Cleaning off old vegetable oil lube.

Suger soap works well, we clean kitchens before painting and they are coverd in cooking oils and fats. It has caustic soda in it so use gloves, also use it hot.

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intjonmiller said:
Lye is my knee-jerk response. And yes, it most likely will eat the paint. But it won't harm metal (well, not ferrous metals in the reasonably short amount of time you'll be using it, up to maybe a day of time to work if particularly difficult). The easiest form for this may be caustic oven cleaner spray. If it says oven cleaner, it has lots of safety warnings, and says not to use it in self-cleaning ovens, then that's the stuff.

Lye reacts with most anything oily, fatty, or organic. (And it etches non-anodized aluminum!) **That includes your skin and lungs!!** When it reacts it creates a soapy film that makes it difficult to get rid of in an emergency, which is why it is one of the worst common household items to ingest. Most anything you try to use to counteract it just washes over that film while the lye continues to work underneath, converting your tissues to soap. It is a very effective cleaner for this kind of thing (assuming you're certain of the nature of the residue), but its hazards must be taken seriously. Lye is a base so an acid, like household vinegar, is an appropriate thing to have on hand to neutralize it if anything unpleasant happens despite your best efforts.

You probably already know all of this, but it's better to be overly cautious and instructive here than to leave anything to chance or assumptions.
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Actually, a better neutralizing agent for lye is beer. Although on the acidic side it is well buffered and will remove a lot of alkali without harming the metal.
The beer is then easy to remove with clean water.
 
Lowes has a product called greased lightening and it is a great grease cutter.

It may work well on this if allowed to soak.

It is 9 bucks a gallon or 26 for 5 so get the 5 gallon jug as nd use it for everything.

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Purple Power and Simple Green work well but are real soapy and needs to be well rinsed off with lots of water and they are hard on paint. Kerosene or diesel will work pretty well. I haven't used it on a machine but one of the big box stores has a product called Oil Eater. It really cleans up oil and grease and is safe on skin and clothes so I think it will be OK on painted surfaces.
 
I used Oil Eater on my recent surface grinder rehab and I was pretty unhappy with it. To get it to work at all I needed to mix it 4:1, WAY stronger than the instructions. Even then, it was not very effective. I switched to parts cleaning safety solvent and it did the job just fine. The Oil Eater also softened the paint at the high concentration that I was using it at when I let it sit for a while, hoping it would work. It is a 1946-1947 machine, with lots of coats of various paints, and I had the same results on everything.
 
I question if any of the usual degreasers will work on residue that is "hard as a rock". Personally I wouldn't spend time or money on those for such a task. Not even Purple Power, which I have found to be ridiculously effective on all sorts of greasy disasters. Lye or paint stripper (carb cleaner??) seem like the most likely options short of mechanically removing it.
 
Kerosene is cheep and works well. Paper towels and plastic sheeting can keep it contact for larger items. The only thing is it needs some time to work. The good thing is no water.

Heated pressure washers work great. Even the drive up car wash pressure washers are good set to the degreaser setting but then you deal with drying and transportation.
 
Bob Korves said:
I used Oil Eater on my recent surface grinder rehab and I was pretty unhappy with it. To get it to work at all I needed to mix it 4:1, WAY stronger than the instructions. Even then, it was not very effective. I switched to parts cleaning safety solvent and it did the job just fine. The Oil Eater also softened the paint at the high concentration that I was using it at when I let it sit for a while, hoping it would work. It is a 1946-1947 machine, with lots of coats of various paints, and I had the same results on everything.
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Bob,

Good to know, I'll file this away for the future. I have a shaper that I need to clean up, I'll skip the oil eater.

Mike
 
Reeltor said:
Bob,

Good to know, I'll file this away for the future. I have a shaper that I need to clean up, I'll skip the oil eater.

Mike
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It was highly recommended to me by two other machinists, so maybe it is just me, or very well dried gunk on the grinder. I haven't had a chance to try it on anything else yet, except for some well dried automotive oil stains on my shop floor, which it did not touch after a couple applications, also at a 4:1 strength. I thought I would get more feedback to my post, Mike, it has good reviews on the web.
 
Bob,

As I said I haven't tried the Oil Eater on a machine, I mostly use it to clean my hands and as a pre-treat for clothes. The package that I bought had a 1-gallon bottle of concentrate plus a spray bottle. For the most part I use Kerosene on the machines only because it's cheaper than Carb Cleaner and the like.
I won't put lye (drain cleaner) on a machine---but that's just me, I'd be more inclined to use it on the concrete floor. At least I could neutralize it and wash it away.
Gundoc, let us know what you try and how well it works.
 
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