When Does it Make Sense to Clean Your Own Parts?

The Worst Ultrasonic Cleaning Job we Ever Did

Here at Sonic Solutions, we pride ourselves in being experts in industrial cleaning.  With a combined experience of nearly 30 years, we have seen hundreds of different items and contaminants from many different industries. Even with all this experience however, we can still make mistakes in assessing jobs.

Now to be clear, we are happy to take on any cleaning job. As long as we can fit it in our tanks, it doesn’t matter how dirty it is. Assuming the price is right for both parties, we will get stuck in without hesitation. Although our number one goal here at Sonic Solutions is to provide an outstanding service to help our customers with their cleaning needs, the pricing on jobs is relevant as it keeps the roof over our heads.

So what was ut about this job that was so bad I hear you ask?

The job came from a company that manufactured springs. They had hundreds of these rows of hooks that they would hang the springs on to spray with a coating. These hooks had been in process for over a year and had a large build-up of the coating on them. They approached us for assistance in cleaning them and we happily obliged. We found out that this coating softened up with heat and was fairly easy to remove so it shouldn’t be a big job. We quoted accordingly and got the job.

Now I can’t remember exactly how or why we came to this conclusion (we have probably suppressed the memory) but we were extremely wrong!

I remember first seeing them come in. Stacked a meter high on a pallet all tangled together. The sticky coating making them attach themselves to one another. And that was just the beginning !

Within 5 minutes of us starting, we knew we’d made a mistake. Yes the heat in the ultrasonic tank was enough to soften the coating. But it just turned into a gooey mess that stuck to everything it came into contact with. The coating was so thick that ultrasonics were ineffective, but we said we’d get them clean, and we are men of our words!

We had to change our approach. Like a knight whose sword was blunted, our main weapon of ultrasonic power was useless. We had to resort to more primitive techniques. We would place the rows of hooks in the heated bath to melt the coating down. Then sat over a bin, we used scrapers to go over each one and remove the thick of the contaminant.

Two days of scraping later and we have a pile of “almost” clean hooks. But will they be acceptable to the customer? We doubted it. And plus, we had our reputation to think about!

With ultrasonics being out of the question, we turned to another arrow in our quiver. Pyrolysis!

Pyrolysis works by heating items up to around 400 – 500°C in a vacuum chamber without oxygen. This removes any organic material leaving just your metal parts. So we resorted to pyrolysis to finish off the job.

By the time we had finished, the hooks were looking great and the customer was extremely happy. We may not have made any money on the job but we did learn a valuable lesson in the process including learning a lot more about pyrolysis as an alternative or complementary process to ultrasonics. A lesson which is paying great dividends in our work in other areas like plastics recycling.

We have always offered a trial clean to customers as a way to prove our process to people but it also has another purpose. When we are quoting for a job that we have never done, a trial clean helps us to iron out the process that we will use. From choosing the right chemistry to working out how long a job will take, a trial clean helps us understand the ins and outs that will be required for a job and allows us to quote accordingly.

Since then we have still mispriced jobs. I don’t think there is a company around that hasn’t. But we now take extra care to think through each job in more detail to avoid a repeat of the hooks. We still joke about them to this day and we even kept one of them (with permission) in our office as a reminder. We did throw it away when we moved unit a couple of years ago but the lesson still sticks with us.

Do you have a cleaning job that could become our new worst job ever? For a free trial clean, a no-obligation discussion, or even a visit when the current situation permits, just call us on 01924 495 975 or e-mail Toby on toby@sonicsolutionsltd.com

Does Ultrasonic Cleaning Work With Plastics?

Ultrasonic Cleaning vs Media Blasting

Ultrasonic cleaning and media blasting are two very different cleaning methods, though can be used for similar applications. Here at Sonic Solutions, we specialise in ultrasonic cleaning, but we do have a wet media blaster that can aid in some cleans.

How they work

Ultrasonic cleaning – This uses high-frequency sound waves in solution to create microbubbles that implode on the surface of the item to create a sucking action that lifts dirt from the surface. This is incredibly good at fine cleaning and reaching internal parts that would otherwise be missed by manual cleaning. Read our full rundown of how ultrasonic cleaning works here. 

Media Blasting – Fires media (usually glass beads or aluminium oxide) at high pressure to remove contaminants through abrasion. This is especially efficient at removing thicker contamination such as heavy grease or rust. Some media blasters also use high-pressure water as well as media (such as the one we have here at Sonic Solutions) Which leaves a much shinier finish on the surface, especially with aluminium parts.

How we use them

If we received an item, some classic car parts for example, how would we clean them? In the past, before we invested in our media blaster, we would use only ultrasonics for this. We may give them an initial jetwash to try remove the thick of the grease and oil but most of the cleaning action is down to the chemical and ultrasonic power. The problem with this is that it can take an incredibly long time to remove thick contamination so we could be working on one item for two days in some situations.

Nowadays, with our wet media blaster on hand, we use both cleaning methods together to aid cleaning. We would begin by putting the items through our media blaster to get rid of the thick of the contamination on all the outside parts that are accessible. Once we have removed as much as we can, we would then place the item into an ultrasonic bath with the appropriate chemistry to remove any contamination from internal chambers and hard to reach nooks and crannies. 

Even if the media blaster managed to remove all the contamination, we would still put the items through an ultrasonic bath to remove any of the media that has gotten onto the item. If the part was aluminium and we wanted to keep it looking shiny after the media blast, we would ultrasonically clean them in denim water to remove the media whilst keeping the shine.

Most media blasting companies will just hose down an item once they have blasted it to get rid of the media residue. Although this works good enough for most customers, there is always the chance that some of it will be left in small apertures which may cause issues down the line.

To summarise, both cleaning methods have their advantages and strengths, but we believe that a combination of both can provide an unparalleled clean that could not be achieved using one process alone.

To understand more about ultrasonic cleaning and how it might benefit you and your application please call or email one of our helpful cleaning experts today on 01924 938052 or hello@sonicsolutionsltd.com