Cleaning old micrometers

[Eye of the Tiger]

I dug out my grandfather's old micrometers, as well as a few other nifty gadets. He was a precision grinder and left me all of his tools. All of the tools are Craftsman, made in USA, and likely older than I am. I want to clean these up and see if I can get them calibrated and certified to use at my job.


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As you can see, the frames on the larger ones have some corrosion from being stored in a shed in Florida. However, thimbles move freely and the measuring surfaces on the anvils and spindles look fine.  A few of the ratchets seem to be frozen. I'll try oiling them, but I'm aftaid to take them apart.

Any tips on how to clean these up? I'm reluctant to throw them in my ultrasonic cleaner, in case the markings come off. CLR and scotchbrite?

[GoCougs]

How about dry ice cleaning? Would have to find the right place used to cleaning sensitive parts but it's pretty slick tech.

TBH, sounds cool, but would be very surprised your employer would allow it, since most any established manufacturer will have a cal department, and not sure they'll want to deal with personal tools.

[Eye of the Tiger]

How about dry ice cleaning? Would have to find the right place used to cleaning sensitive parts but it's pretty slick tech.

TBH, sounds cool, but would be very surprised your employer would allow it, since most any established manufacturer will have a cal department, and not sure they'll want to deal with personal tools.

Dry ice cleaning, huh? Never heard of that.
They do calibrate personal tools, but the wait is several months.

[GoCougs]

Oh, check it out. Small chunks of dry ice are blown at velocity onto whatever is to be cleaned. Generally, it's not so hard as to damage material yet abrasive enough to remove grease, rust, grime, etc. We used to use it on equipment and robotics and such - no residue (other than the junk removed) unlike sand blasting. Sorry for the abysmal music:

[Eye of the Tiger]

Oh, check it out. Small chunks of dry ice are blown at velocity onto whatever is to be cleaned. Generally, it's not so hard as to damage material yet abrasive enough to remove grease, rust, grime, etc. We used to use it on equipment and robotics and such - no residue (other than the junk removed) unlike sand blasting. Sorry for the abysmal music:

Thanks, now I need to spend thousands of dollars on a dry ice blasting machine.

[Rich]

Our ops quality would have a cow.

[Eye of the Tiger]

Our ops quality would have a cow.

Moo

[Morris Minor]

Oh, check it out. Small chunks of dry ice are blown at velocity onto whatever is to be cleaned. Generally, it's not so hard as to damage material yet abrasive enough to remove grease, rust, grime, etc. We used to use it on equipment and robotics and such - no residue (other than the junk removed) unlike sand blasting. Sorry for the abysmal music:

So satisfying. I had a friend who lost a used car sale because he'd done such an insanely-good obsessive-level job at cleaning it up. "It can't be real! Must be from a chop shop."

I often scratch my head at people ruining their videos... driving down views & engagement with shitty music tracks.

[Eye of the Tiger]

Well, I'm trying a $4 bottle of CLR. I will have to dry them thoroughly, afterwards, which may require disassembly.

[Eye of the Tiger]

I started with CLR, but ended up with mineral spirits and 100% complete disassembly of everything. It took about three hours to make them look like this:

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All mechanisms move freely except the spindle of the 2-3 mic. There is some corrosion inside the bore of the frame that I need to work on.

[AutobahnSHO]

amazing!