How should I use lighter fluid to clean my watch parts?

[kd8tzc]

22 minutes ago, Waggy said:

I currently use hexane as the final cleaning fluid for my balance... Once I use up my hexane, I will consider switching to PERC.

@Waggy I had mistakenly used hexane on a pallet fork thinking it was safe for the shellac, and it is not.  Just a heads up.  I find the hexane works better on the components that have shellac on them that I do not want damaged.

[Waggy]

Hexane is chemically similar to heptane which is the primary ingredient of Essence of Renata, as taken from its MSDS sheet. So I'm surprised that something so similar to this which is designed to clean hairsprings reacts with shellac, but thanks for the heads up, something for me to be cautious of from now on!

[kd8tzc]

Yes, I thought it was safe on shellac, but after my stones started to all come loose, I emailed the manufacturer and asked and they said not to use it with shellac as it will dissolve it they said.  Here is what they sent me...

Quote

Dear John-
Whoever advised you absolutely not to use One Dip on shellac is absolutely correct. The same way alcohol will soften shellac, trichlorethylene will also effect shellac.
Thank you for reaching out.
Troop-Balas Labs
 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 hours ago, Waggy said:

I would agree with you but unfortunately there are those of us who live somewhere where you can't buy or import those fluids. FYI many of the cleaning fluids have a naphtha base, for example L&R rinse 3 is 30% straight naphtha and 70% white spirit (Stoddard solution). Where Stoddard solution is just naphtha with some of the more aromatic elements removed. Hence, if you use this commercial product you are in fact rinsing your watch in lighter fluid (naphtha). 

As a side note, L&R 111 is about 80% naptha/Stoddard solution which means you are also cleaning in something which is 4/5 lighter fuel.

At the end of the day you need a clean watch, how you got it clean is not important. Clean is clean.

the only issue i found was some residue left from the lighter fluid, even fresh fluid ( brands can differ in composition ) that ipa didn't always remove. But i found the same issue occurred with elma wf pro. and some fluid beading on the parts, plates mostly. We had some discussion over this and discovered that not enough drying could be the cause.  Extra drying seemed to solve the issue for me with the elma pro. My cleaning proceedure is now 3 minutes in a jar of elma pro ammoniated, ultrasonicated ( new word ) . Remove baskets shake off excess and blow dry with a hairdryer for a minute or so . Repeat proceedure with 2 rinses of ipa. Finish off with 20 minutes in a food dehydrator.  The parts come out all sparkly, residue free and completely dry.

4 hours ago, kd8tzc said:

@Waggy I had mistakenly used hexane on a pallet fork thinking it was safe for the shellac, and it is not.  Just a heads up.  I find the hexane works better on the components that have shellac on them that I do not want damaged.

Eyup kd, a little confused as to your statement, just to clarify for waggy and myself that thought hexane was ok. Here you are saying you think hexane is ok or not ok ?

Edited August 15, 2023 by Neverenoughwatches

[kd8tzc]

2 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Eyup

Sorry, looks like you may have a typo as I have no idea what that means.

Yes, mistype on my side though... hexane IS okay for things with shellac, One Dip is not.

[Neverenoughwatches]

10 minutes ago, kd8tzc said:

Sorry, looks like you may have a typo as I have no idea what that means.

Yes, mistype on my side though... hexane IS okay for things with shellac, One Dip is not.

Thanks for the clarification kd.  Lol no not a typo. Eyup= hiya.  Strange that you find one dip is not good for shellac, i was under the impression that its an industry standard for parts with it

Edited August 15, 2023 by Neverenoughwatches

[thor447]

43 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Thanks for the clarification kd.  Lol no not a typo. Eyup= hiya.  Strange that you find one dip is not good for shellac, i was under the impression that its an industry standard for parts with it

I'm the furthest thing from an expert, but I've been using One-Dip to clean shellac parts for some time now without incident.  On Boley, as well as other sources, it says that immersion in One-Dip will not dissolve shellac.  One time I even forgot that I had left a pallet fork in a jar of One-Dip, and I went to dinner that evening with some friends.  I came back several hours later, and that night I had remembered that the part was still in the jar.  The shellac survived without any issue.

[kd8tzc]

Not sure what to tell you.  When I had placed my pallet fork in One Dip, it made the shellac nice and soft and the stones fell out.  I was under the same impression that One Dip was safe for things with Shellac and so I wrote to Troop-Balas Labs, and you saw their response above basically saying do not use with shellac as it (one Dip) will affect it.  They manufacturer the stuff, so I would think they know what they are talking about.

[Neverenoughwatches]

4 minutes ago, kd8tzc said:

Not sure what to tell you.  When I had placed my pallet fork in One Dip, it made the shellac nice and soft and the stones fell out.  I was under the same impression that One Dip was safe for things with Shellac and so I wrote to Troop-Balas Labs, and you saw their response above basically saying do not use with shellac as it (one Dip) will affect it.  They manufacturer the stuff, so I would think they know what they are talking about.

You would think that yes. I'm still confused as i thought the small mesh filtered bottle was specifically designed for pallet forks and balances.

[kd8tzc]

6 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

the small mesh filtered bottle was specifically designed for pallet forks and balances.

What bottle are you talking about?  Mine came in a can.  Are you maybe talking about Epilam which is something complete different?  That's the only thing I know that has the special (and very expensive) bottle.

[Neverenoughwatches]

39 minutes ago, kd8tzc said:

What bottle are you talking about?  Mine came in a can.  Are you maybe talking about Epilam which is something complete different?  That's the only thing I know that has the special (and very expensive) bottle.

 

[Waggy]

I think we may be comparing apples and oranges when looking at One-Dip and B-Dip, and it may explain the confusion over shellac compatability.

One-Dip is 99% Trichloroethylene

But B-Dip is not made of Trichloroethylene, it appears to be naphtha! See the route below I took to find this out --->

Here is the B-Dip MSDS sheet from CousinsUK for the version of B-Dip they currently sell:

And looking up EC 931-254-9 you get a reference to the CAS number 64742-49-0:

When you look up CAS 64742-49-0 you get Naphtha:

Hence completely different compounds which probably explain the different recommendations and/or reactions with shellac.

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, Waggy said:

I think we may be comparing apples and oranges when looking at One-Dip and B-Dip, and it may explain the confusion over shellac compatability.

One-Dip is 99% Trichloroethylene

But B-Dip is not made of Trichloroethylene, it appears to be naphtha! See the route below I took to find this out --->

Here is the B-Dip MSDS sheet from CousinsUK for the version of B-Dip they currently sell:

And looking up EC 931-254-9 you get a reference to the CAS number 64742-49-0:

When you look up CAS 64742-49-0 you get Naphtha:

Hence completely different compounds which probably explain the different recommendations and/or reactions with shellac.

Ah ok thanks waggy, i only noticed the listing that said b dip hairspring,  one dip solution. Looking at the label l thought it was the same product. So cool Bergeon are charging 60 bucks for 50ml of benzene.  I have yet to try my chloroethylene on hairsprings.  I found this statement on it, i wonder how accurate it is ? 

[Waggy]

From my days many moons ago doing chemistry all the chloro carbons are carcinogenic to a greater or lesser degree.

So, distilling it all down, it would appear that one-dip (Trichloroethylene) is not ok with shellac based on the communication with the people who make the stuff as reported in earlier posts in this thread. But B-dip (naphtha) is ok.

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 minutes ago, Waggy said:

From my days many moons ago doing chemistry all the chloro carbons are carcinogenic to a greater or lesser degree.

So, distilling it all down, it would appear that one-dip (Trichloroethylene) is not ok with shellac based on the communication with the people who make the stuff as reported in earlier posts in this thread. But B-dip (naphtha) is ok.

When i get home from my break, i will try the perc i have. Labeled as tetrachloroethylene. 

[Waggy]

8 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

When i get home from my break, i will try the perc i have. Labeled as tetrachloroethylene. 

I think that is chemically similar to trichloroethylene which may be bad for shellac. May be worth a science experiment to see if a flake of shellac will dissolve or partially dissolve in perc at room temperature?

For completeness it may also be worth running the same test in naphtha?

[kd8tzc]

@Waggy I tried something similar to what you had suggested with a flake of shellac in One Dip while back.  I left the flake of shellac in the One Dip for about an hour.  It didn't dissolve the flake of shellac, but it did make it soft and malleable (and still was so an hour after I removed it from the One Dip).  I don't know if heat applied to the shellac flake would have boiled off the One Dip and allowed it to harden again, but it certainly altered it's state.  I should have left the flake overnight out of the One Dip to see if it would have hardened on it's own, but I didn't think to try that at the time.

[Waggy]

I wonder if B-Dip would produce a similar result?

[kd8tzc]

16 hours ago, Waggy said:

I wonder if B-Dip would produce a similar result?

Seeing that I don't have B Dip, I can't test it out.  It would be nice to know though.

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 8/16/2023 at 9:57 AM, Waggy said:

I think that is chemically similar to trichloroethylene which may be bad for shellac. May be worth a science experiment to see if a flake of shellac will dissolve or partially dissolve in perc at room temperature?

For completeness it may also be worth running the same test in naphtha?

I know that the lighter fluid i use has never affected the shellac on any pallet stones even after an overnight soak. The percentage of naptha isn't stated on the label. Pharmaceutical grade naptha ( 99.99 %) is readily obtainable in the Uk through ebay at 22 quid per litre. Who knows we might one day have a concisive list of what to use for cleaning all watch parts which everone agrees upon .

[Waggy]

45 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Who knows we might one day have a concisive list of what to use for cleaning all watch parts which everone agrees upon

I think our grandchildren will still be arguing about it

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

8 hours ago, Waggy said:

I think our grandchildren will still be arguing about it

 

Eyup peeps , i have an update on my experiment with perc. Tetrachloroethylene.  Two pallet forks from movements approx 50 years old were soaked for one hour. Removed and then poked at the shellac with a sharp needle. The shellac wasn't especially soft but the needle point could be pressed in, and if pushed the shellac would shell off. I didn't test before hand how hard the schellac was so i tried on another six dry pallet forks from the same test bunch. The result was the just the same, the needle point could be dug in and shellac could be shelled off with the same general force as the soaked pallet forks. My conclusion from this is that Tetrachloroethylene ( supposedly a similar chemical to one dip ) doesnt have much if any effect on shellac. But secondly shellac is not really the superglue adhesive that some folk may think it is, but more than adequate to keep stones in place during the forces they undergo go perform their function. 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Neverenoughwatches

[Nucejoe]

 Neverenough, thats what we all should do, experiment and report the result we got.  a simple experiment can produce useful knowledge.

Thanks for sharring your experiment and its results.

Rgds