Thread: If you ever wanted to know about corn cob grit for tumbling

I have a couple different tumblers, but I use corn cob media in both. I have used a dab of Brasso for shining, but I've heard that the ammonia is not good - so I'm dumping the media so treated.

My difficulty lately has been with .454 brass, and I'm just not getting it to polish up nicely - looks like stains on the cases. Any ideas? I normally tumble about 4 hours.

I've tried de-priming before and after - I really like de-priming first, even though I have to clean some of the flash holes (I use a campfire barbeque fork tine)

Oh, for filtering the cases out of the media - I bought two large plastic bowls at the Dollar Store. I drilled a bunch of 1/4" holes in one, use it as my "filter" while using the other to catch the media. I think each bowl was 99 cents. works great. I use the cut-off top of a gallon milk carton to funnel my media back into the tumbler.

Originally Posted by tomiswho

I have a couple different tumblers, but I use corn cob media in both. I have used a dab of Brasso for shining, but I've heard that the ammonia is not good - so I'm dumping the media so treated.

My difficulty lately has been with .454 brass, and I'm just not getting it to polish up nicely - looks like stains on the cases. Any ideas? I normally tumble about 4 hours.

I've tried de-priming before and after - I really like de-priming first, even though I have to clean some of the flash holes (I use a campfire barbeque fork tine)

Oh, for filtering the cases out of the media - I bought two large plastic bowls at the Dollar Store. I drilled a bunch of 1/4" holes in one, use it as my "filter" while using the other to catch the media. I think each bowl was 99 cents. works great. I use the cut-off top of a gallon milk carton to funnel my media back into the tumbler.

I had some range brass not shine up.

I went to Petsmart and bought walnut bedding for lizard cages.

It clean the dingy cases and then the corn cob shined 'em right up.

As for filtering, some folks use a colender, I think that's how you spell it. You know, one of the kitchen things that you pour spaghetti into to let the water run out. Got to have large holes, I'd think.

Hack

black how are you coming with the paper patching
when you get it down I was hope you will teach me

haven't gotten to far with it, seems some much other things keep getting in the way.

Nu Finish in the orange bottle from your local autopart retailer, chinamart, or the like will work better than Frankford Arsenal stuff. I also use the "used" dryer sheets in my tumbler to keep dust down.

+1 on tumbling loaded rounds... they all come out really pretty and slick.

I got a small package of the cob media from the "greenproducts" link back on the first page. It seems to work marginally better than what I had - however yesterday a good friend stopped by and said they have 100's of pounds of media they use in their metal products production, and I can stop by and get whatever I need..... that price sounds about right!