Ultrasonic cleaners - your input?
- Thread starter AirOpsMgr
- Start date
I've got some iridescent rainbow flakes I could paint it with for you. You won't be able to sonic clean that either though.
Well, after a little googling, it appears that ultrasonic waves can and do, damage aluminum. It seems strange that some departments use them to clean whole AR15s though.
How caustic is purple power?
How caustic is purple power?
Slightly. If you want non caustic, use simple green.
We use Zep Morado at the shop, it's like purple power that will take the skin off your hands.
Last edited:
I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. Simple Green Extreme. It's made for aircraft and is aluminum safe.
I have no experience with ultrasonic cleaners, but I can tell you that Simple Green Extreme is awesome. I've used it to clean up aircraft parts that came in from deployment (nasty as hell) before we reverse engineered/upgraded/or tested them. Most all of that stuff was aluminum or magnesium. Mostly aluminum.
I have no idea what a fitting off of an F15 or C130 costs, but I'm sure it blows away the cost of a few baffles.
I read on the interwebs that it was the shit. Since I believe everything I read on the internet I had to try it out.
We ordered from www.aircraftspruce.com
I don't know how their prices compare, but we could get the cleaner, phosphate etch, and alodine from them on one order.
Better link: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/09-00809.php?clickkey=6888
$20/gallon. I don't know how that compares to other websites.
$20/gallon. I don't know how that compares to other websites.
I bought mine amazon prime for like $24, but you can get a case of 4 gallons from home depot for $75
Has anyone tried a rust stripper in their sonic cleaner? I never thought about it, but I decided to read the instructions on mine and there's this chart of alkaline, acidic & caustic cleaners and their effects on different metals. It mentions rust stripper, but after reading the manual and google searching it, I couldn't really find any specifics. I've used things like Ospho in auto restoration, but those are highly acidic and I would never put them in my tank. I've heard of people using evapo-rust in ultrasonics, but I spent some money on this machine and don't want to take any chances.
Last edited:
Got mine in, haven't tried it yet, but here are pics with a 1911 (can't fit the frame and slide in at the same time).
I'm a little leery to run a slide with night sights until I do more research, so going to start off with BCGs, pistol internals, etc to start.
I'm a little leery to run a slide with night sights until I do more research, so going to start off with BCGs, pistol internals, etc to start.
That one looks a little smaller than the one I have. I ran mine with the night sights. No damage, except for some of the white lettering coming off.
I'll try a slide a little later on after I have time to break one down all the way (have my can baffles taking a swim at the moment)
My Spectre was nasty, really nasty. I took it apart Sunday night and soaked it in the dip for 24 hours. Monday, I pulled them out, rinsed them and wiped them down. There was still a good bit of carbon and lead on the baffles. So I dropped them in the US for 8 minutes. Did a pretty decent job of knocking loose the remaining, already softened, crud. Rinsed them again wiped them out, chipped out a few stubborn pieces and the baffles were spotless. The mount section, better, but still a lot of caked on crud.
I've run mine a couple of times today not realizing that the heater light turns red once it hits max temp. Once the solution was fully heated, I noticed a bigger difference. Using the Lyman sonic solution to start with, still have a couple of spots in a few baffles that needed wiped out, but seems to do a good job.
I only had about a hundred rounds of .45 and 300 rounds of 22 through the can when I cleaned it, so not that dirty to start with
I've got the same one. I avoid putting anything with nights sights/fiber optic sights in it. BCGs, slides, CHs....all those rugged parts have been fine in mine.
I've been running all kinds of parts through it today, I'm just too scared to drop night sights in yet
It did a heck of a job on my BCGs as well as my .22 conversion (that thing was pretty nasty),
I've been reading on a few different forums that the majority of folks have not had any problems with night sights, but I'll need to research just a little more before I get my confidence up
