Thread: Sonic cleaners

Originally Posted by gadgetman

I use warm water, 1/2 tsp citric acid and a couple of drops of detergent. Rinse off in hot tap water a couple of times. Comes out clean and shiny, but dulls over time like clean brass does. A bit of sizing lube would likely keep it shiny.

That's what I use, my cleaner only has a 7-min cycle so I run it 3-4 times until the primer pockets a clean, then warm water (hot tap water) rinse. Then roll between 2 old tea towels and then blow out with compressed air and then ready to load

Good to know.
I have a fair bit of citric acid.

Originally Posted by gadgetman

I use warm water, 1/2 tsp citric acid and a couple of drops of detergent. Rinse off in hot tap water a couple of times. Comes out clean and shiny, but dulls over time like clean brass does. A bit of sizing lube would likely keep it shiny.

Same as I use but I add a drop or two of car washnwax stops the dulling

"flitz" metal polish is the stuff for keeping brass shiny

tumblers and corn husk are cheap and work great if allowed to run overnight.

Thanks for the tips guys.
My $100 1.5 liter sonic cleaner turned up yesterday. Did a sample run of 3 x 480 second runs...... it seemed towork out good. Took all the crud out of the lettering. I will run it through a standard corn media tumbler after sizing.

I'm interested in the sonic cleaner route also.
It seems simpler but I'm wondering why you go back to the corn media tumbler for a second clean ?
Does the sonic cleaner miss something?
1.5 liter seems a good size

I have an ultrasonic cleaner. About 1.8L capacity.
I use 1.5 L of nearly boiling water, 2 tsp of citric acid (cheapest house brand) and 2 tsp of dishwashing liquid.
Its maximum cycle is 8 minutes. For the first couple of loads this is sufficient. Subsequent loads need a 2nd cycle.

After ultrasonic cleaning I oven dry the cases at 120 C for 10 minutes and then allow to dry on a clean towel.

The cases don't come out shiny but do come out clean. I never have to separately clean primer pockets.

The residual dirty water goes on the lawn.

Originally Posted by widerange

I'm interested in the sonic cleaner route also.
It seems simpler but I'm wondering why you go back to the corn media tumbler for a second clean ?
Does the sonic cleaner miss something?
1.5 liter seems a good size

The reasoning for the media tumble was only to remove case lube, if I do a bump or f/l resize and also if there was any water left in the case this would get rid of it.
Presently trying out the lee collett die so no case lube ( or going into media tumbler ) untill a case bump is indicated


This photo shows a small improvement on the cases.... admittedly they are once fired and have been tumbled on a corn media tumbler prior to this but I was impressed how it ( the sonic ) removed the annealing colour band

Originally Posted by gonetropo

"flitz" metal polish is the stuff for keeping brass shiny

or Autosol ( Repco have it on special fairly regularly).