Tumble Soap for Cleaning Brass with Stainless Pins

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dh1633pm

dh1633pm

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Do you have hard water?

Your brass don't come out shiny with Dawn and Lemi-shine?

According to MSDS, Tumble Soap is an alkaline cleaner containing Borate Pentahydrate and Sodium Tetra Pyrophosphate - http://www.raytechmetalfinishing.com/support/pdfs/finishing-media/RayMF_FM_Soap.pdf

At $12 per pound, you could try much cheaper Borax and TSP (Trisodium Phosphate)

- Dawn/Simple Green/TSP works as degreaser/surfactant to remove dirt/oil/carbon soot
- Lemi-shine/vinegar/citric acid provide acid to remove tarnishing
- Borax is water softener

So perhaps Tumble Soap is similar to Borax and TSP?

If your water is hard, I would try adding a Teaspoon of Borax and Tablespoon of TSP to tumble water and see if you get similar results.

If your brass is still tarnished, you would need to add acid to the tumble water.
 
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Thank you BDS. No hard water here. I can wash the truck and let the water air dry. No hard water stains at all. TSP is not sold in NY. I do have Borax. I not quite sure what it is or why it worked better, but figured this (THR) was the place to find out.

Lemon shine, a little dawn and some car wash cleans the brass good, but not really shiny. I have a Covington tumbler and it is top notch. I have an utrasonic cleaner as well Use it to clean metal parts and sometimes brass. It too doesn't really get the brass shiny.

I paid $15 for a pound of stuff. Called a burnishing compound or a tumble soap. Figured what the heck, give it a try. Used my travel points so I didn't actually pay the $15. It did however work. I used three 45 Colt empties of the stuff and three quarts of water and just a hair of dawn.
 
Thanks for the comments ponchh. You make a good point. I will check carefully next time I clean. What I was really wanting to know if this "tumblr soap" or "tumble soap" as Raytech calls it is safe for brass and/or if anyone has used it? It Is $15 a pound, but it seems a very little bit goes a long way. I did the google thing, but not many answers. When I purchased it the site has lots and now its all gone. So someone is buying the stuff.
 
Sorry but I know nothing of Tumble Soap but what has been posted in this Thread.

dh1633pm said:
... I always get some semi-shiny brass ...
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like ponchh may be onto something ... which may also involve the ratios of water & cleaner(s) that you are adding.

For reference, I use a FART with ~5lbs of pins. At most I will fill the container to ~70% capacity with cases, add pins, fill with warm/hot water to near full, then citric acid powder (~¼tsp?) and ArmorAll Wash&Wax (~2tbs?). I always run the device for 3 hours.

That procedure provides me with bright, shiny, new-looking cases, inside & out (assuming no traces of tar bullet sealant).

The only remaining factor may be the Covington tumbler, a device with which I have zero familiarity.

===

BTW, citric acid is the LemiShine ingredient that turns the tarnished brass shiny. For many years before I transitioned from dry to wet tumbling I would add a bit of citric acid powder (or some phosphoric acid solution) to my pre-cleaning case container and the cases came out BRIGHT.
 
The Covington is pretty sweet. And thanks for the input. I want to get back to the product that I was testing "Tumblr Soap". It worked great. So it could be the combination that I was using. I can re-visit that, but is the Tumblr Soap that I stumbled up safe for brass and how does it work compared to our favorites?
 
I have never used that soap, dawn and pins only.
That is what I started with, it worked so never tried anything else. But I always make sure the tumbler is full of water to slow velocity of brass flopping around.
I don't wear gloves so I wash my hands with dawn before handling brass. NCM_0283.JPG NCM_0253.JPG
Pictures of brass fresh out of tumbler & about 1 1/2 years in storage.
 
One thing I just started doing with my primed brass is to dump the water after an hour of tumbling, and add more soap/Lemishine, and then refill with clean water. It really makes a difference.

With decapped brass, I do not do this, but all of the primer crud added to the mess just overloads the system imho.
 
Good point Doublehelix, I have done the same when the brass is really dirty, but I also might pre-soak. Still no answers as to what this stuff really is. I took the suggest above and I am trying some right now in the ultrasonic cleaner and another group in the tumbler with just a few 45 LC empties of the stuff, nothing else for each. I will run it twice through the ultrasonic and two hours in the tumbler.

I had excellent luck yesterday. Best looking brass I have seen in a while.
 
The ultrasonic cleaning did ok, but not great. Better than usual. I don't normally use this to clean brass. Use it to clean parts. Like my sks when it was full of cosmoline. Put the whole trigger group in. The other brass I put in the tumbler for two hours again came out great. Just two 45 long colt rounds full of the stuff in plain old cold water with brass pins.
 
Tumble soap Is used in The Rock tumbling Hobby and Jewelry polishing to Burnish.. It will burnish metal , brass and other. Rock tumblers which i do will burnish some rocks for Let say Coloring. It is not recommended with SS pins. I don't Know the reason For this .
 
salpal48 said:
Tumble soap ... is not recommended with SS pins. I don't Know the reason For this .
Click to expand...
So perhaps we should stick to Borax and TSP? At least they have been tested to be OK with brass wet tumbling.
bds said:
Your brass don't come out shiny with Dawn and Lemi-shine?
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Still, my question persists ... with so many people getting their tarnished brass to mirror shine with just Dawn, Lemi-shine and SS pins, I wonder why OP cannot get brass shiny?
 
What I really want to know is why I got excellent results with just the Tumble Soap? And at that, just a little bit.

Burnishing is the process of polishing metal to give it a smooth shiny finish.
 
dh1633pm said:
What I really want to know is why I got excellent results with just the Tumble Soap? And at that, just a little bit.
Click to expand...
If Tumble Soap is essentially Borax and TSP, the fact that you are getting a good polish means it likely has micro abrasives like in polishing compound.

So, you could try running a batch of brass with toothpaste which has micro abrasives? If you get a good polish with toothpaste, then you can do Borax + TSP + micro abrasives (toothpaste) for homemade Tumble Soap? ;)

But as others posted, I still think if you get the proper soap-to-acid ratio, your brass should come out mirror shiny.
 
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Just a FYI, I tried putting in a dab of paste car wax with soap, citric acid and the pins one time. BAD idea. Brass turned out yuck gray. LIke all the crud had been ground superfine and deposited on the brass. Took a bunch of 409 to clean it up.
Seemed like a good idea when I tried it but it sure was a mistake for me.
 
I wanted to say thanks everyone for their comments. Its how one learns. I handled the brass after it was polished, there is no grit in the mix. Its not like tooth paste where you can feel it. Its slippery. I will use my pool test kit this morning on to see what the PH is and let everyone know.
 
I tested the PH this morning. It is about 9 on the scale. Its a color scale with testers used for pools. So its not totally accurate. It could be just a soap combination. But it did work great with a very small amount.
 
It is. Very slippery. No strong smell. And works good with just a little. I would say that its workable unless someone has a reason that it shouldn't be used, like it is bad for the brass.
 
dh1633pm said:
It is. Very slippery. No strong smell. And works good with just a little. I would say that its workable unless someone has a reason that it shouldn't be used, like it is bad for the brass.
Click to expand...

Again, the Soap is MADE for cleaning brass and other metals and jewelry it is fine,
 
It is interesting that the soap is alkaline, and Lemishine is acetic acid *citric acid*, and therefore acidic (on the opposite end of the scale). Now acetic acid *citric acid* is a weak acid granted, but it is an acid nonetheless.

Edited to change "acetic acid" to "citric acid" to avoid confusion. Sorry for the mixup...
 
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With a more alkaline water you will need to add more LimeShine. I had to increase my dosage (1/4 to 1/2 tsp) when I switched over to county water from my well. My well had become very acidic to a point I was having to adj the pH every 2 weeks and still wasn't keeping up with it. Untreated it was attacking the copper piping.
 
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