Air Powered Immersion Cleaners
Air-powered immersion parts washers clean small, intricate parts by rotating them through a solvent bath instead of spraying them. Build-All’s AK series runs on shop air at 20–90 PSI — no electric motor anywhere near the solvent — and the basket turns in both directions, so flow reverses through blind holes, threads and cross-drillings a brush will never reach.
AK6 and AK16 specs, how immersion cleaning works, and what it is best for
Two sizes, both built in Milwaukee.
- AK6 — 6-gallon reservoir, 10″ diameter basket, 30 lb workload, 20–90 PSI.
- AK16 — 16-gallon reservoir, 12″ diameter basket, 30 lb workload, 20–90 PSI.
How an immersion cleaner works. Parts load into a spun-metal basket perforated with 1/8″ holes — small enough to hold jets, keepers, check balls and roll pins without losing them in the drum. A heavy-duty air motor rotates that basket through the solvent in both directions, so the wash flow does not always push the same way through a passage. When the cycle finishes, the basket lifts onto the hanger bracket and drains back into the reservoir over the drum instead of onto your floor. The steel drum has a cover with a locking band, which keeps solvent vapour down between cycles and makes solvent changes a band-clamp job rather than a pumping job.
Why air instead of electric. The motor is pneumatic. There is no electrical ignition source above an open solvent bath, nothing to trip a breaker in a wet wash bay, and no duty-cycle limit — the unit runs as long as there is air on the line. For shops running petroleum solvent, that is usually the deciding factor.
When immersion is the right call — and when it is not. Choose an immersion cleaner when parts are small, numerous and full of passages: carburetors and carb bodies, injector components, hydraulic valve bodies, fittings, fasteners and small castings. Choose a recirculating sink washer instead when an operator needs to brush and rinse parts by hand, a platform-agitation washer when parts run heavier than 30 lb or larger than a 12″ basket, and a heated aqueous washer when you want off solvent altogether for VOC or worker-safety reasons.
What it costs to run. Solvent is the consumable, not the machine. We stock parts washer solvent and cleaners, and filtration extends how long a charge lasts by pulling out the suspended solids that make a bath look spent before it chemically is. When solvent finally does darken, it can be distilled and reused on site rather than hauled away — our sister company Solvent Recycling Systems builds and services the recyclers that do it, and many shops find the recycler pays for itself on solvent purchases and disposal fees alone.
Keep clean parts from flash rusting. Immersion cleaning strips the oil film that was protecting the steel, so a part can bloom rust the same shift it was cleaned — especially small parts with a lot of surface area. See rust prevention, or the Cortec VpCI corrosion-inhibiting papers and films for parts going into storage or shipping.
Replacement parts and accessories. Spare parts washer baskets, drums and covers are all stocked. Because we manufacture the equipment, we can tell you what fits an AK6 or AK16 without a parts diagram — call (800) 558-2148 or email sales@build-all.com.
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