Last year, I purchased a Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler. There’s no disputing the results of the wet tumbling process for cleaning brass, so long as you use proper soap, Lemi Shine and pins. Others have their pet formulas, but the ones I’ve listed are tried and true. How you proceed after the cleaning process is a bit more muddled. I tried several different methods of rinsing and collecting the pins, and decided that wet tumbling was pain in the butt. Not the tumbling process itself, after all, all you do is throw everything in the drum and let the machine whorl for a few hours. After that though, was a messy operation.
Fast forward to this year. One of the things I got for Christmas was Frankford’s wet media separator. Short of having someone else do this task for you, this is the easiest way to perform the steps needed after the wet tumbling stops. The separator was well thought out. The basket should hold a full tumbler worth of brass. I didn’t have enough to fill my tumbler more than halfway, but it looked like there would be room for the entire tumbler had I mine been full. The basket would have been full, no doubt, but there should be enough room. The media separator body has a distinct top and bottom. The bottom has two sets of cut outs for the basket, one set that locks the basket in place for loading, and one for rotating the basket. After completing the wet tumbling, I made a deviation from Frankford’s directions: using one of the wet tumbler’s strainer end caps, I poured the dirty (filthy and disgusting is more applicable) water through a paint strainer into a 5 gallon pail. Back with Frankford’s directions: before transferring the tumbler’s contents to the basket, I filled the bottom of the media separator a little over half full of clean water. Then, using the cut outs for locking the basket, I dumped the brass, pins and remaining water into the basket. I put the top half of the separator in place and begin to spin. This is where you want to be a bit careful as spinning with too much gusto will cause water to slop out of the separator. A half dozen turns each way seemed to have cleaned all the pins out of the basket. Removing the top of the separator, I took it and the basket into my shower. The top has a screen in the middle, and turning the top upside down let me run more fresh water from my shower into the basket to better rinse off the brass. The screen in the top is to catch any run away pins, though I found none. With rinsing done, I emptied the basket onto a towel, rolled the brass around a bit and laid the towel in front of a heater to dry. Since it was -9 here this morning, the heater’s been running a lot, so drying the brass was quick too. I poured the rinse water I had put in the separator’s bottom half through the paint strainer, knocking out all the pins as well, then lifted the paint strainer out of the bucket and dumped the pins back into the wet tumbler. A few pins were left clinging to the strainer, but a few pins out the 5 pounds of them is insignificant. The pail was then dumped into the toilet. Did I mention it was nasty? Anyway, I rinsed out the pail, and that’s it, I was done.
Here are my thoughts on the separator: Frankford did a really great job designing it, and it is priced very affordably. It is a bit on the flimsy side, but as long as you don’t try playing field hockey with it, it should last for several years. Would I pay more for one of stouter construction? Probably, but that’s just the way I am. After all, I chose Dillon products over Lee, even though they both get the job done. Regardless, if you are looking to get into wet tumbling or are already there and are looking for a better process to separate and rinse the brass, I highly recommend the product.
Fast forward to this year. One of the things I got for Christmas was Frankford’s wet media separator. Short of having someone else do this task for you, this is the easiest way to perform the steps needed after the wet tumbling stops. The separator was well thought out. The basket should hold a full tumbler worth of brass. I didn’t have enough to fill my tumbler more than halfway, but it looked like there would be room for the entire tumbler had I mine been full. The basket would have been full, no doubt, but there should be enough room. The media separator body has a distinct top and bottom. The bottom has two sets of cut outs for the basket, one set that locks the basket in place for loading, and one for rotating the basket. After completing the wet tumbling, I made a deviation from Frankford’s directions: using one of the wet tumbler’s strainer end caps, I poured the dirty (filthy and disgusting is more applicable) water through a paint strainer into a 5 gallon pail. Back with Frankford’s directions: before transferring the tumbler’s contents to the basket, I filled the bottom of the media separator a little over half full of clean water. Then, using the cut outs for locking the basket, I dumped the brass, pins and remaining water into the basket. I put the top half of the separator in place and begin to spin. This is where you want to be a bit careful as spinning with too much gusto will cause water to slop out of the separator. A half dozen turns each way seemed to have cleaned all the pins out of the basket. Removing the top of the separator, I took it and the basket into my shower. The top has a screen in the middle, and turning the top upside down let me run more fresh water from my shower into the basket to better rinse off the brass. The screen in the top is to catch any run away pins, though I found none. With rinsing done, I emptied the basket onto a towel, rolled the brass around a bit and laid the towel in front of a heater to dry. Since it was -9 here this morning, the heater’s been running a lot, so drying the brass was quick too. I poured the rinse water I had put in the separator’s bottom half through the paint strainer, knocking out all the pins as well, then lifted the paint strainer out of the bucket and dumped the pins back into the wet tumbler. A few pins were left clinging to the strainer, but a few pins out the 5 pounds of them is insignificant. The pail was then dumped into the toilet. Did I mention it was nasty? Anyway, I rinsed out the pail, and that’s it, I was done.
Here are my thoughts on the separator: Frankford did a really great job designing it, and it is priced very affordably. It is a bit on the flimsy side, but as long as you don’t try playing field hockey with it, it should last for several years. Would I pay more for one of stouter construction? Probably, but that’s just the way I am. After all, I chose Dillon products over Lee, even though they both get the job done. Regardless, if you are looking to get into wet tumbling or are already there and are looking for a better process to separate and rinse the brass, I highly recommend the product.
