My wife owns a 45 year old Rolex; a present from her dad. She’s had it for almost 30 years and it stopped working only once, 12 years ago. I took it to the shop then. It still works, but the automatic movement stops if it is kept in a drawer for more than a day. I reckon it just needs cleaning; but have been warned by friends and colleagues that I should not try it at home.

So how does one clean an expensive watch with its intricate mechanism? You could, of course, simply remove the back cover and try to remove the dirt with a soft clean brush. However, this could end up causing more problems than it solves. This is because the tiniest foreign object like a hair or a sliver of dead skin inadvertently getting into the watch movement can cause serious problems; and the watch may even stop working altogether. The only foolproof and effective way to thoroughly remove all impurities from a watch movement is to completely take it apart, clean each individual part and finally reassemble the whole thing. The last part is the trickiest, because some of the parts are extremely small and delicate; and figuring out precisely what goes where can be more complicated than putting together the toughest jigsaw puzzle.

The dichotomy about cleaning very fragile components like watch movements is that the cleaning has to be gentle enough so as not to damage the parts, while at the same time, strong enough to dislodge stubborn contaminants. Fortunately, a relatively inexpensive equipment is available that can accomplish both tasks with ease and dispatch – an ultrasonic cleaner. Ultrasonic cleaners operate on the principle of cavitation, that is, generation of microscopic vacuum-filled bubbles in a cleaning solution that have the capacity to blast impurities off a surface without causing any damage to the part being cleaned.

Ultrasonic cleaners consist essentially of a tank, preferably of stainless steel, with a tray. The tank acts as a receptacle for the appropriate cleaning solution. The ultrasonic waves that produce cavitation are generated by a piezoelectric transducer. For watch parts, the air entrained in the new solution needs to be completely removed before the parts are placed inside. Therefore, a cleaner which has a Degas mode is recommended. For the watch ultrasonic cleaning operation, two types of cleaning solution are generally used; one adapted to accomplish the cleaning and the other for rinsing the parts after the ultrasonic cycle is complete.

The dismantled parts are placed in a hanging tray, so that they do not touch the bottom of the tank which also functions as the ultrasonic membrane. After running the equipment for a few minutes, the parts will look as new. After removing them from the ultrasonic cleaner, the parts are rinsed in the second solution and thoroughly dried. All that remains after that is for a professional watchmaker to reassemble the entire movement. Functionally, your watch should now work as flawlessly as when you bought it.

Author Bio: Dr. Bob Sandor is a Director at Tovatech, a leading North American supplier of ultrasonic cleaner units. When not busy running his company he explores his fascination with the many aspects of scientific & industrial devices. For more details contact him through the ultrasonic cleaners section of his site.

Category: Home Management
Keywords: Rolex,watch,watch cleaning,jewelry,jewelry cleaning,ultrasonic cleaning,ultrasonic cleaner