Has anyone used an ultrasonic to clean bezels with aluminium inserts?
If yes, what were the results?

I usually use dish liquid and a fine brush and rinse with fresh water as I don't know if the US would damage the insert.

 

I’ve seen inserts fade and PVD flake with US cleaning. I would stick to bracelets for US

 

I second that. Omega managed to damage the bezel on my Speedmaster during a recent service. Apparently a new staff member mistakenly put it in for an US clean.

 

I have a cheap US cleaner I normally use for bracelets. I always had good results with aluminium inserts without any damage, but I don't know which bezels you are intending to clean and can only tell my own experience.

 

I did it one time on a Heuer dive bezel. Will never do it again. Total ruin. I still have it in a box somewhere.

 

Kiss any lume pips on the bezel goodbye

 

Thanks for the feedback, I think I'll stick to my dish liquid and a soft brush.

 

...Unless you need a ghost dial

 

I put a bezel from a TAG WAF2010 into an ultrasonic with 50C water and dish soap. After 30 minutes, some of the filling in the engraving had come loose but the back was still grimy. After another 30 minutes, all the lettering was gone. I don't remember seeing the pip in the water but now that it was mentioned, I'll be sure to check when I get home.

I do have the task of mixing up some epoxy and pigment to refill the letters. I'd like to find something to practice on, but haven't yet. Maybe punch some numbers in an aluminum block with number punches.

Yeah, if I had to do it over again, a toothbrush would have been the better choice.

 

60min in an US cleaner is 55min to long if you ask me?! I also have a cheap one and used to clean everything with it, also bezels. After I saw some bad results I saw here or in another forum, I stopped cleaning bezels and take the brush now. But again, my (case) parts are rarely longer than 5min in the cleaner.

Nico

 

^^ I'm new at this. The case and bezel parts had quite a bit of grime built up between them. I kept an eye on the grime to gauge progress. By the time I saw the lettering coming off, it was already too late. I bumped it up to an hour to get all the lettering out and by then the grime was gone as well.

I wash bracelets in the same bath for 15 minutes and that may be overkill, but they usually leave a little stain on the paper towel, saying there's probably more in there. In the future I'll go easier on the parts and use solvent and elbow grease on the bezels. One would think that for parts that are all metal, sixty minutes wouldn't harm anything.

 

...enter the 'meteor' bezel...



Its like 'spider' dials and eBay-ruined 'tropical' dials.

 

^^ Awww, but you can still time a VW Microbus with it, assuming a fair wind at your back.

 

I have found that when soap and water doesn’t do the trick (or I don’t want to have a watch dismantled to clean do a quick case clean-up), I use denatured alcohol with a toothbrush. If it’s an older non-waterproof case I am careful around the crown and pushers. Follow with a paper towel and your fingernail around the case back, bezel and pushers- etc- usually does a great job, wont harm the plexi and quick drying so no water involved.

caveat- I have done this above with both naptha and Denat- alc but have not used it on bezels with inserts or painted/lumed markers.

 

It depends a lot on the type of dirty you have, cause soap works well with greasy print and denat alcohol with dirt (soil or something similar).
I use a very soft toothbrush and circular movement (be careful 'cause too strong could create a pattern on the steel).
For the glass if plexy or hesalite i use poliwatch cream bt stark and a soft towel

 

Interesting thread with lots of doom and gloom predictions.

I have cleaned hundreds of aluminum insert bezels in an ultrasonic tank, and I can only recall one ever being affected in a negative way, and it was from a very cheap brand of watch. It was slightly less shiny and more of a matte finish when it came out, and I replaced the bezel. These are modern bezels though - vintage I would not do this with.

The thing is, not all ultrasonic machines are the same power, not all cleaning solutions are of the same strength, etc. So asking "is it safe" without knowing all those details is like having someone drill a hole in your tooth with no freezing...

I've never had a lume pip disintegrate on a modern watch - most are in a contained capsule in modern watches, or are made of a material that is something different than the regular lume mixture used to lume dials and hands, and is not affected by water (they would be pretty useless on a dive watch if they were damaged that easily).

Of course a prolonged time in an ultrasonic tank is not recommended. A few minutes is usually all that's needed, and I've had no issues doing that with aluminum bezels on modern watches. I use diluted Mr. Clean in my tank, so not anything overly aggressive as a cleaner. But of course the decision to do this or not is a personal one...

Cheers, Al