An agitating parts washer does the scrubbing for you. Parts sit on a platform that oscillates them through the cleaning bath, or soak in solution while the chemistry works — either way, nobody stands at a tank with a brush. Build-All manufactures these in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in solvent and aqueous versions, from 80 to 150 gallons.
Two kinds of automatic cleaning, and which parts suit each
Platform agitation. A steel platform carries parts through the bath. The movement pushes fresh solution into recesses a brush would never reach, and it handles heavy, awkward and delicate work equally well because nothing is being scrubbed. This is the workhorse. Watch the AL-8 running, or the 150-gallon unit with a 500 lb platform.
Immersion soaking. Parts sit still and time does the work. Slower, but the only approach that reaches internal passages — carburetors, valve bodies, anything with cast galleries. See the AK6 immersion cleaner.
Spray under immersion. Spray bars below the fluid line add turbulence where the parts sit. An addition to agitation rather than a replacement, and it earns its place on heavily soiled or deeply recessed work. See how it works.
If you need a cabinet or spray washer instead
Worth being clear about this, because “automatic parts washer” covers two quite different machines. Everything above is an open-tank design — you load from the top, and the machine agitates or soaks. The other kind is an enclosed cabinet: parts go on a rotating turntable behind a door, high-pressure jets spray them, you close it and press start.
Build-All does not make cabinet washers. Our sister company does distribute them — Solvent Recycling Systems carries the Magido range of aqueous cabinet, front-load and ultrasonic parts washers, including turntable spray cabinets and glove-box units.
Rough guide to which you want: cabinet washers suit high volumes of similar parts that fit inside a fixed envelope, and give the most hands-off cycle of anything here. Open-tank agitation suits mixed work, oversized or awkward parts, and anything too heavy or too long to load into a cabinet. If you are unsure, describe the parts to us — we will point you at whichever company is the right answer, including when that is not this one.
When automatic pays for itself
The honest test is labour. If someone spends an hour a day at a parts washer, that is roughly 250 hours a year of skilled time holding a brush. An agitating washer converts that into load-it-and-walk-away time. If you clean a handful of parts a week, a manual recirculating washer is the sensible purchase and we will tell you so.
The second argument is consistency. Hand-cleaning varies with who is doing it and how late in the shift it is. Agitation does not get tired, which matters when cleanliness is a specification rather than a preference.
Solvent or aqueous?
Both are available. The AL-8 is the 80-gallon solvent platform unit. The SSAL-8 is the same idea in stainless steel with a heated aqueous bath, and the SSAL-150 scales that to 150 gallons for continuous production.
Heated aqueous chemistry is hard on painted steel over time, which is why the aqueous machines are stainless. If you plan to run heated water-based solution daily, treat stainless as a requirement rather than an upgrade. The solvent vs. aqueous comparison covers the rest.
Baskets and fixtures
Agitation works best when parts are held sensibly. A stainless parts basket keeps fasteners and small components together through the cycle instead of migrating to the bottom of the tank — see it running on the AL-8. For awkward geometry we build fixtures to suit; that is part of what custom parts washers covers.
Protecting parts after the cycle
An aqueous washer produces genuinely clean, genuinely bare metal — which is exactly what flash-rusts fastest. Build corrosion protection into the process: Build-All stocks rust preventatives, and Solvent Recycling Systems supplies Cortec VpCI products for holding parts between operations.
Talk it through
Browse platform agitation parts washers, see the wider range in industrial parts washers, or watch any of them run in the video library. If you would rather just describe the parts, tell us what you are cleaning — over 50 years of building these, we have usually seen something like it.