AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Gun Building => Topic started by: Benignant on June 05, 2025, 08:34:24 PM
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I was using Mark Lee's Express Blue to reblue a few small parts a week or two ago that had a lot of difficult to get at nooks and crannies. I knew that I didn't get every little spot carded perfectly, so after the final carding it occured to me to fill my cheap ultrasonic cleaner with plain hot tap water and drop the parts in one by one for a few seconds to see what it would dislodge.
The resulting cloud of black shmutz that erupted from each part was surprising. Since this discovery I have used this as a routine part of my carding process. I found that even on simple straight parts that I was able to get to every surface of with 0000 steel wool still would spit out at least a small black cloud of crud in the ultrasonic.
Has anyone else tried this? I searched this site and the internet for some mention of this method to improve carding but came up with nothing. I can't be the first to make this discovery. I'm not that smart.
First post - I have been reading this forum for a while, but never had anything to contribute till now.
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Welcome Benignant ! Sounds interesting. Do you have any photos of this machine in operation?
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Welcome Benignant ! Sounds interesting. Do you have any photos of this machine in operation?
No, I didn't think to take any. Here is a link to the unit i have:
https://www.harborfreight.com/25-liter-ultrasonic-cleaner-63256.html (https://www.harborfreight.com/25-liter-ultrasonic-cleaner-63256.html)
I do take out the plastic basket and place the part directly on the metal, right over the center sweet spot in the bottom.
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Interesting. I wonder how it would do using a water/vinegar mix to clean scale from heat-treated parts? Anything to make that task less unenjoyable sounds like a win!
Thanks for sharing this.
- Tom
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We use ultrasonic cleaners at work to clean hot melt adhesive glue applicators. Some of them are charred really bad, and a few hours in the cleaner shines them right up. We use mineral oil in the cleaners.
Have also used them to clean parts of modern rifles, that works well also.
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Hi,
One disadvantage is nothing is further polishing the browned surface. I use a very soft stainless steel wheel by Grobet that gets into every corner and also polishes the steel with every carding. If you want a grainy coarse grained brown then no worries but it you want a glassy smooth polished brown or blue, I recommend the wheel.
dave
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Hi,
One disadvantage is nothing is further polishing the browned surface. I use a very soft stainless steel wheel by Grobet that gets into every corner and also polishes the steel with every carding. If you want a grainy coarse grained brown then no worries but it you want a glassy smooth polished brown or blue, I recommend the wheel.
dave
True, but it wouldnt hurt for some of us to try after we are finished with our regular carding and cleaning as a quick check to see that we're completely done.
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Benignant,
Cleaning it with the method you discovered sounds like it will certainly get it clean. But the point is that it may get it cleaner than necessary, or even cleaner than optimum. Browned surfaces are slightly porous. Leaving some rust in those pores is much like filling the pores of a walnut stock. The rusted surface holds oil and prevents the gun from rusting further. If you clean the browned surface too much, you may end up with a matt surface. In contrast, Dave is suggesting a smooth surface, which, as I said, has the pores filled. But you could experiment and see what you like best. You may like the matt surface better.
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I had similar issues cleaning fine surfaces after black powder work, especially when old fouling got into tight grooves. What ended up helping me a lot was looking into more precise cleaning methods like the ones used in semiconductor work—check out https://www.kaijo-shibuya.com/megasonic-cleaning-systems/quava-mega-puck-flow-silicon-wafer-cleaning-system/. It uses sound waves in a really controlled way, which gave me some ideas on how to apply gentler cleaning in my setup.