Written by Rachel Kohn
Another interesting note from a customer:
“Don’t knock my smock or I’ll clean your clock” was a panel line in a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip. As one who repairs antique clocks I checked the origin of the phrase and found that it usually signifies a violent encounter. Not a good idea when dealing with a customer’s heirloom time keeper.
Most of the clocks I clean and repair have brass works – the gears and frames – along with steel parts such as verges, spindles, spacers and springs. In my early days cleaning these parts after disassembly entailed dipping them into a solvent and using a soft brush to work away grime and dried lubricants. A messy process indeed, and not that satisfactory in terms of results.
An ultrasonic cleaner has proven far more satisfactory, but when using this technology for clocks and watches care must be taken not to damage the parts.
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Written by Rachel Kohn
Bad economic times have forced many families to rethink what they really need and how selling unused property might help out financially. Newspaper ads offering to buy estate jewelry and other valuables attest to this. Here’s how one company is adding value to estate jewelry:
As a firm dealing in estate jewelry and other family heirlooms we’ve experienced a tremendous increase in purchases, but also in sales as customers take advantage of lower prices to either resale abroad or to hold for the expected economic recovery. Since many of the pieces we buy appear not to have been used in years, our staff was spending an inordinate amount of time restoring them to a presentable appearance. This enables us to ask a higher price.
Well, you never know where a good idea will strike. I was visiting my dentist and asked about the machine in which she placed her instruments. She introduced me to the concept of ultrasonic cleaning as the first step in cleaning and sanitizing dental tools – and I immediately made the connection.
A web search brought me to Tovatech and Elma ultrasonic jewelry cleaners. The process uses inaudible frequencies – in this case 37 kHz – emitted by what are called transducers placed in the bottom of the cleaning tank filled with a cleaning solution. These create minute bubbles that implode when they contact items placed in the cleaning baskets, ring holders and racks. The implosion creates shock waves of approximately 20,000 psi on a microscopic level that literally but safely “blast off” tarnish and dirt.
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