M E T A L M A N 9

M E T A L M A N 9

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March 1, 2025 Ultrasonic Cleaning

March 1, 2025 Ultrasonic Cleaning

March 1, 2025 Ultrasonic Cleaning Now here was an opportunity that I was not about to walk away from. Ultrasonic cleaning. Compliments of my metal detecting friend and at times detecting partner: Monty. Spoiler alert…. Monty has all the toys! The story actually started in a small city park in St. Norbert called “Parc St. Pierre Park”. See: October 30, 2024. - Parc St. Pierre à St. Norbert. The beauty and fun of Metal Detecting is; 1) You never know what you’re going to find and 2) Sometimes you find something but you don’t discover what it truly is until later, after you’ve come home and cleaned the item. It’s kind of like a double surprise for the price of one. This little, round, corroded, metal, copper like object, was no different. The key is to recognise that you may have something priceless or precious in hand. This, even before you clean it up. My standard go to, water and soft brush, did nothing to reveal the prize inside. I got the caked on soil and dirt off Ok but the corrosion was proving to be difficult. I didn’t want to go at it with anything harder because I assumed the metal was copper and copper is somewhat soft. The last thing I wanted to do was to scratch or gouge the surface of what might be a precious little piece of history. The piece might also just be a copper slug but why take the chance. So what is a conscientious metal detectorist to do? This is where my good friend Monty comes in. Monty just happens to have an Ultrasonic Cleaner. The “Whaledent Biosonic UC100”. You can pick up a brand new Ultrasonic Cleaner for anywhere between $50.00 to $200.00. You can also spend thousands on a unit but the smaller units do work quite well. The principle behind the technology is that the machine generates Ultrasound Waves of between 20 to 40 KiloHertz (kHz). This creates pressure (sound) waves that agitate a liquid. This in turn creates a high-frequency pressure difference that has the effect of cleaning contamination off of surfaces. Throw in a bunch of corroded pennies and you can actually see the oxidation flakes vibrate off. Check out the link below for more detail. The cleaning of this little gem took a few days with the occasional scrubbing by Monty with a soft wood implement, like a dowel, to speed up the process. The end result was quite a surprise. Fort Garry 26 Dog Tax 1926 Yes, back in the day dog tags actually said “Dog TAX”. The number 26 must have represented the actual dog owner’s information. All and all, quite a nice surprise. And thank you Monty for the use of your Ultrasonic Cleaner. Roger Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Norbert,_Winnipeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_cleaning