid detergent , she said Sun liquid detergent worked much better . I only used the Sun Liquid Detergent no LemiShine and the brass looked amazing . I don't load and store my rounds , the longest my cleaned and sized cases for the next season is maybe 5 months and they still look like new.

After they come out of the tumbler I rinsed them off in warm water to remove any left on detergent . I wipe them down and let them air dry in those plastic holders loaded rounds come in , up side down and air dry for a day , then lube size and back in tumbler to remove the lube using the same process . If the cases are tarnishing in less then 5 months , what may be the cause is not removing all the detergent . It is normal for brass to loose the diamond bright shine but not to the point of field brass . New brass holds the shine for quite some time , tumbled brass should be the same .just get off all the soap .

[RC20]

If you had read my post you would realize that I do have and use dry tumblers, also. Your response is useless for the question stated, but I kind of think you intended that?

I was trying to be funny, not intended snarky, maybe not a lot of difference, I apologize.

I have a load of 41 magnum I cleaned up a few years ago and it needs to be polished again as I did not reload any (had enough rounds for my at the time rare shooting)

So I too have to run it through again. sigh.

I didn't get the ref to dry as well.

[RC20]

After they come out of the tumbler I rinsed them off in warm water to remove any left on detergent . I wipe them down and let them air dry in those plastic holders loaded rounds come in , up side down and air dry for a day , then lube size and back in tumbler to remove the lube using the same process .

My brother bought a cheap food dryer (fruit?) of some kid with multiple plates from Walmart, he says it works great and low cost.

[Bayou]

I also wet tumble using auto wash and wax (any brand will do - I've tried them all) and 1/4 TSP of Lemi-Shine.

After drying the tumbled brass, most gets used, but some gets stored. I don't vacuum pack but simply store in zip lock plastic bags. I've got some that have been stored this way for nearly 5 years.

Over this time, the bright finish has slightly darkened, but it remains nice and shiney (for my purposes, at least).

Bayou

[Reloadron]

Something you can try with cleaned brass. Package it as you mentioned using a vacuum pack. Brass is just an alloy of copper and zinc. Tarnishing is caused by oxygen so while you vacuum pack there is obviously some oxygen remaining in the sealed package. Nitrogen is cheap in small cylinders from any gas supply house. Try a nitrogen purge. Years ago we packed a brass product for long term storage, something like 10 - 20 years storage. We purged the bags (5 mil thick green poly) with nitrogen and then pulled a vacuum and sealed the bags. The sorbtion estimates on the green poly were something like 10 to 20 years before atmosphere (including oxygen) would get in the bags and tarnish the brass.

I just sort and clean my brass over the winter months and toss it in zip lock bags which keep it clean and shinny about a few years. So it really becomes a matter of how involved you want to get and at what cost.

Ron

[FrankenMauser]

My simple opinion:
If you want shiny brass, you need to dry tumble.
You can do so for just the polishing step, after cleaning via the process you continue to insist on referring to as gaseous effluent.

Stainless pin wet tumbling does not polish, it cleans. (Too much, at times; but that's another subject.)


Personally, I find the desire to polish cartridge cases to be a pursuit of vanity - turning ammunition into 'range jewelry'...

[Metal god]

I deprime then run through wet tumble . After I size and trim them I then run through a dry corncob tumble with polish . My brass comes out uber shinny and once clean and ready to load I put them in to zip-loc bags . They pretty much stay that way for quite awhile ( a year or two ) easy .