Ultrasonics

[art925]

I rarely use a basket in my ultrasonic, I use a method shown to me by an old Cartier polisher, he just had a square wood stick which rested across the top of the ultrasonic pan and he used S shaped pieces of copper, like meat hooks, to hang the polished items in the middle of the ultrasonic's cleaning liquid, suspended on the strip of wood, hanging like they would do in a plating vat. Also another tip he taught me was to do the same hanging method in a tub of Polyclens to dissolve some of any remaining polish blocked areas before using the ultrasonic.

James

I suspend chopsticks across the top of mine, then I use plastic coated copper wire bent to an "S" to suspend each individual item in the bath. Meths will also melt away any hard to get polish.

[Tabby66]

I use zig-zaggy wires across mine, but also have a small basket which I put little things that have nowhere I can thread the wire though!

[Gemsetterchris]

I use "s" bits of electrical wire hanging from a stick also.
Plus I have one of those tea strainer balls for cleaning loose stones of lots of earrings if needed.

[ps_bond]

Definitely sounds like the way forward; I might go for a basket for cleaning of non-jewellery items though.
Think it's going to be an Elma.

[Patstone]

I bought a cheapish (£20) Ultrasonic about three months ago and used it once. In the process of cleaning two rings, I put in just water the first time, then tried adding Household Amonnia to it and that didnt work either, so I now have yet another piece of useless equipment taking up valuable space. I expected it to be brilliant as people on the forum have said how good they are. My tumbler however is brilliant and I dont know what I would do without it.

[ps_bond]

My cheaper one has done well, but the volume of stuff now going through means it's less suitable. It cleans, but it's slow & I have to keep refilling it with hot water (and a drop of detergent).
The Elma that arrived today (ordered yesterday afternoon) won't suffer from that.

My tumbler sees very little use, I prefer the finish that wheels & compounds give. I'm also starting to see my using 3M wheels less, which is surprising.

[Patstone]

I finish my stuff with my pendant motor and white luxi and first of all a felt mop, then a wool one to finish off, then stuff goes in the tumbler to get rid of bits I have missed. I would love a mirror finish but short of sandpapering everything to an inch of its life, I dont know how to do it. This is something they missed on the course I went on, polishing wasnt included, so I have had to learn from you guys. I am thinking of buying some of the stuff Andrew was on about in his webcast to give it a try. Am I expecting too much from my ultrasonic, and how long would you keep it going for at a time, as mine has a timer of 3 minutes, after that you have to keep putting it going again. Also what stage would stuff go in it, I put it in at the end, but I couldnt see any difference in things I had put in it than things I hadn't.

[Myosotis]

I finish my stuff with my pendant motor and white luxi and first of all a felt mop, then a wool one to finish off, then stuff goes in the tumbler to get rid of bits I have missed. I would love a mirror finish but short of sandpapering everything to an inch of its life, I dont know how to do it. This is something they missed on the course I went on, polishing wasnt included, so I have had to learn from you guys. I am thinking of buying some of the stuff Andrew was on about in his webcast to give it a try. Am I expecting too much from my ultrasonic, and how long would you keep it going for at a time, as mine has a timer of 3 minutes, after that you have to keep putting it going again. Also what stage would stuff go in it, I put it in at the end, but I couldnt see any difference in things I had put in it than things I hadn't.

Don't forget though that the purpose of an ultrasonic is to clean not polish. So if you were doing a repair on a ring or chain for example you'd put it in the ultrasonic first to clean out all the gunk which would otherwise cook when you tried to solder.

Or if it was a new piece you'd use it as the last stage after polishing to remove any polish that might be stuck in crevices.

There won't be any difference to the surface finish of the piece

[Patstone]

That is probably where I am going wrong then, I was expecting it to look different. Before I bought the ultrasonic I used to soak my polished things in water with added ammonia and leave overnight. Perhaps I am just getting lazy in my old age and try to avoid polishing which I hate.

[Patstone]

How long would you leave stuff in your ultrasonic as I said earlier, mine has a time switch which only goes up to three minutes.