Ultrasonic cleaner recommendations?

DMackLewis

Can anyone recommend an ultrasonic cleaner for airbrushes? 

I see that as a bit of overkill for a 30 second cleaning of an airbrush. Okay 5 minutes if I completely disassemble it for a detailed cleaning, which is only between builds. I'd save that money to spend on something else.

I have an ancient 3M Nuclear Products Ultrasonic Bath that is still going strong.  Keep in mind though that I'm using it to clean the color cup, needle, and cap from a siphon-feed, external mix Paasche H airbrush.  I don't know if it would be a good idea to do any kind of soaking on a gravity-feed, internal mix airbrush though.  Now, if the first scenario applies to you, what I do is to have my cleaning solution (I use MEK) in an old relish jar, and I pour a little bit of water around the jar as it sits in the bath to help transmit the sound waves.  The thing gets those critical parts completely clean, no matter what kind of material was run through the airbrush, without any action required by me.  Use latex gloves to remove the parts from the jar after cleaning if you use my method.  You DO NOT want to get MEK on your skin.  Then, a quick rinse of the parts under hot water so they dry quicker.  I've been using this method for years, and haven't had to replace any airbrush parts yet.

Just a couple of safety notes.  Make sure you set a timer of some kind so that you won't forget that its running.  The ultrasonic waves do end up slowly producing a lot of heat in the cleaning solution, so just make sure you don't ever let it run beyond about 30 minutes.  Also, if your relish jar is new and still has a good seal, open the jar slowly to allow the built-up gases to slowly escape.  I haven't had it happen yet, due to never going over 30 minutes, but the heat and built-up gases in a sealed jar could, theoretically cause it to explode.  Yeah...that would be bad.

I have ruined an airbrush with one. I do not reccomend it. I did make a mistake, but if I didn't use the ultrasonic cleaner it couldn't happen. It never made a difference in the cleaning anyway, I keep my airbush and tools clean so it was redundant. Save your money and buy a kit with it.