Thread: Ultrasonic cleaner - Research

The heat cycle is real usefull.
I use Simple Green as the cleaning agent , works fine for me

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

just pour some neat onto an old rooted case and see what happens. The MSDS wasn't very informative

What is MSDS?

Originally Posted by Hugh Shields

What is MSDS?

Material Safety Data Sheets.....Safety info. All commercial and industrial chemicals have one with safe handling instructions, what to in the event of poisoning, spill, fire etc. Sometimes they have good formula info.

Originally Posted by Hugh Shields

What is MSDS?

Material Safety Data Sheet. Often just Safety Data Sheet.

Provides safety info for handling chemical based products. Also includes info about the recipe/ingredients.

Apparently 2-5ml injected into the area above your hemorrhoids will stop them dropping out of your arse. Apart from that Wikipedia wasn't that helpful either... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanolamine

It's an alcohol based solvent. Probably great for washing car parts. I'd imagine highly flammable.

Stick to the usual formula.

Water, vinegar, dish washing detergent. It works and safer.

Or, Shower Power BAM! and water. It's the best thing you can get in terms of formula and cost next to the propriety reloading company cleaning fluids...

I'm new to this sonic cleaning business.
Can you over do cases?
And how often should I change the solution?

cheap aliexpress one works like a charm.

for cleaning solution use boiling water, tablespoon of citric acid and a bit of dish soap.

rinse with plenty of water.

also works wonders with carbon on suppressor baffles...

Originally Posted by STC

cheap aliexpress one works like a charm.

for cleaning solution use boiling water, tablespoon of citric acid and a bit of dish soap.

rinse with plenty of water.

also works wonders with carbon on suppressor baffles...

Although it is not suggested by manufactures to put anodized aluminium in ultrasonic cleaners.

Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

I'm new to this sonic cleaning business.
Can you over do cases?
And how often should I change the solution?

If using propriety solutions which are fricking expensive, I tend to keep them longer than what is probably good. Hence the ShowerPower BAM! recommendation - its virtually the same as the Hornady solution but between $5 and $7 a bottle. Works good in the shower too, and does some stains on concrete... With that stuff I just dump it each time, a good solution is about 20% concentrate 80% clean water.

You can't overdo cases, but what it will do is not leave any form of protection on the cases so they will be prone to tarnishing from finger prints and the like. A non-hydrocarbon protective spray like a wax protective one sprayed onto the cases in a bag, seal and jumbled the cases around after U/S cleaning and drying works well.

The next thing is you can't actually overdo the cases, but longer is not necessarily better or getting the cases cleaned. A tuned U/S cleaner will clean anything it can get off in about 5 mins or so, longer won't help. Tuning the cleaner is an art form, but the easy way is a lid made up out of a piece of 6mm plastic with a little block glued or screwed onto each side so the lid is retained onto the cleaner's tub. In the middle of this, cut a hole slightly larger than a low-form pyrex scientific beaker the largest diameter you can get that will easily fit into the cleaner's tub and still clear the sides. Get an O-ring that will be a tight fit on the beaker. You use the o-ring to set the height of the beaker in the U/S cleaner's tub, fill the beaker to the point the cases are completely covered (I have them standing up mouth down so everything drops down into the beaker and they can't fall over). In the tub, just have water so that it won't overflow the sides.

To 'tune' the cleaner, just move the beaker up and down until you see the most activity inside the beaker's solution - you'll basically see the crud explode into the cleaning fluid when you have it set right. You are effectively setting the beaker up so that it is in the middle of a frequency node inside the ultrasonic cleaner's transducer sound wave pattern. If you set it up like this it will do all the cleaning you want in the first 30-odd seconds, anything left on the cases is adhered on and will basically need mechanical removal (carbon in the neck and primer pocket etc).

I use a nylon bore brush rubbed over sizing wax inside the case neck as well, as the cases are sticky when this clean. A spray outside as mentioned helps with tarnishing and the inside the case neck lube helps with seating and sizing there. I use Redding full length bushing dies set up on comp shellholders with no depriming pin and a Lee decapping die for resizing duties.

I use mine for motorcycle carbs - the heat cycle is very useful.

If I was doing brass cases I would still use heat , plus whatever cleaning fluid additive floats your boat.

What works for one may not work for another but its trial and error to find the happy spot.