Sanity check of my first foray into parts cleaning

[JohnR725]

  On 2/14/2025 at 8:04 AM, Neverenoughwatches said:

staying rate is high tbh, we see a lot of folk come and go here,

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sometimes I think the fantasy versus reality catches up to people. For instance you watch the wristwatch revival channel and it's so easy and quick. then you discover that cleaning doesn't repair everything and more tools are required more skills and it's expensive when you break things.

  On 2/13/2025 at 12:36 PM, Bill2024 said:

Pre-cleaning - I was thinking about using the L&R #111 in a petri dish to soak the plates and then brush and peg out the jewels. Is that OK or should I be using a different product for this?

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  On 2/13/2025 at 4:33 PM, eccentric59 said:

L&R is an ammoniated cleaner so it will brighten

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one of the things you have to be very careful of his products designed to make things bright and shiny. The watch cleaning products work extremely well and do make things nice and bright and shiny. But if you leave them in the solution to the long and they go beyond bright and shiny they will start to make things frosty especially brass. this is because the right and shiny aspect does not have some sort of time limit and it will start to etch things. The solution will turn blue green color and that really isn't what you want to do it all. Worst-case in another discussion group somebody went on vacation with their watch in the cleaning machine I assume the machine was off and when they came back they were now in need of a new movement. So that would be a worst-case scenario of. So basically are time-limited on bright and shiny.

  On 2/13/2025 at 12:36 PM, Bill2024 said:

Balance and pallet fork cleaning - I was thinking about washing and rinsing these with the other parts in L&R first. But then I think I need to remove the balance jewels and clean the balance and the jewels separately in one-dip. Is that the right thing to do?
Is the pallet fork too delicate for the spinning wash/rinse and should only be manually cleaned in one-dip?

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I was thinking what you need to look at is how professional watchmaker's clean their watches? In other words typically they put all the parts in the cleaning baskets and put it in the machine a push the button and walk away.  here's a things like balance wheels pallet forks you win just toss them in with all the plates and stuff they would either go in a smaller basket in the machine or smaller section where there less likely to bump in the things. The greatest danger to a pallet fork is the person trying to put it back into the watch.

here's a recommendation on cleaning. Notice it includes both ultrasonic and non-ultrasonic at least for the first cycle. So with ultrasonic the machines spin slower. Then notice how fast it's going when it's spinning off. I wonder how fast you can hand cranked the machine?

then this thing is really have to spin no. Why are there so many procedures because everyone has a different point of view everyone has exposure to different stuff etc.

So when I was cleaning watches at home here's what I did. This is a modern watch with a modern balance wheel where it's easier to leave the balance wheel attached to the bridge. Which means I took the balance jewels out and there in one of the baskets usually I put the jewels found on the dial side in with the dial side components and the jewels from the other side in the components on that side to keep them separate. Then the balance bridge is screwed back on the plate and the balance wheel is safely protected oh and yes the pallet fork is in one of the little baskets somewhere

then the next image usually gets people scolding me. Typically with ultrasonic machines are not supposed to play stuff directly into the tank there should be a little but the spacing between whatever and the bottom of the tank especially with bigger machines as I believe this or variety reasons like cooling but this machine was purchased at a drugstore a very long time ago and is being used exactly as it was described. In other words small quantity of water surrounds the beaker in the ultrasonic take in the beaker is placed directly in the tank. so basically a very inexpensive purchase lasted of extremely long time. So is using one cleaning and technically three rinses you just don't see the third one as I usually tossed it afterwards. Parts large strong on the wires tiny parts into the baskets whole thing went into the beaker. Clean for about four minutes came out I placed it on paper towel to wick off the cleaning fluid while I changed the solutions.

and I believe some more in this discussion you might have commented that you want to purchase an ultrasonic machine a lot of the machines will have holders for beakers or even jars or stainless steel containers or whatever.

oh the final rinse that we don't see was alcohol. Then don't worry it wasn't isopropyl alcohol it was alcohol that's actually designed to dissolve shellac. Well it's used for a variety of purposes but one of the purposes is to dissolve shellac. But I was just using it as a final final rinse as the regular rinse had a habit of not evaporating as it's now more environmentally friendly that doesn't like to evaporate. So basically just a quick rinse in alcohol to rinse off the rinse so that everything would dry properly.

Then originally I had a different hair dryer for drying it didn't blow as aggressively as the current one and didn't get as hot. So before I just place the baskets the parts in their path of the hairdryer on the newspapers and that was the drawing simple. Because the new hairdryer is way more aggressive much hotter and much much faster air blowing I got creative and made by coffee candleholder for the baskets. They usually one is drawing a place a piece of sheet metal on top with just a little opening so get nice and toasty warm up there.

So all kinds of different methods because people have access to different things and have different ideas.

 

 

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

  On 2/14/2025 at 8:05 PM, JohnR725 said:

Then don't worry it wasn't isopropyl alcohol it was alcohol that's actually designed to dissolve shellac. Well it's used for a variety of purposes but one of the purposes is to dissolve shellac. But I was just using it as a final final rinse as the regular rinse had a habit of not evaporating as it's now more environmentally friendly that doesn't like to evaporate. So basically just a quick rinse in alcohol to rinse off the rinse so that everything would dry properly.

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I think you might be referring to what we in the UK call meths or methylated sprirts John.  The violet coloured stuff that french polishers use to dissolve shellac for wood finishes. Here in the Uk it's mostly comprised of ethanol with a low percentage of methanol. This is one that I compared to some other solvents, it had the fastest evaporation rate with the least residue left behind. 

[HectorLooi]

  On 2/14/2025 at 9:59 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

I think you might be referring to what we in the UK call meths or methylated sprirts John.  The violet coloured stuff that french polishers use to dissolve shellac for wood finishes. Here in the Uk it's mostly comprised of ethanol with a low percentage of methanol. This is one that I compared to some other solvents, it had the fastest evaporation rate with the least residue left behind. 

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That sounds like methylated spirit, 95% ethanol and 5% methanol. But I thought the stuff used to dissolve shellac was pure methanol.

[Neverenoughwatches]

  On 2/14/2025 at 10:49 PM, HectorLooi said:

That sounds like methylated spirit, 95% ethanol and 5% methanol. But I thought the stuff used to dissolve shellac was pure methanol.

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Thats whats we call meths Hector, the violet coloured stuff or denatured alcohol originally to stop alcoholics from drinking it as the rax rates were different, its poisonous hence the colour and ribbed bottles to identify it as dangerous, with a nasty tasing additive. It was and probably still is the go to for dissolving shellac because of the high ethanol content. I'm not sure about methanol being used or the difference really, but it was traditionally just ethanol here mostly in the form of meths when I was taught it in the 80s. 

[JohnR725]

  On 2/14/2025 at 9:59 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

UK call meths or methylated sprirts

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one of the amusements with discussion groups and people from all over the planet would be words that can have entirely different meanings somewhere else. Where silly people who think just because they speak English that they will grasp English on some other location.

So conceivably it is the same thing I'm attaching an image so you can see what it is. I just now checked to see what the actual ingredients are and all it says is denatured alcohol.

One of the reasons I like the point out that it's the alcohol that dissolves shellac is often times people get excited about any form of alcohol in watch cleaving and have a meltdown. when I was cleaning watches at home I discovered that the L&R rinse was not drying and sometimes fluid left on the plates. Talking to a friend he told me he was using an alcohol rinse and that was solving the problem. I'm assuming what's happened to the cleaning products is with time they become more environmentally friendly in other words they do not evaporate extremely fast. 

so a trip to the hardware store and problem solved. But that was a long time ago and the last time this conversation about alcohol came up I think I looked and I don't think it's available anymore. If I remember right people doing woodworking were upset because the solvents they use for their woodworking products are getting hard to get probably for environmental reasons again.

Then universally today isopropyl alcohol is what is recommended. For instance Elma recommends that in there cleaning machines as the final rinse. It's what we use at work in our exotic machine from Elma. As it's exactly what they recommended just make sure it's 99%. Then whatever alcohol you're using for your final rinse it just a final final rinsing of the rinse and your only in there for a few seconds probably like 15 seconds in other words it's not going to dissolve the shellac. If it does you have a problem with your shellac.

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

  On 2/15/2025 at 7:11 AM, JohnR725 said:

just now checked to see what the actual ingredients are and all it says is denatured alcohol.

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I imagine it is mostly ethanol then, the alcohol that is more acceptably used for social recreation. As far as I know the only reason it's denatured is to prevent being used for that reason.