Any of these cleaners worth the $40 bucks or so to snag for cleaning parts/cases?
cgi.ebay.com/0-6-L-Digital-Ultrasonic-Cleaner-WATCH-TATTOO-DENTAL-/160462801778
cgi.ebay.com/DIGITAL-ULTRASONIC-CLEANER-Jewelry-Watch-dvd-3818-/310297171831
cgi.ebay.com/1-New-Jewelry-Diamond-Watch-Ultrasonic-Cleaner-LT05BLU-/170604954524
Also... realize I'd be just using it sparingly... I'm no professional and still learning.
Waste of energy/money even picking one up or.... good enough for my level?
What say you Forum?!
In reply to And remember to tell the wife by shooter144
Look for something like this one, that is advertized here on the site advertizement.
You wont be disappointed.
Timemachines is right on, as you get better action and the heating feature helps to clean ( and the parts dry faster ).
But,..I've had one of the 40 dollar specials for a year now, and I use small glass jars with mesh inserts to hold my cleaner and rinse solutions. I run everything through each 3 minute phaze at least twice, and am able to get all but the really stubborn gunk off. You still have to peg out the jewels by hand, and I sometimes have run across old cheap oil that was tough to remove from the pinions. You can soak them ( no jeweled parts, just the train gears ) in one-dip overnight, and they come out sparkling.
Best of luck...
Randy
In reply to Hey Jerin, If your wife by Timemachines
What do we think of this guy? Not overly expensive... warmer... looks legit?
In reply to What do we think of this by plainsmen
In reply to Answer me you bandits! by plainsmen
Just a comment on ultrasonics. As previously mentioned, the cheap ones are false economy, because they wear out quickly, and are probably not real ultrasonics. One of the guys in our shop took one apart and it had the equivalent of a cellphone buzzer glued to the underside of the tank. A true ultrasonic will cost several hundred for starters, but I recently picked up a reconditioned Grobet Mighty Midget 2 for $100. I have a larger one also, an L&R ....
BUT! IMHO, Ultrasonics are not the best idea for cleaning watch movements. Why? Because after many years of service, possibly with ultrasonic baths, etc, not to mention brightening with cyanide, etc., most watches begin to lose the plating on their movt plates. One last cleaning with an ultrasonic may be all that's needed to strip it off altogether. Case in point: I had a Tudor Oyster come in, with plenty of service marks, 11 in all, showing it had been serviced at regular intervals all its life. I serviced as per normal, but was horrified to see after the bath in my non-ultrasonic L&R Master, that the plating would come off like the dust on a moth's wing. That last cleaning was the straw that broke the camel's back, in other words. Since in many cases it is impossible to know how many times or exactly how a watch movt has been cleaned, (especially on vintage or very old watches) I err on the side of caution, and this is also what our profs told us in watchmaking school. That said, if the countertop jewellery cleaner isn't an ultrasonic in the first place, you wouldn't have to worry. I use ultrasonics for case and bracelet cleaning, and some jewellery cleaning.
Before I bought the L&R Master, I used the same professional waterless solutions, soaking the parts, and agitating by hand in small jars. The solutions are so good, that this works well. The Standard watch cleaning machine is simply a power agitated version of this, and where it really makes things easy is in the drying, as it has a heater chamber, and can spin the basket at high speed, to dispel the fluid. If you had the basket and the head that holds it, you could use a small vari speed drill press, with the basket immersed in a jar on the work platform.