Doc, Thanks for the reply. So it's a gentle Shake, rather than a Rattle & Roll. At first I thought the items were tumbled about like clothes in a washer / dryer, but this 'shifting' makes sense. Ah, but will you miss the whif of Brasso in the morning ?
Greetings, Doc, your tumbler did a nice job. I am most impressed with the effect on the Sievert Sv123 windscreen. That is a setup worth looking into, and thanks for notes on adding the rouge to the walnut shells. I have been using a small commercial ultrasonic cleaner. I have used Branson brand before, this one is a Cole Parmer 8891 and it wouldn't surprise me if Branson was bought out by Cole Parmer as they look about the same. It has about 500 watts of ultrasonic power and a capacity of about 1/2 US gallon. I use it for burners, and some other parts with the usual citric acid crystals mixed in water, and I use the acid only in the beakers. The cleaner tank I fill only with hot water. The transmissive efficiency is reportedly 80% through the glass to the interior of the beaker. This is a one - two photo set, at turn on, and then as fast as I could click the second photo. With acid bath in beakers at elevated temperature, and the ultrasonic, it is quite aggressive. I also use Kerophile's paste method on tanks and some burners, with a more concentrated mix in a small batch with a little wallpaper paste powder added to gel the mix. It stays in place on the tank with a little help from the brush every 5 - 10 minutes or so. This photo shows an old Opt1 with the incorrect silent burner it came with, and a 111B burner also getting the paste treatment. My container of citric acid is visble top right. Regards, Doug
Hi Doc, you have produced wonderful results with your walnut shell "carrier" and jewellers rouge abrasive in the vibrating machine. You have effectively automated the polishing process and this will save a fair bit of time. Once you have achieved such a good finish you will need to protect it as the polished brass will tarnish almost in front of your eyes under normal household conditions. Metal polishes, such as Brasso, actually contain an oil, and it is the thin residual coating of this oil which delays the tarnishing oxidation process to a certain degree. Alternatively you might wish consider using a clear lacquer. I believe that Exeter Yak researched suppliers on your side of the pond and may be able to recommend a product. This thread is a mixture of Ultrasonic cleaners and Vibratory cleaners. They actually utilise entirely different cleaning principles : Ultrasonic cleaners usually operate with the object to be cleaned wholly immersed in a fluid. It is the generation of bubbles, and their subsequent collapse, on the surface of the work-piece which induces shock-waves and the cleaning action. In the case of vibratory cleaners, The object to be cleaned and a suitable carrier medium are contained in a vibrating vessel.A fine abrasive, such as jewellers rouge is carried over the surfaces of the workpiece by the carrier medium ( e.g. walnut shells or dried corn-cobs), It is this direct abrasion of the surface of the object which provides the cleaning action. Great Results, Well Done, Kerophile. P.S. Doc, I was not surprised that you have the largest Vibrator on the West Coast of the USA
Hi all, I am very impressed with the polishing effects of the walnut shells ground together with the "jewelers rough abrasive". I wonder if the combination would also work in an Ultra sonic cleaner. I have just bought one true Ebay in the UK and as the seller would not ship to Spain except for an ex orbital cost, I had it send to a friend who will send it it over with the first next visitor. Do you think that one can find ground walnut shells in Spain or it this a 'homemade something and than, how fine need they be ground? Also, what could be the equivalent of "jewelers rough abrasive"? Perhaps, Car polish? I can assure that my fingers are really sour from the bit of polishing I did yesterday and this does sound as an ideal solution. Cheers, Joseph
Good Morning, Kerophile, Thanks, very much, for your kind words! I was very happy with the way things turned out, actually, and will continue to use my case cleaner in the future, for stoves and parts which will fit into it. Thanks for the tip on "sealing" the cleaned parts and stoves. Good idea. I'll play around a little, and see what works well for me. The spray-on lacquer may be just the ticket. By the way, my Dillon case cleaner certainly isn't the " largest Vibrator on the West Coast of the USA" But, back when I bought it, I was an active Range Safety Officer, and was shooting quite regularly each month. It was nothing odd for me to shoot up to 1,000 rounds of ammunition on a trip to the Range, depending on if I was teaching, testing cartridge load development, or shooting for my own enjoyment. I got REALLY tired of having to manually clean all of that brass! So, when I bought my vibratory cleaner, I picked the largest one that was being offered, at the time. Nowadays, you may be able to find one bigger, but I have no idea about that. Mine still works quite well, despite years of hard usage, so I can heartily recommend the seller, Dillon Precision, of Scottsdale, Arizona. Joseph63, I have no idea if a real Ultrasonic cleaner would work with ground walnut hulls. Why not just use it as that one was intended, with liquid? If you want to go the vibratory cleaner route, I would probably suggest buying something similar to what I have. By the way, the walnut hulls are ground up to the consistency of large sand, so they sift into and out of all parts that you place within the cleaner bowl. Here is contact information for Dillon, and I'm sure they would be quite happy to ship their products to Spain. Dillon Precision Products, Inc. 8009 E. Dillons Way Scottsdale, AZ 85260 (480) 948-8009 http://dillonprecision.com/default.cfm? Email: sales@dillonprecision.com Best of luck on your hunt for cleaning goodies! Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc Mark
With the Ultrasonic Cleaner you always has to use a liquid of any sort newer ever walnut shells or something like that, and never let something standing on the bottom! Use basket's which is resting on the edge of the cleaner. The Ultrasonic Cleaner can clean burner tubes inside but be sure the liquid is inside the tubes (turn it around in the liquid). Case vibrator is for polishing and outside cleaning - not inside cleaning of burners. Ultrasonic Cleaner's works typical with 30 - 50.000 hz pr. second, and the case vibrator ............. ? Both are very usefull - but for different purpose.
Hi All, I have recently managed to buy one on Ebay-UK (?103,-). It's a 6 liter unit made in China, but as the seller would not ship to Spain, I had it send to a friends address. I was just brought over by another friend and I will have a go at cleaning some bits as soon as I have the time to take the burner apart. I will try plain vinegar with washing up liquid as I still have not found citric acid and the disodium phosphate. I will report back with the result and pictures. Cheers, Joseph.
For really dirty brass, such as .223 hulls picked up at an outdoor range, I have found that adding a good shake of Comet powder, and a teaspoon of Brasso to the walnut hulls in a Dillon vibratory cleaner gives the desired results. You get the cutting action of the Comet abrasive and the chemical cleaning action of the Brasso. After cleaning for about three or four hours the brass will be very shiny. When getting ready to do a batch of brass I add the Comet and Brasso to the cleaning medium and then let the machine run for five minutes to get the walnut medium coated with the cleaner. Then I put the brass in. After the batch is finished and the brass is removed you can put two squares of paper towel in the cleaner with the filthy polishing medium and run the machine for a while. Quite a lot of the dirt and crap will adhere to the paper towel. Throw the paper towel away and you are ready for another batch of brass. Best Regards, HTG
MidwayUSA is the best place to buy tumbling medium and activator. http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=198878 You can surf their site fro there as well. Excellent source of tools and all manner of fun toys. Tumbling medium, be it walnut shell, corn cob, or whatever wears out very slowly and only needs topped up as it grinds to powder. Adding fresh activator (abrasive) as needede very effectively renews the effectiveness for a long time. (That's a long time on a calendar, as well as on a watch.) I've been buying form Midway for at least twenty years, and have found their customer service to be nothigng short of spectacular. Unfailingly. They are so good they make you feel better about mail order places that have skrood you quite badly. They have made mistakes, but handle 'em so well and so quickly that I look forward to the odd error just to experience a properly handled goof up. Gerry
Excellent additional info HTG and Gerry. Thanks, I am considering a tumbler for burners & such. There is probably more use for one in areas involving stoves and in other work which I can only imagine at present. Doug
This is the first result of using the ultrasonic cleaner. This is the "Before" And this is the "After" I used 41/2 liters of water with 200 grams of citric acid and a squeeze of washing up liquid. After 2 cycles of 1/2 hour the result is quite good. I took out the regulator valve and the jet and filled op the holes so that no acid would enter. Also the pump was sealed and the burner mouth was taken off during the "swim". The pictures are taken wit the lamp sitting on top of the Ultra sonic cleaner. After this it was just a matter of polishing and a spay of paint for the grip. It certainly saved a lot of rubbing! It is the one on the right in this picture. Cheers, Joseph
Nice work ! The subject blow torch cleaned up really well, and now looks great sitting next to the other ones. Looking at the before photo, that would have been a lot of rubbing and brushing with cleaners making a lovely mess of the work area. Your hands would have been doubly grubby with chemicals cleaning it manually from the start, and I'll bet you saved a lot of work and got into all the nooks and crannies without spending hours upon hours getting out the caked on stuff. Excellent ! Doug
Wow, very persuasive argument for the non manual approach to cleaning . That nicely polished brass tank ... does it have a priming 'cup' indent on the top ? Would a stove vapouriser from a 71/80/123 screw into those threads ? Has someone already done a 'blowtorch-to-stove' conversion ?
Hi Spudz, Yes indeed it does have this indentation for the priming. The Austrian blow lamp has the burner part screwed in to the tank, but several others have a nut that screws the burner to the tank like the BURMOS and the MONITOR. Still I think that they look nice as blow lamps and not so as a stove. Cheers, Joseph.
Hi Jos. You have made a great job of these Blowlamps. They really good and are a credit to your workmanship. The Ultrasonic cleaner and citric acid certainly cuts down on the amount of manual labour and is kinder to these old implements as it does not remove so much metal from the surface as does abrasive cleaning. Best Regards, Kerophile.
Hi George, Thank you for your kind words, but actually you are also in for credit as you helped me to restore the Monitor to it's original state with the filler cap. I have a question for you as an authority on these ancient tools. The Monitor came without it's nipple and after contacting the guy's at base camp, they supplied me with spare nipples. Previously I had already checked that the thread on the nipple was the same as in the Burmos as the Burmos nipple fitted perfectly in the Monitor. The new nipples would not screw into the Monitor, not even yelling at them. Nevertheless, they have no problem at all to screw into the Burmos, so I have left the Burmos nipple in the Monotor. Unfortunately I don't have thread checkers as these are not easily available in Spain, but comparing the thread of both nipples, they look the same. Still, I don't understand the why the new nipples don't fit. Any ideas? Also, after the wee bit of experience I am building up from fettling these lamps, I now first of all repair them , than fire them and after that I clean and polish them. It does save me to polish them again afterwards. I have finally also found out who has managed to keep hold of my grandfathers soldering iron. The only problem being that she is holding on to it for the same sentimental reasons as I was trying to get hold of it/one. At least I now know that it is a Max Sievert, but still the model is a mistery as she told me it was not anywhere to be seen. If I ever go over to Holland, I will have a good look myself. She has promished to send me a picture. Perhaps now, with the brand name and the description as I remembered (correctly she confirmed), I have a bit more data to help me to look for one. I will keep you informed. The Optimus I found in Austria is obviously different but might be usable for swapping. It is still on ot's way. Best regards, Jos.
Hi Jos, Welcome to thread Hell. We have all been here at one time or other. Blowlamp and stove makers tended to use non-standard threads. You can sometimes find a modern thread that coincides with one of the old ones but it is a matter of chance. Although a very large number of stove components are inter-changeable between different makers and models, you will find exceptions. One reason for this could be the wider tolerances that were acceptable in the 1900 - 1960s. A thread gauge will be of little use to you unless you have the skills and machinery to manufacture you own replacement parts. Exeter Yak is the expert on this subject and he could give College lectures on the topic. On the subject of your Grandfather's soldering blowlamp; I think he might have owned a Primus model as they have the Knurled or Quilted appearance on the surface of the hand-held tank, which you described. I have a pre-1962 Primus catalogue and several such blowlamps are illustrated. The Sievert models I have seen tended to have "reeded" tanks. Hope this helps. Best Regards, Kerophile.
