Awesome cleaner degreaser test

[randy]

Maybe I’m way off base,..but have you tried Dawn dish soap ? Pretty sure I seen where others have used it to degrease, clean parts.
I use it diluted with a soft camel hair brush, to gently clean dials…works great for me

[willofiam]

Randy, not really off track, I figured the thread would go in this direction and hopefully give some ideas, with good and bad results, I dont mind taking the time to experiment but as I have said in the past I like to stick with proven methods especially when it is not my clock. I would hate to take for granted something that has not been proven and end up ruining a family heirloom. All my experiments are on old movements I have in stock.
you may have hit the nail on the head, I was just telling my wife I need to get a bunch of that, I did a preliminary test with fair results (I was a bit impatient and only soaked for 20 min. full strength) … I did notice that the areas the dawn were on became brighter than the rest just from sitting on that particular area….after a good rinse then a short time in the ultrasonic tank with the historic timekeepers solution I normally use…. I was also thinking about full strength murphys oil soap, why, the olaic acid in it, does that matter? not sure..I will have to look into that…. lost my train of thought when I fumbled around looking for some the other day. Hope everyone has a good day. William

[bernie weishapl]

William before I started using Zep I had mixed my own cleaner for the US. It was dawn dishwashing liquid, murphy’s oil soap and regular household ammonia. I still had to be careful with the newer lacquered movements but it did work fairly well.

[chris mabbott]

You’re absolutely right William, I’m sure you’ve woken up in a cold sweat at 3:17 am after having a nightmare about accidentally ruining this huge, mean as a pit bull, 6′ 8″ 370 pound wrestlers clock that his granny gave him by using a homemade recipe of maple syrup, gasoline and sheep manure mix of cleaners 😆 😆

I’m not sure if you used your USC for your original post, as you know, I’m not a big user of them myself, but when I have and do use it, I’ve always used dish soap, any concentrated type, in hot water.

For stubborn, really black brass, I use vinegar & salt with a drop of dish soap, it also works great on silver, and gold, but not silveroid. I think we spoke about it a while ago but here’s a link I accidentally found where this guy uses it on brass cartridges, brass is brass, I want my baby back 😆

[cazclocker]

Hi guys, I thought I’d chime in and say I’ve never heard of “awesome” degreaser. What I use is Extreme Simple Green, made by the same people that make the household green-colored Simple Green. ESG is made for aircraft-grade small parts cleaning, and it works really well. You can read about it here: http://industrial.simplegreen.com/ind_products_extreme.php . It makes a great first dip to get the bulk of the crud off of a movement and then for another dip if needed BEFORE cleaning in the ultrasonic. Like most of my chemicals, I keep TWO plastic containers of it – one that I allow to get real dirty (I label it ESG #1) and then another one I use for second dip (I label it ESG #2).
For my ultrasonic cleaner, I use the same product #17864 from Timesavers, Historic Timekeepers non-ammoniated concentrate. I have to admit I am very inexperienced with the ultrasonic cleaners out there because I began using Historic Timekeepers non-ammoniated and loved it so much I never used anything else.
I know this topic has been beaten to death, but the issue with ammonia is that ALLEGEDLY (accent on ALLEGEDLY) the word from metallurgists is that ammonia introduces micro-fractures and micro-cracks to brass because it attacks some of the brass alloys constituents. I am NOT a metallurgist, but I believe in being careful so I choose to use a non-ammoniated cleaner so long as I get the results we all want in a reasonable amount of time. So far, Historic Timekeepers has done a wonderful job for me so I don’t have a compelling reason to switch.
…Doug

PS – AFTER I BOUGHT A GALLON OF EXTREME SIMPLE GREEN AND FOUND I LIKE IT A LOT, I BOUGHT A 5-GALLON CONTAINER WHICH I STILL HAVE ABOUT HALF OF.

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