I discovered my father built a 2 gallon Ultrasonic Cleaner a few (20ish) years ago and unearthed it to use on the bench, primarily for brass cleaning.
It does not have a basket but he is adamant that they are not necessary, any concern would be mild heat or vibrations.
Who uses ultrasonic cleaners and for what? Tips? Advice? What do you guys use for solution?
I use a cheap 2.5 liter cleaner from Harbor Freight. Tap water and a capful of dish detergent. Really. It’ll clean anything that fits in it.
Don’t bother with stinky solvents or fancy cleaning chemicals if you can help it. You’d be giving up most of the benefit of an ultrasonic cleaner, which is that you can clean stuff without using goofy products.
I’ll never waste another second of my life with the Ultrasonic cleaner. Too hit and miss, and inefficient.
I’ve got one of those Stainless Steel media tumblers that actually delivers… Takes at least 3 hours to get brass really clean though… that’s the only downside.
Good point, markm. I would not recommend ultrasonic for cleaning brass. Tumble it.
Ultrasonic cleaners are good at getting oil and dirt out of the tiniest crevices. They’re not very good at mechanically rubbing tarnish off of brass.
If you mix lemishine in, you get better results. But it’s still so much hastle for the limited volume you get through it.
I’ve never tried a higher end U/S cleaner though… -
I don’t care about tarnish, i just want clean. I am sick of corn or walnut in the brass. And at about 25 minutes it seems a lot more efficient than my tumbler. It’s the drying that takes time, but I just put it in a metal basket by the wood stove.
I am not trying to reinvest, but rather take advantage of this free tool.
It is faster… but the hastle and limited volume made me quit doing it pretty quickly. You’ll just have to give it a try to see how effecient your machine is.
it is a large unit, with much more capacity than my tumbler. I am just trying to figure out what works and what doesnt.
I also did a bucket of range brass w/ primer still in. I will deprime tonight to see if it’s wet in the pocket. I certainly see no point if I am going to have to clean and deprime before using it, I dont care about mirror polish so I have no use for 2x cleaned brass.
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You should use a basket to suspend what you’re cleaning in the solution. You can make one with a fine mesh screen, etc. It will clean much better.
Water by itself doesn’t clean well. You need some kind of soap, cleaner, detergent, etc. in the water to make it clean. There probably isn’t a more thorough way to clean (not polish) than an ultrasonic cleaner.
I used to put the brass in a tray and let them sit on the hot water heater overnight. Just make sure to rinse away the cleaning solution.
But maybe it’s just me…
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