tea strainer lesson learnt

[Tiny]

Lesson of the day 

Tea strainer for finding lost parts in toxic sonic cleaner.

Yes I had  a bit of a day

so now I've mastered the tweezers on small screw. the trials & tribulations of a watch maker or even small part handler, today throw me a curve ball. After finding or the lack of finding a very small date spring on my Seiko 7019a I had to replace it from my extra movement. After striping the movement date side, I needed to clean it.

 

So off to the sonic cleaner with the part in a small press fit basket (1mm mesh) I continued to procced to go through the three stages of cleaning fluid all was going really well until the last jar at the end of the cleaning cycle the press fit basket had opened (I do have to say it's the first one) with the very small date spring no longer in the jar I looked and looked for the spring but no spring. so cutting a long story short the spring was found in the first jar, the real problem was picking it out of the glass jar finding the spring was easier if you are looking from the outside of the glass jar because every time I placed the jar on the bench too open the glass jar it had moved that cleaner Elma WP Pro cleaning fluid  is not to good for you.

 

so lesson of today is really small parts I'm going to put in a screw mesh container I have but the spring being found in the first jar means the 1mm mesh is not holding the really small items so I will have to see if I can find something with a smaller mesh and strain all cleaning jars is a tea strainer and filter paper.

[Neverenoughwatches]

10 hours ago, Tiny said:

cleaner Elma WP Pro cleaning fluid  is not to good for you.

It sure blows your head off Tiny. Ive no idea what the inhalation of ammonia will do to your lungs. I can imagine its not good. Be careful matey

[teegee]

Many more painful lessons to go

Super-small springs are not worth washing in mesh baskets anyway. I just use rodico if they are dirty at all. With cheap mesh baskets you still have to be careful with tiny parts finding a way into the rims of the basket. I've had to take a jeweler's saw to them to free items. Now I only put slightly larger items in the cheap baskets, and tiny parts go in a Bergeon ($$) basket. Even larger parts can go directly in the cleaning machine's partitioned baskets.

[oldhippy]

Put parts such as tiny springs in a pot with a screw lid containing Ronsonol, clean them with a watchmakers glass fiber brush. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by oldhippy

[Stretch]

53 minutes ago, oldhippy said:

Put parts such as tiny springs in a pot with a screw lid containing Ronsonol, clean them with a watchmakers glass fiber brush. 

Great cheap multipurpose tool. i also use mine as a very fine sander for acrylic watch glass, prior to polishing