Restoring polish media?

[Bob Wright]

I use a two drum Thumbler's tumbler to clean my brass, and use Lyman's walnut shell media. This stuff gets ineffective after awhile and can be rejuvenated by adding the polish. Some years ago I bought a bottle or Lyman's Turbo Brite additive and added it to my used media. This was sort of a dark green liquid.

Recently bought a bottle of the same stuff (I thought) and it is a white semi-paste. I added this to my media and ran the tumbler from Saturday noon to Monday morning. I had lumps of media that looked like rat droppings, and seems I've messed up two barrels of media.

Anybody have any idea what has happened to the original media? I have contacted Lyman, but so far no reply.


Bob Wright

 

[Mobuck]

Most of those clumps will break up when you add brass. This has happened when I put in too much or didn't spread the polish thinly as the media tumbled.

 

[AzShooter1]

I use Dillon Case Lube when my media gets dirty. It seems to revive it quite well and I get extremely well polished brass after only 1 - 2 hours of shaking it. Any polish should do. I even know guys that use car wax with some success.

 

[Kevin]

I use Dillon Case Lube when my media gets dirty. It seems to revive it quite well and I get extremely well polished brass after only 1 - 2 hours of shaking it. Any polish should do. I even know guys that use car wax with some success.

Yes, I used to use a vibrating cleaner with walnut shells. I always added a squirt of liquid car wax. It shined up brass really nice. But sometimes I'd have to pick gunked up media out of the insides of the cases. Now, I've gone to the wet cleaning with a rotating tumbler and stainless steel pins, much much nicer. BUT, takes more time to sort out cases and separate the stainless pins.

 

[Rclark]

When the ground walnut (I don't put any polish in with) gets to dirty or doesn't do its job, I just toss it. Lizard Litter (Zilla Ground English Walnut) is 'cheap' (or at least was when I bought 20 quarts or so of the stuff a few years ago now). It gets my shells as clean as I need them to be.

 

[jack black]

Take a paper towel tear into three equal pieces and put it in with your brass .I find that I get a longer lasting media those towel pieces work great and help keep the media clean

 

[Rclark]

I forgot about that. Been a while since I had to use the tumbler. I put in a discarded dryer sheet (always in good supply) also for dust removal. It helps.

 

[Ron IL]

I used to use dryer sheets to clean up the dust. The walmart ones didn't pick up much but the name brand ones came out like a blanket. The last couple batches I did the other day I took one of those half sheets of paper towel and cut up in six squares. They were coated really good with dust. That really keeps down the dust. I will do that for about every other batch or every batch if I have to. Nice to dump it into the separator without the cloud of dust.

 

[BrassMagnet]

Add a little odorless mineral spirits (a teaspoon to a tablespoon) to remove asphalt or tar and such from brass.

When I add polishing media, odorless mineral spirits, car wax, or any other liquid to my tumbler media it make the media clump and I don't like that. It is distressing to think some might get caught in the case or primer pocket and not get my brass clean. So I use a small wire whip from the Dollar store to break up the clumps until I am happy with the media.

 

[The Happy Kaboomer]

Take a paper towel tear into three equal pieces and put it in with your brass .I find that I get a longer lasting media those towel pieces work great and help keep the media clean

Same here. I use Lizard Litter from Petsmart. I add a little Nu-Shine car polish. Only takes an hour to get shiny brass. Old media gets tossed. not worth reguvinating.

 

[magshooter1]

I had read about using the dryer sheets. Hadn't heard that a paper towel would work too. Gonna have to try that.

 

[oscar]

I use a teaspoon of New Finish auto polish when the media needs it.