Alternative cleaning machine chemicals

[Waggy]

I live in the middle east and cannot find a supplier of watch cleaning machine chemicals such as Elma or L&R. I tried ordering from Cousins but they are classed as dangerous goods, so they cannot mail them to me.

Any idea alternatives I could use as the cleaning solution and rince solution? I can get naptha, IPA and ethanol as well as other lab type chemicals eg acetone and hexane etc.

I can get standard jewellery water based ultrasonic fluids, but not sure if they would cut it.

[watchweasol]

Have a look at the diy versions online, some of the recipes go back a long way. You may be able to purchase the ingredients locally or they may be net transportable.

[Fralex]

I don't have a cleaning machine so I clean all the parts by hand with the use of little brushes. It is a very tedious job but I currently don't have any other solution. 

First I clean all the parts with lighter fluid, and after that, I rinse everything with rubbing alcohol (except the pallet fork and balance wheel).

It is the old way of cleaning watch parts and I have had excellent results.

[JohnFrum]

1 hour ago, Waggy said:

I live in the middle east and cannot find a supplier of watch cleaning machine chemicals such as Elma or L&R. I tried ordering from Cousins but they are classed as dangerous goods, so they cannot mail them to me.

Any idea alternatives I could use as the cleaning solution and rince solution? I can get naptha, IPA and ethanol as well as other lab type chemicals eg acetone and hexane etc.

I can get standard jewellery water based ultrasonic fluids, but not sure if they would cut it.

Same issue here in the Caribbean. Hazmat items.

I use laboratory reagents- 1-propanol, 60-80 petroleum ether, hexane.  Little jam jars in an ultrasonic bath. The balance and pallet fork gets cleaned in a ground glass jar of hexane. 

[rossjackson01]

Same as Fralex

Peg wood. If items dirty, dip into Lighter fluid and peg wood again. Then I use jar of Lighter fluid. Large items a bottom of jar, all other in baskets. Placed jar and then into ultrasonic and vibrate for 4 sessions. 6 minutes. Dried

Balance complete and Pallet fork removed. Everything else placed in IPA jar. 6 minutes in ultrasoninc. Allowed to dry. My finished items are really clean. 

Cost over 15 month period

Jam jars (free). Lighter fluid, 3 x £1.00 tins. IPA £8.00. 

I have replenished old for new, 3 times. 

Purchased can of rust remover, £4.00. Never used since purchase.

 

Checked system with my tutor, Alex Hamilton who told me I was OK. 

Edited March 16, 2023 by rossjackson01

[mikepilk]

1 hour ago, rossjackson01 said:

Same as Fralex

Peg wood. If items dirty, dip into Lighter fluid and peg wood again. Then I use jar of Lighter fluid. Large items a bottom of jar, all other in baskets. Placed jar and then into ultrasonic and vibrate for 4 sessions. 6 minutes. Dried

Balance complete and Pallet fork removed. Everything else placed in IPA jar. 6 minutes in ultrasoninc. Allowed to dry. My finished items are really clean. 

I think your 4x 6 minutes is overdoing it. How powerful is you US?

For Elma cleaning fluid they recommend 2-10mins. I have a 60W US and clean all parts for one session of 5 mins (including balance and pallet). That's enough to get everything clean. (If parts were really dirty I to a pre-clean with naphtha, a paintbrush and pegwood)

If the parts are clean, then the IPA rinse doesn't need to be so long - it's only removing cleaning solution.
Elma recommends about 3mins rinse.

I would do just  2-3mins in 2 different IPA jars. After a while, the first jars gets more dirty, replace the solution, and make the old #2 the #1 jar.

I do 2 rinses (2 different jars of solution) of just 2 mins each (Elma).

Then just 30seconds in IPA for ALL parts. The pro machines recommend this, so don't worry about shellac (queue massive debate). 

How do you rinse balance and pallets? 

The above, 5mins clean, 2x2mins rinse, 30s IPA get the parts squeaky clean 

[RichardHarris123]

I accidentally left a pallet in IPA overnight, no harm came of it.  I might of been lucky though. 

[mikepilk]

10 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

I accidentally left a pallet in IPA overnight, no harm came of it.  I might of been lucky though. 

Not lucky, people worry unnecessarily. I, and others, have shown (by experiment) that hardened shellac takes a long time to dissolve it in IPA. A 30s rinse in an ultrasonic, or even just a hand dip, isn't going to cause any problems, and does remove the residues left by the naphtha (lighter fluid). I think the pro machines recommend IPA mainly to help dry the part. 

I wouldn't want to use a balance or pallet which haven't been rinsed after using light fluid - you can feel the oily residue it leaves. 

[Nucejoe]

46 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

I accidentally left a pallet in IPA overnight, no harm came of it.  I might of been lucky 

Following a night in IPA, Ultrasonic would have stripped away all of shellac in a few seconds. 

[Fralex]

To remove residue from lighter fluid (if there is any), I think you can quickly dip the pallet fork and balance assembly in alcohol and dry it immediately after. It should not damage the shellac, but this whole topic is highly debatable. I tend not to use alcohol for rinsing those two parts, I rinse them in a separate jar filled with lighter fluid which I keep extra clean.

[rossjackson01]

1 hour ago, mikepilk said:

Not lucky, people worry unnecessarily. I, and others, have shown (by experiment) that hardened shellac takes a long time to dissolve it in IPA. A 30s rinse in an ultrasonic, or even just a hand dip, isn't going to cause any problems, and does remove the residues left by the naphtha (lighter fluid). I think the pro machines recommend IPA mainly to help dry the part. 

I wouldn't want to use a balance or pallet which haven't been rinsed after using light fluid - you can feel the oily residue it leaves. 

Thank you for that information. I will reduce the ultrasonic and also include  a short IPA wash for the Balance and Pallett fork..

[mikepilk]

4 hours ago, Fralex said:

To remove residue from lighter fluid (if there is any), I think you can quickly dip the pallet fork and balance assembly in alcohol and dry it immediately after. It should not damage the shellac, but this whole topic is highly debatable. I tend not to use alcohol for rinsing those two parts, I rinse them in a separate jar filled with lighter fluid which I keep extra clean.

Lighter fluid (naphtha) definitely leaves an oily residue. Put some on a glass surface and let it evaporate, you will see the residue. IPA does not leave any residue, which is why it's used. There is no debate, the manufacturers of the cleaning machines recommend a final dip in IPA. No matter how clean you final lighter fluid dip is, it will leave an oily residue. 

[Waggy]

So here is the spec for L&R 566 cleaning fluid from their publicly published MSDS sheets:

And here is what I can get my hands on locally compared to the chemicals used in their MSDS:

I can get the mineral spirits and naptha from Amazon and the rest of the chemicals from a local lab supplier. The only substitution I need to make will be the 2 Propoxyethanol (which is ETHYLENE GLYCOL MONOPROPYL ETHER) which I will substitute with ETHANEDIOL (which is ETHALEVE GLYCOL) and given that it is only 1-5% I think this will be OK.

In a similar vein L&R 111 cleaning fluid formulation from their published MSDS sheets:

This will be a little more difficult as I will have to again substitute the 2 Propoxyethanol (as above) but this time I would need to omit the Isopropanolamine completely as I cannot find an alternative - but good news is that I can get the ammonium hydroxide (30%) from my lab supplier.

I am thinking that I will go with the "566" version and if it works, stick with that as it only has one minor substitution. So my recipe for 1 Lt of "566" cleaning solution will be:

(The above also minimises the amount of the substituted 2 Propoxyethanol)

Fortunately the rinsing solution is much easier to deal with, the MSDS sheets show:

 

 

So my Recipe for 1 Lt of rinsing solution will be:

 

For the record I would much prefer to use the 'real' products but until there is a way to purchase or ship them to my location I will have to go with my 'home brewed' alternatives.

If anyone sees anything wrong or an easier way to do things in the above please let me know.... if not I'll let you all know how it turns out when I get all the supplies together.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Waggy
Typo

[arron]

Interesting topic.  Is there any concern with putting vintage pocket watch balance assemblies or other jeweled parts in an ultrasonic for fear of damaging or dislodging jewels; perhaps the roller table jewel.  I've been having a difficult time getting hairsprings clean using my watch cleaning machine so i've been thinking about putting them in the ultrasonic, but I read somewhere that that is not a good idea.  Have others had issues with this?  Thank you.

Oh, I forgot the issue of hexane mentioned by waggy.  I've also been thinking about getting some just for the fork and balance assembly.  Is that a good substitute for the one-dip I hear so much about?  Or is a separate chemical for these two parts even necessary (will it work better than just a naptha or watch cleaning solution bath).  Thanks all.

[JohnR725]

19 hours ago, arron said:

ultrasonic

It would probably help to define what sort of ultrasonic machine you're talking about.

But if it's an ultrasonic machine made for watch repair and yes they really do make ultrasonic machines for watch repair they been around for very long time professionals use them all the time.

Than typically for roller jewels with anything vintage it's always good to check to make sure it's still in tightly. Occasionally you'll find where it seems to be loose don't know if it was because the original Shellac just disintegrated with time or what it was a poor quality of Shellac. Or worst-case its epoxies superglue or some other thing that didn't like the cleaning process.

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by JohnR725

[arron]

Howdy John.  Mine is not a dedicated watch cleaning ultrasonic.  It's rated at 180w.  So i guess what you are telling me is that i should be careful if considering putting vintage balance assemblies in the US.  I think i'll try to avoid the US for this unless necessary and, like you said, the shellac is in good condition. Thank you.

[mikepilk]

14 minutes ago, arron said:

Howdy John.  Mine is not a dedicated watch cleaning ultrasonic.  It's rated at 180w.  So i guess what you are telling me is that i should be careful if considering putting vintage balance assemblies in the US.  I think i'll try to avoid the US for this unless necessary and, like you said, the shellac is in good condition. Thank you.

I've been trying to find out what ultrasonic power is OK for watch parts. Looking at the user manuals for Elma and Greiner cleaning machines, the ultrasonics are 50W and 60W respectively. 

Based on that, I bought a 60W US.

I wonder if yours might be bit too powerful ?

[arron]

well that's interesting.  i thought since it wasn't a high end machine that it wouldn't be that powerful, but relatively speaking it appears to be.  I'll need to be all the more careful.  thanks for pointing that out.

[tomh207]

It depends, often for electronic kit Chinese manufacturers quote input wattage, not output. Hard to tell though and we do have a predilection that bigger numbers are better so marketers have done a good job.

 

 

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, arron said:

Mine is not a dedicated watch cleaning ultrasonic.  It's rated at 180w.  So i guess what you are telling me is that i should be careful if considering putting vintage balance assemblies in the US.  I think i'll try to avoid the US for this unless necessary and, like you said, the shellac is in good condition.

 

1 hour ago, mikepilk said:

I wonder if yours might be bit too powerful ?

Ultrasonic watch cleaning is an interesting subject about as interesting for debate purposes as horological lubrication and the existence of Bigfoot.

When I was in school both of the cleaning machines we used had ultrasonic. The next school I go to had ultrasonic for cleaning and in that school we were continuously running our practice watches through the ultrasonic continuously. Although the machine had been taped so you can only go to four minutes of cleaning. Which I have actually found to be a really good rule maybe five of its really bad expressive using the cleaners with ammonia and definitely do not elevate the temperatures that works really good. The rinse doesn't seem to bother much so you can go longer in the rinse

for home the drugstore once had this little ultrasonic machine for cleaning dentures really cheap and it came with its own beaker. So you put the beaker in and surround it with water in the tank and that's what I used for years. I got scolded on another group because you're never to put a beaker into an ultrasonic tank or basically not supposed to ever have anything on the bottom of the tank. Except this is the way the machine came and I used it the way the machine was made and it worked for years and did a beautiful job of cleaning

if you do look at the manuals for a lot of ultrasonics they do recommend not putting stuff on the actual bottom of the tank I think they're really more concerned about heating up the transducers because that's bad. Supposedly it reflects the energy back into the transducer.

Then when my little tank finally died I had a replacement from a garage sale and well it didn't work either. So I adapted I have a bigger machine and yes I went and looked it says 150 W and I didn't put the beaker on the bottom I have a sheet of plastic it has it's actually something used for lighting fixtures to diffuse the light so it's about half inch stick with a whole bunch a square openings so the ultrasonic gets through but my beaker is off the bottom and that's what I was using at home and didn't seem to be having a problem.

One of the shops I work that had a bigger ultrasonic tank that on the lid had to circular openings so you can put the beakers in and then that had a way of suspending the beakers above the bottom of the take no idea what the wattage of it is.

Then it's been a long time since I cleaned the watch at home so I is remembered not having any problems even at the watch I was using it but I'm not leaving it in there all day either and I am using commercial watch cleaning products.

1 hour ago, arron said:

vintage balance assemblies in the US

Then vintage what is your definition of vintage? I've seen a lot of people be concerned about the definition of vintage especially like gold plates that were put on with the Mercury gilding process they get really concerned about well everything for that basically a lot of times people are just concerned with vintage altogether but it depends upon your definition of vintage.

For instance where I work the machine as ultrasonic and I regularly run pocket watches American pocket watches through I'm not sure if that's going to be vintage enough for you so imago look at the manual and I'll see if it actually says how much power tenths. I do know it has two separate ultrasonic frequencies.

looking at the manual for the machine at work two separate frequencies of either 40/80 KHZ with an effective power level of 50 W.

I guess if you're really concerned about the power level of your ultrasonic is to run tests on something disposable. But you do want to be careful of my experience with professional fluids with ammonia because the ammonia is what makes the plates bright and shiny removes the tarnished and oxidization. But my experience was a fine line beautiful and shiny and clean versus too long especially with elevated temperatures and you get frosty plates. Or worst-case without ultrasonic at all I saw the discussion once on some other group were somebody forgot and went on vacation and came back and they were in need of a new movement they claim that all that was left whether the jewels I suspect there was more than jewels left but it wasn't a pretty picture so the fluids at least the cleaning fluid is good for a short time but very bad for a long time.

So personally for me ultrasonic and watch cleaning isn't a problem. Isopropyl alcohol isn't a problem it's the last rinse on the cleaning machine at work. I'd have to go into the programming to see how long it spends in the alcohol and that was by manufacturer's recommendation as the normal rinse we use doesn't want to evaporate. Supposedly it has to do with being at sea level but I think it more likely has to do with being more environmentally friendly and it just doesn't like to evaporate. So eight final rinse and alcohol solves that problem. Even at home while rinse and alcohol but it's not isopropyl is the kind will dissolves shellac but I never had an issue because I was only in there about 30 seconds to remove the rinse then the alcohol and immediately onto the dryer it's not a problem.

[arron]

Thanks for all that real world experience John, very helpful.  

[Kalanag]

10 hours ago, tomh207 said:

It depends, often for electronic kit Chinese manufacturers quote input wattage, not output. Hard to tell though and we do have a predilection that bigger numbers are better so marketers have done a good job.

Right! The wattage for the heater is included most likely!

If the device has one US driver unit only it should be about 50W. Open the housing and you will see.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Kalanag

[foppemike]

Pure Naphtha is recommended as to lighter fluid as there are some additives in the lighter fluid not in the pure Naphtha. I would use 99% IPA for a rinse (minus the pallet forks and balance complete) and use One Dip for these 2 parts if possible. I also would not use an ultrasonic machine on the movement parts IMO (have you seen what happens to aluminum foil in an ultrasonic?) but only for the bracelet, case, case back, and the like. I think after a while it may cause metal fatigue if use many times. I would hand clean with the proper fluids and if you are doing many I'd advise a 3-jar cleaning machine with heater. I would also suggest buying a temperature adjustable food dehydrator or something similar to dry all your parts properly which is very important and there is not enough emphasis put on this IMO. Just my thoughts.

[mikepilk]

34 minutes ago, foppemike said:

Pure Naphtha is recommended as to lighter fluid as there are some additives in the lighter fluid not in the pure Naphtha. I would use 99% IPA for a rinse (minus the pallet forks and balance complete) and use One Dip for these 2 parts if possible. I also would not use an ultrasonic machine on the movement parts IMO (have you seen what happens to aluminum foil in an ultrasonic?) but only for the bracelet, case, case back, and the like. I think after a while it may cause metal fatigue if use many times. I would hand clean with the proper fluids and if you are doing many I'd advise a 3-jar cleaning machine with heater. I would also suggest buying a temperature adjustable food dehydrator or something similar to dry all your parts properly which is very important and there is not enough emphasis put on this IMO. Just my thoughts.

Ultrasonics are fine for cleaning - the professional cleaning machines all use it. 

Also, IPA is fine for a quick final rinse for ALL parts - again,  the pro machines recommend it. 

[nickelsilver]

And naphtha can mean more than one thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by nickelsilver