Lyman Wet Tumbler Leak Solution

Good Evening,

Moving from dry to wet tumbling was the best move in case preparation. However, my Lyman was leaking like so many others and I tried using a strap wrench but still had leaking. Not happy with my purchase, I was ready to send it back. Then I recalled my days in a Biochemistry lab 40 years ago and found a solution.

To prepare our glassware for the high vacuums needed in the centrifuges, we used the grease you see below. I am now tumbling some 50BMG for the T-Gewehr and 35 minutes into the tumbling, no leaks. Will see if the grease eats up the gasket, but I suspect all will be OK. Though you see the strap-wrench, I did not torque the lid too much. Randy

Attachment 130917

I was using the Frankford arsenal wet tumbler and had a couple leaks to start. I wet the end caps before tightening and they quit leaking. Trying to tighten them dry is a problem.

I have a Lyman wet tumbler. I always have a pot of food grade silicone grease around for my many corny kegs that suffer the same problem. Rinse the gasket well after each use, and then lightly grease it before storing.

Yep!

Food-grade Silicone grease or, since we are not eating the brass, the traditional "Rubber Grease", as used in water pumps and associated fittings.

I run my Lyman tumbler outside in a shady spot, not because of the "incontinence" issue, but because of the noise in a modestly-sized, timber-framed house. I tried running it in the bathroom where the floor pitches to a convenient drain-hole but that was a bit awkward. While I was still using a "dry" bowl type tumbler, I ran it outside exclusively, because those things are noisy AND dusty. Final tip: the "magic" chemical used in the wet tumblers is Citric Acid. The stuff in the orange box is expensive. However, if you are home-brewing beer or have a brewing supplies store handy, you can buy Citric Acid in crystalline form by the Kilogram for, well, beer money. It is used for cleaning and sterilizing all the lines and vessels used in the brewing process, including bottle washing. It is also used in cooking. At a few tea-spoon shots per cycle, a couple of Kilos goes a LONG way. Store in a good, airtight container.

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Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

Citric Acid. The stuff in the orange box is expensive. However, if you are home-brewing beer or have a brewing supplies store handy, you can buy Citric Acid in crystalline form by the Kilogram for, well, beer money. It is used for cleaning and sterilizing all the lines and vessels used in the brewing process, including bottle washing. It is also used in cooking. At a few tea-spoon shots per cycle, a couple of Kilos goes a LONG way. Store in a good, airtight container.

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Same basic idea, but maybe easier to locate is Lemishine. It's in the grocery store with the dishwasher detergent, used for cleaning all the crud out of a metal tub dishwasher. It's cheap...and a spent 45acp case full is all it takes to do a a very full load of brass in the Lyman wet tumbler.

One thing to add - if you aren't going to lube and size right away, put a few drops of oil on your fingers as you handle your cases to put away for storage...otherwise you'll get green spots after a few weeks.

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Originally Posted by ssgross

Lemishine

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I had a container of that lasting ages. Little is all that's needed. I used Dawn dish soap and again just a few drops. More isn't better, it's the difference in your brass staying bright and turning dark butter yellow in minutes. Also I let my brass air dry and it stayed nice, if you try to warm it in the oven mine turned dark. I wore surgical gloves to handle the brass because I have acidy hands. I had to check .30 cal brass for stainless pins across the case mouths, 30-30 would have lots and .308 only once in a while.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Dawn dish soap

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same here. The more cases you put in, the less soap you need...counter intuitive for some, but obviously there is less room for water if you have more brass in there.

I've used the mix of a teaspoon of tartaric acid and a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid in a litre of hot water mix for cleaning cases for more than 30 years. Leave them for some hours, stirring every now and then. Rinse with clean water, tumble them in an old towel to get most of the water out, air dry - I'm not in a hurry am I. Come out clean and shiny.

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Originally Posted by Daan Kemp

I'm not in a hurry am I

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LOL. I broke down and bought a dryer the other year. I'm not in a hurry, but when towels full of drying brass are lying around the house the Mrs. gets in a hurry to have me done with it.

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Originally Posted by ssgross

towels full of drying brass are lying around the house

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There was that, mine didn't seem to mind and there's no kids or pets to investigate. Took a night or day to dry and the sit and sort them from there.

I used to lay a towel on top of our old electric hot-water heater, which was quite large and stood in its own alcove in my workshop.

When it started generously leaking onto the floor, we replaced it with an "outside-rated" one of more modest dimensions, so it is back to sun-drying on old towels spread out on the lawn.

Those Lyman pins are a great polishing aid, but they are expensive and get into odd places in the brass, (not so much with 9mm cases).

I bought one of those hand-cranked rotary media separators (the cheap blue one) to do a primary separation and "slow spin-dry". This gets most of the pins and water out. The next step is to use a fairly powerful old magnet from an expired loudspeaker driver to sweep up the ones among the dried cases on the towel.

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Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

Those Lyman pins are a great polishing aid, but they are expensive

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They're $85CDN for a 5LB bag here. I took the best care of them.

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Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

I bought one of those hand-cranked rotary media separators

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That's what I got too, they're designed for use with the pins.

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Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

a fairly powerful old magnet

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I had a handle magnet to go with, it worked better than my eyes to find the pins.

I'm still on the fence about wet tumbling. I don't know if the x3 extra effort to make the cartridges pretty worth it. I get paranoid that pins might unknowingly be inside the cartridge case and find myself checking them during each process of reloading. I always decap my casings first, so even when I dry tumble in my Lyman vibratory the primer pockets get clean enough where it does not effect anything, not that not cleaning them changes anything either,

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Originally Posted by usabaker

when I dry tumble in my Lyman vibratory the primer pockets get clean enough

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It's not that they get clean enough, your cases are like new brass after wet tumbling. Yes, more effort but no comparison. I did dry tumbling for 40 years and swore I didn't need wet tumbling but once I tried wet I found the dry had been a waste of time. My Dillon press stayed clean while loading. I didn't have any pins get past the drying phase.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

It's not that they get clean enough, your cases are like new brass after wet tumbling. Yes, more effort but no comparison.

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I think the biggest advantage is how much easier it is to inspect cases for signs of over stretching, and it's easier to see when they are annealed properly. New 30-06 brass has been very hard to come by these last few years, and so I've been tuning my process and shooting to make what I have last a bit longer. I'm on my 12th reload of the current lot. Each case needs carefully inspected at this point, and bright shiny from wet tumbling makes any flaws easier to spot. The first sign 30-06 brass needs to be tossed is a ring 1/3 down the case, clearly visible with just a glance inside the case after wet tumbling. Annealing after each firing and using lower(ish) pressure loads when you can will double the life of 30-06. Just my 2 cents.

Well folks, I may be a little late to the party but better late than never. I solved my leaking gasket problem by just slobbering up the gaskets with dawn dish soap when I'm at the sink loading with water etc.
A pinch of lemeshine, a blurb of Dawn dish soap and fill with hot water.
Tumble for an hour or so and then check. Don't want to get too carried away with the wet tumbling or they start to look frosted or maybe take on a satin look......
I keep an eye on them and when I'm happy the next step is dump dirty water into a bucket, and then move along to an old Dillon hand crank media separator,(garage sale $20), Full of water and tumble for a bit,
Next is into an old colander for a vigorous shake while blowing with compressed air.
Then onto a cookie sheet with paper towels,
And since my reloading is done in the winter time, I just slide the cookie sheet under the woodstove overnight and retrieve the next day.
Since I have well water, I usually end up with some spotting, so it's off to the dry media tumble for a bit and they come out looking like new.

I also read somewhere along the way, if you have one of the pick up magnets that's made especially for retrieving the stainless pins,
Best off not to submerge in the water,, as they trap water inside and then rust from the inside out.
Hope this helps !
Edit: may seem like a long process but it's something I enjoy, and I am in no hurry!

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Originally Posted by RAM1ALASKA

Don't want to get too carried away with the wet tumbling or they start to look frosted or maybe take on a satin look......

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I did mine for three hours without fail, and they never came out frosted. They always had a perfect shine like factory unless I added too much dawn or lemme shine. Then they would come out perfect and turn butter color as they dried.

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Originally Posted by RAM1ALASKA

Don't want to get too carried away with the wet tumbling or they start to look frosted or maybe take on a satin look

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Too much lemishine (or equivalent polish substance) will make them look dull and cause green spots. I also found that that if I store them after they are dry, I get some tarnish spot. Now if I know I won't get to them for a few days or more, I just go ahead and lube them right out of the dryer. I did start annealing this year too, so they get dried twice, once after tumbling and again after they drop from the annealer into a bucket of water.

Browingautorifle said :
I did mine for three hours without fail, and they never came out frosted. They always had a perfect shine like factory unless I added too much dawn or lemme shine. Then they would come out perfect and turn butter color as they dried.
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:thup: absolutely on the three hours, I don't remember but I have a sneaky suspicion I probably way over did the tumble
and the additives and I agree on too much of the additives is definitely a recipe for problems.
At any rate, the satisfaction of seeing a batch turn out "just right" puts a smile on my face ! :D

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Originally Posted by RAM1ALASKA

too much of the additives is definitely a recipe for problems.

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I also wonder about content of the tumbler? I found a tall margarine tub full of brass, no matter what caliber was all I could put in reliably. Any more was too much. I had the big tumbler... I had problems to start and had to read every forum I could to glean the small detail answers and sort out my problems. Good thing I have the time to do the research.

The other caveat regarding "dry bowl" tumblers is the nature of rge "media".

Not the walnut shells or ground-up corn cobs, but the abrasive paste / grit added to actually to the work.

"Jewelers Rouge" is pretty abrasive stuff. Leaving ANY of it on or in a case will subsequently be a bit "harsh" on loading dies, especially full-length sizing ones for bottle-necked cases. See also "expander balls"; there is a reason Tungsten carbide ones are rapidly gaining popularity, especially in "high-volume" operations..

Full-length CARBIDE dies are seriously expensive, especially rifle-calibre ones.

Usabaker your concerns about media separation may not be without merit. Just finished a tumble of some PMC 6.5x55 and found this…edit: this had been through a rigorous tumbling in a media separator when I found it. It did tap right out easily.

I had steel pins stick in 30/30 cases I think, not so much in a .308. They will also stay inside wet cases to some degree, I used to shake them after drying and sit with needle nose pliers and pull out the dozen or so pins that stuck. Just inspect them every time and there's no problem.

Found three more. One jammed so bad the case is a loss. I spilled a bunch of pins out and mic’d them(an exercise in dexterity and patience) and found wide variations in lengths. Shortest was .253 and longest .262.5 of the dozen I checked.
Now I’m not complaining, once I switched a few years ago, I became an instant convert. A bit more work, and more equipment certainly. But what a joy working with absolutely clean brass. I just gave all my dry tumbling equipment away.

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Originally Posted by Steve762

Pins do get stuck in the flash holes of about 2%

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Yes, I had some but can't remember what the examples would be. Not many though. The cross stuck mouth pins will come out with needle nose pliers...I never lost a case to one. This is the first I heard of sealing the brass from tarnish like that. Yes, once you get started with this method of tumbling the corn cob and vibra tumber were sold. I'd never go back to that way, far too dirty.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

cross stuck mouth pins

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never had one of these. I get the odd pin in a flash hole once in a while. What I got more when I switched to wet tumbling was different caliber cases stuck together by a wedged pin(s) when I thought I could save time by doing easily separable calibers together. Learned that lesson the hard way. 5.56 gets stuck in 9mm, 308 and 30-06 sticks in 45acp, or it gets really stuck in 45lc or 45-70. 9mm will wedge in 45 cases with the pins. Always test before you tumble together! if there is a way for them to fit together loosely, the pins will jam it super tight.

For what it's worth, I dry tumble in walnut just what I plan to load in a session for 15 min after sizing to remove lube. I deprime and size in separate steps, with wet tumbling in between which cleans the primer pockets very well, and all in all takes less time than handling each case to clean pockets (not counting the time drinking beer while the pins do all the work).

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Originally Posted by ssgross

I thought I could save time by doing easily separable calibers together.

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There's even a disclaimer in their paperwork instructions not to do that. After fighting with them coming out of a thumblers tumbler and corn cob, the pins promised to permanently weld them together. the other thing was depriming first or the primers may never come out when you decide to process them. I'd size everything in a carbide die and a rockchucker, recycle the primers with scrap brass and then your cases were like new.