Harbor Freight Ultrasonic on sale

This might just be at the Harbor Freight store in Irving, TX but the large (2.6 quart) ultrasonic machine rings up at $59, and when you use a 20% off coupon you end up paying $48; I was expecting $79 ($64 w/ coupon).

Haven't used it yet, so I can't state much from personal experience, but it is well received on the internet. If it can handle 100 rds of pistol brass in a 10 minute cycle I'll be happy.

They replace the tumbler, work faster, are quiet, and don't prodce dust. The downsides are they are smaller for the same price, and your media removal step might take longer.

I'm planning to
* Clean with warm, soapy water
* Spin water out in a salad spinner
* Dunk brass in alcohol bath to extract water drops
* Spin again to recover alcohol

That should leave me with dry brass.

The model is the one as in Snuffy's pictures. I used a coupon from American Hunter, but those coupons show up in so many magazines it's not funny, plus they accept the printouts from their website and from digital magazines.

And yep, I plan to use it for other things besides brass; if you haven't seen an ultrasonic machine work on old parts you haven't lived. Not long ago, I was trying to clean a clogged idler jet from an old ATV carburetor. Nothing worked until I snuck it into the little lady's ultrasonic jewelery cleaner and watched the gunk disappear in 90 seconds.

To Magoo, I hear ya. I bought an electric impact wrench from HF that worked on the car twice before it stopped working as an impact device (now it's just a power wrench; worthless). I took a gamble with this one because it has no moving parts; the circuit should last as long as they aren't overloading the transducer. Also, there are some good finds (see here and here noting that my impact wrench is in the Don't Buy list).

I didn't intend to make an ultrasonics thread, but ah what the heck: There is a lot of info on cleaning brass at the 6mm Bench Rest site.

Oh there is something else that I want to mention to the group: You can use inflammable liquids (alcohol, solvents, etc.) in ultrasonic cleaners. The trick is you have to remove the vapors and prevent them from finding a spark.

Now the HF cleaner is not designed to be spark-free, but at the same time isn't designed to spark. And when you read on how these machines work (billions of little cavitation explosions that are hotter than the sun) you think Egh-ads! But it takes more than that to ignite these liquids (oxygen, for one).

Depending on the resonance of tank, the ultrasonic might increase the vaporization rate, and the heater won't help that either, but it all comes down to dealing with the vapors.