Ultrasonic cleaner+/- Horolene for reeds

[rob_mcsweeney]

Sorry if I've missed a previous post, but search not returning anything.

 

Would a few minutes in warm Horolene (clock cleaner) in an ultrasonic cleaner be a good way of cleaning reeds, or is there a downside?

 I'm aware that it shouldn't be used for old cast brass, as it is porous, but presume that by the 1870's brass production had moved on a bit .

[Tiposx]

I have used Horolene to clean brass-tongued/framed reeds that had turned black. I think this was caused by long exposure to dead insect "sludge", something like that. The black coating was really hard, and had to be scraped off otherwise.

The reeds survived and are still in use several (5) years later 

I found that Horolene was quite frightening to work with though. It is ammonia based, and the fumes were just impossible to deal with. I haven't used it since. I posted on here about it, I will find that and add a link.

I have used Evapo-rust on steel parts (but not reeds to date) it works very well on mild steel tools and does not create fumes or smells as far as I could tell. Personally I would use it on reeds without worrying too much, but I would experiment first.

 

Edited December 1 by Tiposx

[Theo]

I often use Horolene on non-ferrous pars like screws and strap fittings.  It’s make a very good job of cleaning off the bits of green gunge that are hard to remove by scraping and brushing.  I’ve never used it on reeds.

 

It takes a few hours rather than minutes.  And yes it smells terrible,  but just need to keep a lid on it.

[rob_mcsweeney]

Thank you Tiposx and Theo.

The fact that no-one here has come on screaming "Don't Do It" is a big positive.

I have used Horolene before for clock parts ( although my ultrasonic cleaner gets far more use cleaning my wife's jewellery, not in Horolene l haste to add 🙂) and the ferrous components don't seem to suffer as long as everything is dried well using paper towels first and then hairdryer. The best solution to the smell is to set up outdoors.