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Rinse baths


aac58

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Many times we've asked about the best cleaning products/procedures for watch parts. And that includes of course the rinse baths, but usually we are more focused on the cleaning products.

I use naphtha to clean, and IPA to rinse, andc the results are not bad I think, but I'd say they are not on the top range. I work on my own vintege Seikos (6xxx and 7xxx series) and when everything goes right I get amplitude at about 220º.

Today I've made a mistake and I've used a naphtha bath when I was trying to rinse the parts. Then I've notice under the microscope that there were a lot of old disolved oils on the jewels, and using a pegwood that oils could be removed (or al least moved) After a good IPA rinse that oils had dissapeared, so I think IPA is great for that task.

My questions then is: as I do not rinse on IPA the balance wheel nor the pallet fork, I now think these two parts are not properly cleand and that can be affecting the amplitude. How do you rinse them? Can you give me some advice please?

Thanks for reading.

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I put the balance through the cleaning process mounted on the main plate along with the rest of the parts. When I was touring the Patek repair center in New York in November this is what they did as well. Leads me to think it must not be as dangerous as some people say?

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20 minutes ago, CaptCalvin said:

I put the balance through the cleaning process mounted on the main plate along with the rest of the parts...

I also clean the balance mounted on the main plate, but I take it and the pallet out before rinse with IPA, as it could affect the shellac on the jewels. That's why I think I need a different rinse that is shellac friendly.

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4 hours ago, aac58 said:

Today I've made a mistake and I've used a naphtha bath when I was trying to rinse the parts.

Which "naptha"? If you use "refined benzine", or "petroleoum ether", or Hexane, that leaves no residue. These products can found online, or a chemist store, or even at the pharmacy. That being said, I do rinse in demilitarized water and IPA myself. And I took the habit of looking at liquid against light, if I can spot more than one floating particle I re-clean the (appropriately named) benzine jar and replace the fluid.

44 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

A quick rinse in IPA will not dissolve shellac. 10+ minutes, yes it will.

Correct. But as in any lubrication / cleaning discussion, pre-made opinions are mostly impossible to change. Fortunately for Ronsonol :biggrin:

Edited by jdm
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1 hour ago, nickelsilver said:

A quick rinse in IPA will not dissolve shellac. 10+ minutes, yes it will.

Yes, that's what I've heard but I've never dare to do so, if the pallets or the impulse pin moves I wouldn´t be able to reshellac, and unless they are totally apart I probably woudn't find the cause of the problems.

21 minutes ago, jdm said:

 

Which "naptha"? ...

The product I use is sold as petroleum ether and "hidrocarburo C9". It leaves no residue, but what I see is some drops of the old oils disolved but stucked on the wheel jewels, like a kind of jelly I'd say.

With the IPA rinse that jelly dissapears almost completely, but I don't think it's a good idea to put the balance and pallet in the ultrasonic with IPA, I wish I could use a different and affordable product.

Next time I'll watch the pallets under the microscope looking for any trace of oil.

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19 minutes ago, aac58 said:

With the IPA rinse that jelly dissapears almost completely, but I don't think it's a good idea to put the balance and pallet in the ultrasonic with IPA, I wish I could use a different and affordable product.

Certainly one would not use U/S for rinsing, because all "dirt" adhesion must have been broken at this point. A quick IPA bath is all what is needed. But in a cleaning discussion let's not put facts or experience before feelings :biggrin:

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1 hour ago, aac58 said:

The product I use is sold as petroleum ether and "hidrocarburo C9".

This stuff is the most confusing ever, to me at least. I have looked Hydrocarbon C9 and come up with the info sheet attached. It's not understandable unless you're a specialized chemist. In summary 4 main products fall in this category:

  • 95-63-6 Benzene, 1,2,4-trimethyl
  • 108-67-8 Benzene, 1,3,5-trimethyl
  • 25550-14-5 Benzene, ethylmethyl (ethyltoluene mixed isomers)
  •  64742-95-6 Solvent naphtha, (petroleum), light aromatic

The first three are the much dreaded (because of its toxicity) benzene. The last one doesn't carry a "mixed isomers" name that is on the product that I use wich has CAS 649-328-00-1, neither is "standard petroleum ether", CAS  8032-32-4. I can only suppose they are all "pure" and dissolve oils to some degree.

C9 Aromatic Hydrocarbon Solvents Category SIAP.pdf

Edited by jdm
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L&R Ultrasonic rinse. While you are at it get the cleaning fluid too. They are $50 for a gallon, they can be filtered and last you a long time, its not like your servicing 10-20 watches a day. One dip on the pallet and balance assembly if you don’t want to change your chemicals. Problem solved. Remember Solvents like naphtha will leave an oily residue, so getting a better cleanser will make your rinses more effective.

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14 hours ago, aac58 said:

But the question was about the rinse, not the cleaning product :lolu:

Largely answered above already and going from a fluid to another hopefully won't get me punished :-) 

 

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20 hours ago, jdm said:

That being said, I do rinse in demilitarized water and IPA myself.

1 hour ago, jdm said:

Largely answered above already and going from a fluid to another hopefully won't get me punished :-) 

 

Depends what intelligence agency discovers you've been straying into a DMZ to get your water. B) :biggrin:

 

 

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On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2020 at 5:25 AM, aac58 said:

Many times we've asked about the best cleaning products/procedures for watch parts. And that includes of course the rinse baths, but usually we are more focused on the cleaning products.

I use naphtha to clean, and IPA to rinse, andc the results are not bad I think, but I'd say they are not on the top range. I work on my own vintege Seikos (6xxx and 7xxx series) and when everything goes right I get amplitude at about 220º.

Today I've made a mistake and I've used a naphtha bath when I was trying to rinse the parts. Then I've notice under the microscope that there were a lot of old disolved oils on the jewels, and using a pegwood that oils could be removed (or al least moved) After a good IPA rinse that oils had dissapeared, so I think IPA is great for that task.

My questions then is: as I do not rinse on IPA the balance wheel nor the pallet fork, I now think these two parts are not properly cleand and that can be affecting the amplitude. How do you rinse them? Can you give me some advice please?

Thanks for reading.

    i am guessing, but IPA =  iso  propel alcohol ?  if so,   it is available in  several concentration WITH  water..   99% will wipe out shellac.   pharmacies   have 75% and call it "rubbing  alcohol"  AND  if un stoppered,  it will draw water  from the air.  if dilute enough,   it is like cleaning with water.   vin

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IPA is isopropyl alcohol. A quick rinse (under a minute or two) in 99% is absolutely ok. My cleaning machine (Greiner) uses it as a rinse, the instructions say to rinse the fork and balance for that long; it has always worked fine for me. Some manufacturers call for a final rinse in IPA as well, 99%. It's really OK to do.

Take a fork with shellac on it and see how long it takes to dissolve in IPA. You'll be surprised.

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7 hours ago, CaptCalvin said:

Forgot to mention that in my tour of the Patek facility I found that they use isopropyl alcohol as a final rinse as well.

I think the use of IPA is a bit frowned upon a bit too much but as said it is perfectly fine to use on certain movements according to manufacturers recommendation but i believe it should only be used in this instance. Not sure why that is maybe something to do with shellac shelf life for example i would never use ipa on vintage movements. if it doesn’t dissolve the shellac it softens it enough to mess up the pallet jewels positioning, thus messing up my lock and exit. Found this out the hard way years ago when started out with watch repair as a hobby, i used it on some older movements mostly pre-1960 and I couldn’t figure out why nothing worked after i cleaned and reassembled. Those days i was using the old ronsonol/ipa method. And came to find out that even after a quick rinse (5 minutes tops in ultrasonic) my pallet and roller jewels were coming loose. So in that case i would not use it on pallet or balance for any amount of time unless specified by manufacturer. Kinda sucks because it such a great product to use esp for hairsprings. Sometimes I am temped to just remove the HS just to dunk it in IPA.

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On 1/3/2020 at 9:16 AM, saswatch88 said:

L&R Ultrasonic rinse.

I think I made this identical comment before but here we go again. The above cost £35.50 + VAT + significant shipping due to it's weight. Then we look at it's composition from the attached sheet and we get:

Component                                       CAS Number        Percentage
Stoddard Solvent (C6H6 < 0.1%)   8052-41-3            70-80
Solvent Naphtha Light Aliphatic    64742-89-8          20-30

Personally I use something like 5cc for each rinse so certainly I have no use for a gallon. And I can make the same fluid with just two economical products bought locally.

Also I find curious that an highly flammable fluid is sold to be used in Ultrasonic cleaners, which (at least the ones I have seen) expressly frown upon that.

93_F2802 COSH Sheet.pdf

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1 hour ago, jdm said:

I think I made this identical comment before but here we go again. The above cost £35.50 + VAT + significant shipping due to it's weight. Then we look at it's composition from the attached sheet and we get:

Component                                       CAS Number        Percentage
Stoddard Solvent (C6H6 < 0.1%)   8052-41-3            70-80
Solvent Naphtha Light Aliphatic    64742-89-8          20-30

Personally I use something like 5cc for each rinse so certainly I have no use for a gallon. And I can make the same fluid with just two economical products bought locally.

Also I find curious that an highly flammable fluid is sold to be used in Ultrasonic cleaners, which (at least the ones I have seen) expressly frown upon that.

93_F2802 COSH Sheet.pdf 1.17 MB · 1 download

Naphtha is used all the time in ultrasonics with respect to watch servicing its found in many ultrasonic cleaning fluids esp L&R. The difference being that naphtha in L&R is a much higher grade than Naptha found at your local hardware store. It has a much higher vapor pressure making it safe to use in ultrasonic. You will not get this info from a Cosh sheet. This why it pays to get the stuff designed for actual watch cleaning rather than looking up cosh sheets and trying to play chemist with chemicals you don’t fully understand. I think if $50 or 36 euros is too big of and expense then i cant imagine what kind of tools you use for your repairs and servicing.

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10 minutes ago, saswatch88 said:

I think if $50 or 36 euros is too big of and expense then i cant imagine what kind of tools you use for your repairs and servicing.

No need to imagine, as I post frequently on the subject, with the intent of easing a reasoned, affordable approach to watch repair :biggrin:

Just like our host Mark and many others here I try to avoid any uppity and emitting canned but often empty statements. Then anyone should be able to draw his own conclusions.

 

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6 minutes ago, jdm said:

No need to imagine, as I post frequently on the subject, with the intent of easing a reasoned, affordable approach to watch repair :biggrin:

Just like our host Mark and many others here I try to avoid any uppity and emitting canned but often empty statements. Then anyone should be able to draw his own conclusions.

 

A great watchmaker on another forum said “ your tools, oils, and cleaning methods will reflect in your work regardless of skill.” So the affordable approach is not the best advice given, or if going to give it at least say it’s not your best option. Your last statement is ironic since you the one trolling all my posts with nonsensical responses with underlying hints of sarcasm. 

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5 hours ago, saswatch88 said:

A great watchmaker on another forum said “ your tools, oils, and cleaning methods will reflect in your work regardless of skill.” So the affordable approach is not the best advice given, or if going to give it at least say it’s not your best option. Your last statement is ironic since you the one trolling all my posts with nonsensical responses with underlying hints of sarcasm. 

Harassed by my factual contributions? Or bothered of being called out on your reprieving postings, inevitably coming from self-professed high grounds, but never supported by a single picture or detail of your work. As in the recurrent "timegrapher apps are garbage", or the petty personal attacks in this very thread.
It may sound strange to you, but I do respect everybody's opinion including your, and if you take the time to read back what I wrote, you'l find words like "I think", and "personally". 

 

 

 

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