Cleaning on the cheap! (Bicycle Degreaser)

[ColinC]

I am kind of expecting a few "Oh my god what are you doing type comments.... but here we go....)

I have been following advice I have found here and there for cleaning watch parts - with very limited access to chemicals and without the expense of a cleaning machine.

My process has been to put the small parts into little mesh baskets and then put those baskets and the bridges and plates into a sequence of jars which I put in a cheap ultrasonic bath full of warm (50º C) water.  I then separately take balance and pallet forks and just soak them for 20mins or so in lighter fluid before giving them a fast rinse in IPA before putting them in my food drying thing.

Jar 1.  8mins  or 16 mins... deionised water with a few drips of washing up liquid (Zalo)
Jar 2. 5 mins 99.9% Isopropyl Alcohol
Jar 3. 3 mins 99.9% Isopropyl Alcohol

To be honest my results are not great!

So I decided to try adding a prewash to the above list.

Jar 0. 8mins deionised water with a few drops of "Muc Off - Drivechain Degreaser" (This is a water soluble degreaser that I have been using in a 1:9 mix in the same ultrasonic cleaner to clean bicycle chains)

The difference has been night and day - tray of clean parts!
 

I also had a balance from another movement that was sticking together and had black gunk on the hair spring - lighter fuel had not done the trick so I thought... why not!

I put it alone in one of the mesh baskets and put it through Jar 0. and then Jar 1. on my cleaning process before taking out the wet hairspring and gave it a quick dip in IPA and then into the food dryer.

Once dry it looked nice and clean - the shellac on the roller jewel looked intact and the watch that I had taken it from that was all over the show on the timegrapher started to produce steady results.

Planning to find a junk pallet fork and put it pure degreaser to see if survives...

[watchweasol]

Hi if it works for you and you are happy with the result great. Take great care over the drying aspect and a frequent check on movements done in this manner for any problems like corrosion or rust ,  I don’t expect there will be any. But just to be sure

[oldhippy]

[Neverenoughwatches]

23 minutes ago, oldhippy said:

This sounds like a cunning plan my lord

[tomh207]

1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

This sounds like a cunning plan my lord

So cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox !

[RichardHarris123]

Blackadder, just brilliant. 

[tomh207]

1 minute ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Blackadder, just brilliant. 

And if you buy a bronze watch case and submerge it in yoghurt you can have a watch of the purest green!

[Neverenoughwatches]

20 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

So cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox !

A fox with oxford degree in cunningness. 

[rehajm]

2 hours ago, oldhippy said:

Meme Translator:

 :

[JohnR725]

7 hours ago, ColinC said:

Oh my god what are you doing type comments

I like that I think I'll just quote that.

Now that that's out of the way I need to Google something first. My geography isn't the best and it looks like you live in Norway.

 

8 hours ago, ColinC said:

with very limited access to chemicals

So Norway does not let you play with chemicals how sad is a lot of fun things you can do with chemistry both good and bad but without the chemicals well Definitely can present a problem.

8 hours ago, ColinC said:

Jar 0. 8mins deionised water with a few drops of "Muc Off - Drivechain Degreaser" (This is a water soluble degreaser that I have been using in a 1:9 mix in the same ultrasonic cleaner to clean bicycle chains)

Amazon's not being helpful looks like it's premixed you could spray it on and I don't get a material safety sheet. I'm rather curious about the substance that it's made from I'm not suggesting that there are chemicals in there by the way you're not allowed to have chemicals but they still might be in there and it be curious what they're called.

 

Then I have a suggestion as they do make commercial water-based cleaners why don't you follow the recommendation that they have. You can clean in your water-based cleaner but you do want to rinse off the cleaner with water. You're going right from your cleaning into isopropyl alcohol I would put a water bath in between maybe even two of them then you can go to your alcohol and then to the dryer.

 

 

 

 

[Kalanag]

Here is the SDS:

Muc-Off SDS

Edited September 12, 2023 by Kalanag

[RichardHarris123]

9 hours ago, rehajm said:

Meme Translator:

 :

Weird I didn't post that?  

Be careful with the dihydrogen monoxide.

[fellerts]

I feel you, getting access to the proper chemicals in Oslo is not trivial and shipping is expensive! I also started out with jars of White Spirit (the Norwegian kind which, as far as I can tell, is pure naphtha) in the ultrasonic followed by a rinse in IPA. I was also getting poor results, but that might have been due to my weak ultrasonic (from Clas Ohlson, the local equivalent of Harbor Freight).

I have since gone over to the old-school approach using a set of stiff paint brushes and small jars of White Spirit and IPA. You can approach perfection using this method, it all comes down to patience... An added benefit is that you are forced to really scrutinize each part, so spotting bent/broken pivots, damaged wheel teeth etc. becomes that much easier. The ultrasonic is only used for cleaning cases and bracelets these days.

Edited September 12, 2023 by fellerts
fixed spelling

[HectorLooi]

8 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Be careful with the dihydrogen monoxide.

Yes. People have died from excessive ingestion of the stuff.

[Marc]

8 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Be careful with the dihydrogen monoxide.

 

2 minutes ago, HectorLooi said:

Yes. People have died from excessive ingestion of the stuff.

It can also be quite dangerous if inhaled......

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 9/12/2023 at 3:55 PM, fellerts said:

have since gone over to the old-school approach using a set of stiff paint brushes and small jars of White Spirit and IPA. You can approach perfection using this method, it all comes down to patience... An added benefit is that you are forced to really scrutinize each part, so spotting bent/broken pivots, damaged wheel teeth etc. becomes that much easier. The ultrasonic is only used for cleaning cases and bracelets these days.

Edited Tuesday at 03:56 PM by fellerts

When i feel ocd inclined i like to get personal and hand clean everything. 

[ColinC]

So I just ran a little experiment with the degreaser - Pallet fork 20 mins sitting in the solution undiluted 

Appears to be no damage to the shellac 


Before

 

After

[nickelsilver]

6 hours ago, ColinC said:

So I just ran a little experiment with the degreaser - Pallet fork 20 mins sitting in the solution undiluted 

Appears to be no damage to the shellac 


Before

 

After

 But is there a residue? Watch cleaning is all about being clean. No residue. Because whatever residue remains could react with the microscope amount of lubricant and cause it to spread or other bad stuff. Old high performance watch cleaning machines used 2 rinses to get the cleaning solution off; then 3 became the norm. Now, new gen machines have 4.

 

I remember watching my mom or dad wipe down the counter with a soapy sponge, and be happy it was clean. My little brain was saying "but, there's still soap there!". Maybe that set me on the path of watchmaking. Rinse rinse rinse (and if you want a watch parts account rinse again.... in isopropyl alcohol!!)

[ColinC]

46 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

But is there a residue?

In the test case here I didn't really check for residue - I was really checking if the chemicals damaged the shellac and that seems fine.

In the process where I used it as a prewash I am pretty confident that there was no residue left.

But I get what you are saying about more rinses - The degreaser turns the water cloudy in the prewash and you can see that cloudiness get transferred to the first wash - however the next jar appears clear and the 4th jar is looking great.  However if I had expensive cleaning solutions, I can totally see myself adding an extra rinse between the prewash and the wash.

I also know from cleaning bicycle chains that it is important to get the degreaser off otherwise your next round of lubrication will fail. One of the nice things about this degreaser is that it is water soluble and easy to get rid of for due to that.