Does anyone still use the old style home made watch cleaning solution made with oleic acid, ammonia, acitone and distilled water? I've been using this solution for years. I follow it with three rinses of coleman fuel and a heated dryer. I use a CE Marshall square jar rotating cleaner and a L&R rotating cleaner. My question is will this solution do any damage to the watch? Should I be using something else?

Hi Charles.
I never used a homemade solution, but I can tell you that the new non ammoniated solutions work very well even without an ultrasonic. They don't smell bad and are safe for all the parts. In addition you don't have to worry about rust. I am guessing you dip the parts in alcohol before drying using your current system. If you went with the new chemicals you wouldn't need to do that. I pay in the $30 range for a gallon of Zenith or L&R solution or rinse.

Scott, I keep a liter bottle of everclear handy for the final dip, occasionally when a movement starts driving me up a wall, LOL I take a dip in it myself. Back on the serious side. I have lightned the ammonia content to 3 ounces per gallon to prevent excessive etching. I have a McKenna ultrasonic that I use to clean the cap and hole jewels but I never felt comfortable putting a nickel plated movement in an ultrasonic. I may give that new solution a try.

Thank you for your reply.

Charles,
You are the ONLY other person I ever met who has a Mckenna cleaner. I have three ultrasonics hooked up inlcuding one new one. I swear the McKenna is the best cleaner. You don't have any literature on it do you?
Also, I havn't heard of Everclear since I was in the Air Force. I imagine that it would be one heck of a solvent.
I use mostly non ammoniated cleaner in the Mckennaa, but occasionally use the regular non foaming watch cleaner which has the strong ammonia smell. I have never had any sort of damage whatsoever to any watch part. Just 3 minutes in the cleaner, dunk it a couple times in the dunking cup and 3 minutes in the rinse. I swear it has twice the agitation of the modern ultrasonics.

One last thing. The ammoniated solution smokes in the McKenna. There is so much cavitation in it that it must vaporize the cleaning chemical. I started purchasing all my chemicals from Merrits. They seem to have the lowest prices.

Scott, I dont have any literature, I got this one when I bought a deceased watchmakers complete set of shop tools, benches and all some years ago. Mine has two active positions, one for dip and a heater. It has a control to lower and raise the amplitude. All I've ever used in it is my home made ammoniated solution (distilled water,Ammonia, oleic acid and acitone. It also has a 1/2-1 in fog in top of the solution when I run it full blast. Pardon the mess, I'm still in the process of cleaning up. I guess us old guys tend to stay with what we started with, LOL, I still use my Little Giant rotating cleaner, self made cleaning solution, everclear bath coleman fuel rinse, and time them on my Watchmaster G7. I checked the tuning fork frequency on my G7 and LOL it was dead nuts on 240 hz even after all these years.

"Dead nuts on"...is that a testicle term?

Rodger, LOL I'm trying my best to be a good boy on this site and not exhibit my twisted sense of humor. How about very accurate.

I have a GemOro 1.5 Ultrasonic and was thinking about switching to L & R cleaning solution. I am going to buy the non-ammoniated #566 Cleaner and the #3 Rinsing Solution. My question is, after cleaning the parts in the ultrasonic with the #566, can I rinse the parts by just dipping or soaking them in the #3, or does that also require the use of the ultrasonic?

Bruce, I use #3 Rinse with my mechanical L&R machine, so I would say you should do fine.

I was talking to the chemist at L&R and he put great emphasis’s on the importance of the rinse cycles, he even went as far as to suggest that I use 1 cleaning solution and 3 rinses, cycling back for chemical changes of course. I still prefer the 2 clean and 2 rinse but I do give the last rinse double time the first. I would defiantly ultrasonic the rinse you need to wash away completely everywhere that the cleaning solution has been and then in a second clean rinse to follow

Chris, Thanks for your response. Could you please clarify your one statement that refers to "cycling back for chemical changes?" I didn't quite understand that. I think I could probably use another ultrasonic just for rinses. I could clean in the 1st one, rinse in the second, then do a vigorous dip in a final clean rinse jar. Do you think that would be a workable system? Thanks.

Bruce,

What I do is when the 1st rinse is due for change I use the second rinse which is normally perfectly clear in the now freshly cleaned out 1st rinse jar decant carefully like wine leaving and residue at bottom, then clean the second jar,( hot water and ammonia) fill the second jar with fresh rinse, same for the cleaning solutions.
Sometimes the complete system get contaminated and you simply have to change the all in one go mine 1 gallon $40.
Will your method work? basically you have to see the results, I know using my system of 4 jars I get consistent results every time, also some ultrasonic’s are made for non flammable fluids only.
I use my old fluid for starting garden waste fires it burns great.
Old cleaning fluid & rinse is also great for cleaning gun parts, garden tools, small engine etc etc,

Chris,
Thanks for the tip on using old cleaning fluid and rinse on gun parts.