I dismissed that $40 ultrasonic bath as a toy, now it's on my bench daily

Picked up one of those cheap tabletop ultrasonic cleaners at a flea market in Akron last spring, figured it was too weak for real gear. Tried it on a stuck aperture blade assembly from a beat-up Canon FD lens that I'd already soaked in naptha twice. Popped it in with some simple green and water, ran it for 5 minutes, and the grime just fell off. Now I use it before every shutter rebuild and my success rate on sticky blades went way up. Anyone else find a budget tool that surprisingly works for their bench routine?

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the_john1mo ago

Is that the little green one with the plastic basket? I grabbed a beat up one at a garage sale outside Columbus and honestly figured I'd use it twice a year. But the first time I threw a seized up old film advance mechanism in there with some diluted degreaser, the chunks of dried grease just floated to the top. Now it's the first thing I grab for anything with old lubricant or crusty grime, before I even touch a brush. I had the same exact reaction with a cheap jeweler's loupe I bought for like six bucks, turns out it's perfect for checking shutter curtain alignment. Nice to know I'm not the only one who found a little junk that became a regular on the bench.