Let’s Get a Little More Sonic!
Jack Harkness: Who has a sonic screwdriver? Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, “Ooh, this could be a little more sonic!”?
The Doctor: What, you’ve never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?
The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver has gotten him out of a lot of sticky situations. A bit too many situations, as it turns out because the writing team had been chewed out by the show’s producers many times over the years for using it too often. Darn useful tool though. It does pretty much whatever The Doctor needs it to do. From remotely controlling the TARDIS to scanning the area to cutting and welding. As the Doctor once said “Harmless is just the word. That’s why I like it! Doesn’t kill, doesn’t wound, doesn’t maim. But I’ll tell you what it does do. It is very good at opening doors.” It just doesn’t work on wood.
Where did everyone go? See, this is why I limit myself on Doctor Who references. For those that are still here…all three of you…I’ve recently discovered something else that’s sonic that has made my life so much easier: a Sonic Cleaner. You know those water filled things in jewelry stores that makes that annoying buzzing noise? Yeah, those things. I’m here to say that you don’t need to be a jeweler to have a use for one.
Many years ago, I coined the term “the TiVo effect”. This referred to something that makes you say “why the heck would I need one of those” when you first see it but, when you wind up with one at a later days you find yourself saying “how did I ever live without this!?” Ah the DVR, to think of all the productivity you’ve killed. Anyway, a sonic cleaner is another great example of the TiVo effect in action. I’d heard a few people throughout the years say that they were awesome but my brain always said “Nah, dude. You’ve got brushes, cotton swabs and paper towels. You don’t need one of those to clean your stuff.” And I was right. I didn’t need one. The only people that really need a sonic cleaner are jewelers. Let me tell you why you absolutely should want one, however.
Remember how I’ve always stated that I enjoy cleaning my guns? As it turns out, it wasn’t so much the cleaning I enjoyed, it was the shiny, pretty super clean gun at the end that I liked. I still obsess over having my guns as sparkling as the day they came out of the factory. That was all well and good when I had 2 or 3 guns total. Nowadays, thanks to this site, I have more than 3. To sit down and clean them all to my standards is now a chore that takes an entire day. Which means that rarely do I get to take all my toys to the range, so to speak, because that would kill an entire weekend thanks to having to clean them. I like my weekends. Clearly, something had to be done to save me some time.
Oddly enough, I didn’t buy my sonic cleaner for my guns. It started because of Warhammer. You see, I use an airbrush for a good portion of my miniature painting process. The airbrush is a very precise instrument and acrylic paints, well, they’re not exactly friendly to precision instruments. When I was done painting for the day, I would have to break down my airbrush and spend a great deal of time with cotton swabs and acetone (one of the most vile substances in my house) and clean all the paint out of the tiny crevices. Sadly, there are too many tiny crevices and it was never possible to get all the gunk out. Then I say that Harbor Freight had some sonic cleaners meant for jewelry on sale for 30 bucks. I figured I’d give it a try. Then my process became break down the brush, drop it in the cleaner and hit a button. After about 10-12 minutes in the cleaner, the brush was sparkling with zero traces of paint anywhere. It was experiment time!
I dropped in a gun barrel. The carbon and grime started flying off of it! Dropped in one of my older miniatures that needed the paint stripped off of it! Boom, bare plastic. Heck, it even took some of the caked-on paint off my brushes! All my tools and wife’s jewelry are sparkling now. Everything that can be sonicked in my household has been sonicked. My only complaint was that this little home jewelry one was a little too conservative, power-wise, due to its intended purpose. Plus, at having only a 3 minute cycle max, I was having to babysit it. I went out and bought a powerful, high grade sonic cleaner meant specifically for gun parts and cleaning spent brass for reloading (Will there be a review of that one? You bet your sweet TARDIS there will be next Monday). My dreams have come true. This thing gets my gun parts and airbrushes clean with almost zero effort!
If you do decide to go the sonic route, which you should, you’re going to love it. Just remember this, if you do decide to clean gun parts with it:
- First off, don’t just use water. There are sonic cleaning solutions available that are designed for gun parts but, barring that, a solution of Simple Green and water will power through just about all carbon and grime or anything else you can throw at it. I personally use a 1 part Simple Green to 2 parts water solution.
- When it’s done with the cycles, make sure to dry it off quick and get some protectant (oil or, preferably, Ballistol) on it as quickly as possible. The solvents in the sonic cleaner’s liquid are going to clean the ever living hell out of those parts including whatever lubricant or oil you have on it.
As it turns out, when Captain Jack Harkness was making fun of the Doctor for having a sonic screwdriver, he was very wrong. Adding a little sonic to something can be incredibly useful. I don’t know how I ever lived without this thing.
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