sonic cleaner back on sale

Plenty in our Aldi this morning, though one less after I'd left

Regards Kevin

Looks like they have their cheapo angle grinder discs and diamond saws on offer on Thursday too.

Regards, Tony

Picked one up myself this morning in Romsey. Plenty there at 11.00, but they had only been open for a hour. First tests on some jewelry items and a metal watch strap were quite impressive.

Also purchased a couple of packs of anti-slip backing (pack of two large sheets for =A33.49). I bought some of this last time it was on offer, and I can strongly recommend it for lining drawers. Really does stop things like small tools, cutters etc. moving around, and provides a soft cushioned surface.

Mike

and the heavy-duty handwash - I wouldn't want to use it every day, but if get really nasty sticky 'orrible grease on your hands it does a good job. I buy a couple of tubes most years.

However, I was more intrigued by the 1700W Demolition Hammer - just the thing for those stuck collets (if you are John... :)

Now there's a thing...I had similar thoughts regarding the nice looking £4 set of wrecking bars

Regards, Tony

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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I rather suspected as much, at 45 J impact energy - that's only equivalent to a 7 lb sledge at 14 feet per second, and the momentum transferred will probably be much less.

But you won't get a Soviet-5-year-plan model heroically pretending to wield it (without ear protectors or dust) if you buy a 3200W model:

Not that you'd particularly want one ,

I notice that they have the £9.00 angle grinders back in on Thursday, have to pop in and get another 1/2 dozen At this price it's not worth changing the disks, just book a new grinder out per job.......................

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Kitchen equipment company Lakeland stock an ultra-sonic cleaner of apparently the same specification priced at £25.99.

Doug Ball

Mike Cole

I bought one on the last round. It came with the warning that it should not be used to clean diamond and emerald jewellery. My daughter who is senior registrar orthodontics cries 'bol*****' and that the one in her surgeries gets used for any sort of jewellery.

Next question, can these things be used with solvents other than water? And if so, what?

Norm

They should not be used to clean jewellery that has the stones mounted with glue rather than bent metal... the glue can be softened with predictable results. At least the stones will still be in the cleaner:-)

I have used Jizer (kerosene with anionic surfactants) when degreasing. It works, but will craze the transparent plastic lid. Isopropyl alcohol apparently works as well or better. Sugar soap in water seems to be almost as good as anything.

Mark Rand RTFM

Thanks Mark,

Never thought of glue. So that was why my wife fished into my pocket for on Engagement Ring Day! My watchmaker's glass.

Later this AM, my mate and I were discussing cleaning wrist watches in his newly acquired machine. Dismantling is still needed!

Most useful info. Thank you for your help.

Norm

Norm, Emeralds are very soft stones and any decent sized stones will usually have inclusions and flaws in them. These can cause the stone to crack when cleaned with ultrasonics. Additionally, because they are so soft they often have little chips 'filled' then polished to give the appearance of an unbroken stone. The ultrasonics can cause these fillers to break up and detach,

I wouldn't have thought diamonds would have the same sort of problems, so the bol***** with respect to that is probably perfectly alright:)

With regard to solvents, one important thing to remember is that the cleaning works best when the surface tension of the water is broken down, and this can be accomplished by something as simple as adding a few drops of washing up liquid to the solution. In my industrial U/S bath I add a few capfuls of a cheap lemon-scented dilutable multi surface cleaner to the 5L of water and this works quite well for a great deal of cleaning.

In an optical thin film coating firm that I used to run, we had several benchtop baths for prepping substrates prior to film deposition and used mostly neat Isopropyl Alcohol in these, and occasionally Pet Ether. The pet ether works particularly well for cleaning old carburettors but you have to be very careful of the low flashpoint and boiling point. On second thoughts, perhaps not best recommended for a home workshop.

Peter (whose wife has a penchant for Emeralds...)

Mine is slowly working up from aluminium oxide onto emery, at the rate she's going it will be a few years until we can wean her onto CBN

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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going it will

.... I should be so lucky...

Peter

When I was in the watch and clock repair business, I often carried a loupe in my pocket. One day, in my favourite coffee shop, the waitress wanted my opinion of her engagement ring. I looked at it, and pronounced it to be a very nice white Sapphire ( it was). Her reply "What! He said it was a real diamond!" Her fiancé came in a few minutes later, and she confronted him. He said "yes, a sapphire diamond." In the interest of peace, I agreed with him, and went home! Whew!

Steve R.

Gentlemen, Thank you for your erudition. No idea what it means but Thank You. So I really don't need to worry about willing my remaining bits of my Old Age Pension to a daughter who is Hell bent on exploding emeralds! We all have our little idiot-syncrasies.

Norman