Cleaning Technique Questions

[gregorian79]

Watchmaking Gurus! 

As a newbie, I have been watching Alex's videos (Watch Repair Tutorials) and am trying to put together a cleaning regimen.
I would like to use Elma Red as I have small kids in the house and an odor sensitive better half.

I would appreciate any feedback on these steps:

- Fill the ultrasonic cleaner with tap water and mix 1 part concentrate, 9 parts distilled water in a mason jar. Place the mesh baskets inside the jar and run in ultra sonic cleaner for 3-5 min. depending on how dirty the parts are. Temperature of cleaner set at 45-50C.

- Take the baskets out of the Elma Red mix and place in distilled water for first rinse (again at 45-50C) for 2 min. Followed by second rinse in fresh distilled water, also 2 min. in the ultrasonic cleaner.  

- Take the baskets out of the machine and let soak in 99% isopropyl alcohol for 2 min. (outside of the machine, at room temperature). 

- Immediately place the baskets in food dehydrator for 20 min. set at 40C.

Does this sound about right?

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

Its not bad, you will know how good it is by the results.  The only step that ,I feel, is missing is a spin off inbetween fluid changes. How about making a rotary machine, lots of folk here have made them, it doesn't not have to be complicated. 

Edited April 2 by Neverenoughwatches

[clockboy]

Welcome to the forum, enjoy

[gregorian79]

5 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Its not bad, you will know how good it is by the results.  The only step that ,I feel, is missing is a spin off inbetween fluid changes. How about making a rotary machine, lots of folk here have made them, it doesn't not have to be complicated. 

That makes sense.. like the spin cycle on a washing machine, right? Mechanically force liquid out. I will do some research here on the forum on that. 

One thing I am struggling with is finding a wide and flat basket to place the mini baskets in. So far I got a few 21x13mm mesh baskets (Cousins part#: B36259). If I could get a basket with a handle that fits inside a mason jar, perhaps I can attach some kind of rod to it, which will not only help while switching jars but also I could spin it by hand for a primitive rotating.

Do you have any pointers on where I can get a basket like that? Thank you   

[tomh207]

Cousins have baskets in the ultrasonic basket section that folks have used and adapted to be spun

 

Tom

[gregorian79]

1 hour ago, tomh207 said:

Cousins have baskets in the ultrasonic basket section that folks have used and adapted to be spun

 

Tom

Perfect! I will take a look. Thank you. 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, gregorian79 said:

That makes sense.. like the spin cycle on a washing machine, right? Mechanically force liquid out.

Exactly,  I often compare it with the washing of clothes in a washing machine/ dryer. You add chemicals to a container of fluid - the tub - , it has a basket - the drum - which you put clothes into to be washed. The drum is rotated forwards and backwards to agitate the fluid and the clothes. The machine goes through rinse cycles to clean off the chemicals, it then spins to get rid of the excess rinse so that a heating element can dry the clothes while they tumble around through blown warm air. 

1 hour ago, gregorian79 said:

That makes sense.. like the spin cycle on a washing machine, right? Mechanically force liquid out. I will do some research here on the forum on that. 

One thing I am struggling with is finding a wide and flat basket to place the mini baskets in. So far I got a few 21x13mm mesh baskets (Cousins part#: B36259). If I could get a basket with a handle that fits inside a mason jar, perhaps I can attach some kind of rod to it, which will not only help while switching jars but also I could spin it by hand for a primitive rotating.

Do you have any pointers on where I can get a basket like that? Thank you   

Tom has pointed you in the right direction, there is a YouTube vid by Alex Hamilton doing just that. I bought one but never used it, I made up my own various spinney baskets from bits and pieces until I was happy with the design.  You should look at our threads on diy rotary machines, there is loads of info on them. From homemade nice and shiny automated machines, to my claptrap 20 quid efforts, my last recall I think I was at around MK Vll.

[gregorian79]

5 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Exactly,  I often compare it with the washing of clothes in a washing machine/ dryer. You add chemicals to a container of fluid - the tub - , it has a basket - the drum - which you put clothes into to be washed. The drum is rotated forwards and backwards to agitate the fluid and the clothes. The machine goes through rinse cycles to clean off the chemicals, it then spins to get rid of the excess rinse so that a heating element can dry the clothes while they tumble around through blown warm air. 

perfect. thank you.

another question I had is around hairspring and pallet fork. my understanding, these do not go in the jar with everything else. I was planning on using one dip with Epilame bottle method as suggested by Alex. 

can I use one dip for jewels as well? just soak in and mechanically clean with pegwood and dry with hand pump dryer, I am assuming?

[JohnR725]

Another source of baskets if you're going to do a DIY spinning machine would be to go to eBay and purchase something like this

17 hours ago, gregorian79 said:

hairspring and pallet fork.

By hairspring I assume you mean balance complete? Then if you had baskets like in the above image You can place the balance wheel in one section and the pallet fork in another.

[rjenkinsgb]

On 4/2/2025 at 3:48 AM, gregorian79 said:

- Fill the ultrasonic cleaner with tap water and mix 1 part concentrate, 9 parts distilled water in a mason jar. Place the mesh baskets inside the jar and run in ultra sonic cleaner for 3-5 min. depending on how dirty the parts are. Temperature of cleaner set at 45-50C.

I use cut-off plastic pop/soda bottles as the cleaning solution containers - to my mind, glass will block far more of the ultrasonic vibration than fairly thin flexible plastic. It's also cheap and disposable if anything gets damaged. You can just swap the outer basket between containers when doing more than one watch, rather than emptying and refilling a single container.

Using L&R fluids, five minutes each stage with couple of minutes to drain between each works well. And I don't use heat at all, though the water warms up slightly as the machine does.

(A rotary machine is a long term target; I've got the mechanics built for a fully auto one, but not had time to finish programming yet).

ps. You can put the balance back on the mainplate and put that in its own basket for washing.

[gregorian79]

2 hours ago, rjenkinsgb said:

I use cut-off plastic pop/soda bottles as the cleaning solution containers - to my mind, glass will block far more of the ultrasonic vibration than fairly thin flexible plastic. It's also cheap and disposable if anything gets damaged. You can just swap the outer basket between containers when doing more than one watch, rather than emptying and refilling a single container.

Using L&R fluids, five minutes each stage with couple of minutes to drain between each works well. And I don't use heat at all, though the water warms up slightly as the machine does.

(A rotary machine is a long term target; I've got the mechanics built for a fully auto one, but not had time to finish programming yet).

ps. You can put the balance back on the mainplate and put that in its own basket for washing.

I was wondering about mason jars being too thick for the US machine, I will try out plastic soda bottles, that is a great idea. 

ok, balance back on the mainplate makes sense. is the one dip in Epilame bottle only for the pallet fork then? also what's the best cleaner for jewels when they are out? can I soak them in one dip and dry out with blower?

 

[JohnR725]

5 hours ago, rjenkinsgb said:

And I don't use heat at all, though the water warms up slightly as the machine does.

Typically for most watch cleaning products and probably all the solvent-based ones elevating the temperature is not desirable. My experiences been if you elevate the temperature it becomes more aggressive at removing tarnish. For which we are time-limited in the cleaning solutions because beyond a certain point when the tarnish is gone it will start dissolving the metal into the solution which will turn a really pretty blue green color. Or simplistically cleaning is good etching the metal is not. 

 

On 4/1/2025 at 7:48 PM, gregorian79 said:

Temperature of cleaner set at 45-50C.

I'm currently reading the Elma red specification use sheet and there is zero mention of elevating the temperature? Then based on the recommended cleaning machines one of them are capable of heating the cleaning products at all be used at room temperature. I placed the cleaning machine 70 elevated temperature at all is for the drying cycle.

 

[RichardHarris123]

Not quite true and more is involved but a decent rule of thumb is for every 10 C rise in temperature, the reaction rate doubles. 

[JohnR725]

31 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Not quite true and more is involved but a decent rule of thumb is for every 10 C rise in temperature, the reaction rate doubles.

This would mean that if the reaction doubles then I guess we reduce the time by the opposite?  Or simplistically in the case of watch cleaning fluids nothing it is really achieved by elevating the temperature other then bad things happening.

The only place I know of and watch cleaning were elevated temperatures works is cleaning the band and/or bracelet. It's amazing how much biological material gets caked on the bands and elevating temperature with ultrasonic works well of course you using a proper cleaning product which is different than what you're using the clean your watch movement.

Edited April 3 by JohnR725

[rjenkinsgb]

12 hours ago, gregorian79 said:

ok, balance back on the mainplate makes sense. is the one dip in Epilame bottle only for the pallet fork then? also what's the best cleaner for jewels when they are out? can I soak them in one dip and dry out with blower?

That's how I do them, though I'd see what other more experienced people advise as well?

I have been using Trichloroethylene (the original stuff in one-dip) which should not really be used without good ventilation. I've recently got some Hexane to try as that is apparently not as dangerous.

(I won't pay for a tiny branded bottle when a 1L unbranded bottle of the same stuff is cheaper).

One-dip has now been replaced by B-Dip,  which is slightly less dangerous apparently. (A generic industrial solvent, Washcleaner 6090).