It appears that the time spent on the crusade against ammoniated fluids (including this brief description of our experience) should actually be devoted to more compelling problems. Even if our estimate, made on a small number of items, would be quite wrong, things would not change that much. Supposing an overhaul is performed every four years, with a four minutes bath in ammonia solution (exactly ¼ of the time our barrels had to “suffer” during their washes) a clock would show cracks on brass parts after 500*4*4=8,000 years! This gives ample safety margin for errors in calculations. Theoretically, a fraction of the damage shown by our barrels is caused to every clock washed in ammoniated fluids, but we believe it is so small it can really be neglected.Īn antique clock will terminate its life much sooner than having to stand 500 cleanings, 500 ultrasonic treatments and 1,500 rinsings (each of them 8 minutes long) as our barrels did before cracking. This is a test that no other clock or watch all over the world will luckily have to face. Nonetheless it appears safe to affirm that nickel plated or gilded modern movements can be washed with ammoniated solutions and treated with ultrasonic machines for a vast number of times without any risk. This is not a true “experiment”: we did not examine a very large number of items, only a few from our own experience, so conclusions should be taken into account very carefully. One barrel wheel started to detach from the barrel wall. Fissures are located where the material is more stressed, near the hook and at the root of teeth. It is an impressive quantity of washes but it is only from a couple of years that the two barrels began to crack, after about 500 cleanings, ultrasonic treatments and rinsing. 100 washes ĥ) - one mechanical modern wristwatch movement, gilded 2 years ca. 150 washes Ĥ) - one quartz wrist movement plate, nickel plated used for 4 years ca. 150 washes ģ) - one mechanical modern wristwatch movement, nickel plated used for 5 years ca. 600 washes each Ģ) - one mechanical vintage wristwatch movement, nickel plated used for 5 years ca. This is the list of the “counterweights” we have used:ġ) - two Peter alarm clock barrels, brass used for 11 years ca. To avoid them, we counterpoise the container with old alarm clock barrels or scrap watch movements. Movements are kept in a rotating container which, when not poised, causes noisy vibrations. This method has stood the test of many years of use and in no occasion a single watch showed problems due to residual dirt. We use ammoniated fluids for watches in an automatic washing machine where movements, both mounted and dismantled, pass through a preliminary bath (8 minutes), an ultrasonic bath (8 minutes), three rinsing baths made with benzene (8 minutes each) and a drying system with hot hair (8 minutes). Nevertheless, we do not condemn those colleagues using ammonia, and we will try to explain why. The only advantage towards the ultrasonic method is that the oxide on brass is to some extent removed, but this is far from being enough on a restoration job, where parts must be polished to a shine finish, and is of no importance at all in a conservative job. This have to be put apart after cleaning, smells bad, produces froth and must be very carefully rinsed. It appears to be much more time saving to wash parts in ultrasonic tank with special soap and water than immersing them in a container filled with ammoniated fluid. We adopt an ultrasonic tank for the purpose, but this is mostly due to practical reasons. In our workshop, ammonia based cleaning fluids are not used for cleaning clock parts. We are all aware of damage that ammonia causes to brass. Cleaning solutions appear to be a crucial point in our job. This is a very long debated problem: it happens to speak about it with other repairers and restorers more often than any other horological matter. We suspect that the Editor has already received many of them.
It is ammonia based and immediately we expected a lot of complains from our fellow clockmakers. When reading August issue of the Journal, we noted that Eric Gent gave the recipe for his clock cleaning solution.
PDFs do not exist for the earlier articles, but can be created on request, EMAIL.
#Horology magazines free
This index of articles published in Clocks magazine, Antiquarian Horology, Horological Journal and elsewhere, includes about 100 that are available as a free download.
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