Gold lettering on Rolex 3135 movement and L+R Ammoniated cleaning fluid

[steve1811uk]

Hi All, After 5 years in this wonderful hobby I am about to service my first Rolex. It's a 3135 movement (36mm Datejust approx. 1990) belonging to a friend, a very trusting friend.

I am slightly concerned that my cleaning fluid might eat the gold lettering on the movement bridges. Fluid is L + R Ammoniated and does a great job of cleaning. I usually do 5 minutes at 50 degrees in the ultrasonic followed by 2 x 5 minute rinse in the L + R rinse fluid.

Does anyone have experience here and know if it is safe to go ahead?

Thanks,

Steve

[tomh207]

I very much doubt that if it is really gold that it would be affected, you need some really nasty stuff for that. As many watches have a type of gold inlay to engraving I trust that any watch cleaning fluid is not going to do any harm to anything during a reasonable exposure, 4-5 minutes in cleaning fluid is unlikely to do any harm to anything but old oil and dirt.

 

Tom

[rehajm]

I use L&R #111 cleaning and #3 rinse. No problems but I don’t use ultrasonic for movement parts…

[nickelsilver]

L&R and all the other makers of watch cleaning solutions recommend no heat. 50 degrees Celcius is really hot for anything; in my regular US tank for cleaning cases and such I do heat a bit but keep it at 30-35.

 

If you are using ultrasonic that will already warm the bath somewhat. Going above that will let the ammonia react with everything a lot more. But don't worry, Rolex and every other manufacturer I know of use ammoniated solutions to clean movements, and I have too for decades, with no ill effect*. But they use it at ambient temp, plus whatever the US pumps in.

 

*Did some assembly of really "boutique" high end pieces, few years back, that had black paint in the engravings. My cleaning system then used isopropyl alcohol as a final rinse (as many manufacturers recommend now); but the paint wasn't compatible and came out. Really the first time that happened to me. I have seen certain vintage pieces with painted engravings where some paint had come out, but I chalk that up to these things having been cleaned many times, maybe sometimes spending a bit too long in the cleaner along the way too. Back in the day it wasn't uncommon to service your pocket watch yearly.

[RichardHarris123]

What is the gold inlay made of?  Paint, something else? 

[Jon]

The gold lettering is just the brass alloy showing through the plating on the bridge. It isn't paint, so won't be harmed using ammoniated fluid

3 hours ago, steve1811uk said:

Does anyone have experience here and know if it is safe to go ahead?

BTW, yes I've got plenty of experience with servicing modern Rolex watches, as some may state something that is just an opinion sounding like an experience

12 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

I have seen certain vintage pieces with painted engravings where some paint had come out, but I chalk that up to these things having been cleaned many times, maybe sometimes spending a bit too long in the cleaner along the way too.

Yep, had that happen more than once, but the black can be filled in with an enamel type paint from my experience

[nickelsilver]

3 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

What is the gold inlay made of?  Paint, something else? 

I don't know about Rolex, but high end companies will gold plate the whole part, then mask the engraving, then do the final finishing (like Geneva stripes), rhodium plate, then remove the mask. It's a really time consuming process, and the brass on its own holds up fine, but it's a step some companies take.

[mikepilk]

As @nickelsilver, I only heat to 30-35°C. 

I also use an ultrasonic with Elma cleaner and rinse - I cut the times down from what I used to use, and now find that 4 mins clean and 2 x 2 min rinse does the job.

Do you need 4 min rinses? The tech sheet for the Elma  rinse suggests about 3 min. Do you have recommendations for L&R.

Edited 5 hours ago by mikepilk

[Jon]

15 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

I don't know about Rolex

Rolex don't use a gold inlay on these movements. It'as rhodium plated with the gold colour being the brass alloy

[JohnR725]

 

1 hour ago, nickelsilver said:

If you are using ultrasonic that will already warm the bath somewhat. Going above that will let the ammonia react with everything a lot more. But don't worry, Rolex and every other manufacturer I know of use ammoniated solutions to clean movements, and I have too for decades, with no ill effect*. But they use it at ambient temp, plus whatever the US pumps in

Watch cleaning fluids are quite interesting especially with ammonia. Ammonia makes things bright and shiny when properly used watch plates everything will come out really looking clean and wonderful. Typically with any of these solvent-based cleaning products they never recommend elevating the temperature for flammability reasons and definitely never elevate temperatures of anything that makes things bright and shiny as there will be a consequence.

For instance when I was in school the first time we had a variety of cleaning machines including the one in the picture down below which I found on eBay still as interesting price it's a popular machine. Machine has a vacuum tube to generate the ultrasonic energy and magnetic transducers which do tend to get warm with time. Memories are such interesting things aren't they? I can actually still see myself standing in front of the machine thinking maximum time Because maximum time should mean maximum clean right?

Important lesson learned was elevating the temperature speeds up the undesirable characteristics of the ammonia which is no longer making things bright and shiny after a time span and instead it starts pitching things. So rather than a bright and shiny watch I had a frosted watch with blue-green solution. Now my experiences not unique we've had other people in the group sailor watch is a clean and their solution is blue-green which is a clue of etching of the plates. The really is best to follow the manufacturer's recommendation

if you look on the website for your cleaning fluid of course they do not mention elevating the temperature. For one thing it's a flammable product and elevating the temperature is not good and they recommend between three and five minutes. In the second school I went to were were cleaning practice movements all day long every single day the machine actually been set to a maximum of four minutes. For which I have found that four minutes works really well and things do come out bright and shiny. 

 

 

 g in it to affect the