Swapped my ultrasonic cleaner for a coffee pot and regretted it fast

After 12 years of using the same 2-liter ultrasonic tank, the transducer gave out on a Tuesday. I had a Rolleiflex shutter stuck with old grease and figured I could heat some cleaner in a cheap coffee maker I found at a thrift shop in Akron. The cleaner worked okay for about 4 minutes, then the heating element fused with the solvent and filled the garage with smoke. Now I'm back to hand-cleaning with naptha and a watchmaker's brush, which honestly takes just as long but smells less like burnt plastic. Anyone else tried a shortcut that blew up in their face, literally or otherwise?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley_wood841mo ago

Smoke in the garage sounds rough, but burnt plastic beats a busted shutter any day.

ryan_shah381mo ago

Ha, yeah, burnt plastic is way cheaper to fix than a whole new shutter, I'll give you that. But honestly, the smoke smell is the part that lingers, it gets in everything and takes weeks to air out. I had a similar thing happen with a bad bearing on my shop vac once, thought the motor was on fire. A busted shutter you can at least see and fix, smoke damage is sneaky.