Cleaning An Old Machine For Restoration

I added this post to an older on about Racine Power Hacksaw, but felt I might be able to get more responses by starting a new thread.

Some time ago I bought an older saw and am now in the process of cleaning it and restoring it to it's original state. I've finally gotten the saw disassembled to the point I can start cleaning off the years of crud. It's been a long and slow process with dozens of interruptions, but it's now in manageable size pieces that can be cleaned individually. A few days ago I tried several petroleum based solvents which all yielded less than satisfactory results.

I'm guessing the coolant that was used was a water based one similar to the bandsaw coolants. Over the years it's combined with the swarf and turned to a sandpaper type grit that defies removal. So far the most successful method has been to use dish soap and a scrub brush. It's worked far better than any petroleum based product, but takes an inordinate amount of work to get a single piece clean.

I'm thinking about trying something like heavy duty oven cleaner, then a bath with the pressure washer. I'm sure others have encountered similar problems removing years of residue from older machines before restoration. I would appreciate any suggestions on techniques and products that might speed up the job.

The single response I got on the other thread recommended ZEP degreaser. I happen to have a couple cans on the shelf and thought I'd give it a try. If there are any other suggestions I appreciate them.

You're right in that water base cleaners tend to do a better job on old coolants. I've run into that over the years too. One thing that will make water base cleaners work much better is heat. If you can get them up to 120-150 degrees or so they're going to do a better job. Stuff like Zep and others will even start removing paint that is poorly applied when hot. In the past I've purchased large tubs, even cattle watering tubs. Whatever you need to handle your biggest parts. Because soaking really helps too. Mix your cleaner with pure hot water. If you need to re-heat or keep the heat, I've wired up water heater elements inside galvanized pipe to use as portable heaters. (That is if you've got 220V available.) Anyway... my biggest point is water based with heat.

Hot TSP Bath ?

Gunk brand auto engine cleaner might work.

Is the ZEP degreaser based on lye ? (Sodium Hydroxide, NaOH) Lye attacks aluminum, so do not use it on any aluminum parts, nor in an aluminum pot or tray.

I've used a hot bath of Tri-Sodium Phosphate (TSP) for cleaning grimey steel items. I used a restaurant-sized stainless stock pot, purchased cheaply at a Flea Market, on a gas barbecue grill. (The grill had heavy stamped grilles, not the lightweight ones formed from wire.) The type of gas burner used on a "turkey fryer" would be even better.

Warmth seems to help any of the water-based cleaning processes. The TSP solution I use is far from boiling, but too hot to put one's gloved hand into it.

You can connect a garden hose to the drain tap on your domestic hot water heater and run that out through a window or door to give you a hot-water hose to rinse things. This is good for the domestic hot water tank, because it flushes it out.

Some of the spray degreasers are very harmful if they get in your eye, for example lye-based cleaners, so be sure to wear good splash-proof eye protection.

Zep is good, but it does not work miracles.

I suggest that you get a putty knife, and scrape the thickness of crud reduced down to maybe 1/16 or 1/32 (better) before tanking it. No need to get it very clean, but it cuts the time the Zep needs to get through it, and also makes he cleaner last longer. It does get used up.

Most chemical processes work best if the heavy mechanical removal is done first.

I have used kerosene, and diesel. They both work well at cutting through the dried up crud. Some of the sodium hydroxide cleaners have screwed up paint for me so I don't use them unless I plan on stripping paint.

Very hot water is the greatest thing for rinsing the residue left from nearly every cleaner/degreaser out there. Cast is porous enough to give problems getting rid of residue. I'd be tempted to do a phosphoric acid rinse as a last step.
Sodium hydroxide does wonders, but yeah, can be a problem without getting it off...........again, hot water is the only way to rinse it.

Water based soaps work well and with washing soda added will help avoid rusting. Solvents used with rag wipe are fine. Spray solvent tend to drive grit and chips into the works.

All should be damp wipe not soaking wet to help keep what ever out of the works. The Callgon pink soap with water was very good but yes needed a few times wiping.

The Zep and most of the other degreasers are sodium hydroxide (lye) based. It will tear up aluminum if left for very long at all. I forgot a piece in overnight and its a bit rough now. Luckily the worst of the pitting is under where a brass plate will hide it, so no big deal.

I recently found some stuff at our local Menard's called "Clean Strike Heavy Duty Degreaser" by "Ecolab". I used it to clean a lathe I purchased used and well oiled for the last 20 years. Brake cleaner wasn't fazing the caked on crud, but this stuff applied with a brush or spray bottle at a 50-50 mix is near magical....
also works great for mopping oil from the floor, although it doesn't have to me mixed that strong for most oils.
I use WD-40 at my day job to clean cutting fluid buildup from my lathe, mill, and saw on a weekly basis, and it will cut the dried up stuff pretty well, if you can let it soak, but it doesn't even come close to the Clean Strike stuff.

Hey Projectnut,

I noticed you're in Wisconsin. I'm in Saint Paul, MN. I've got a thousand gallon tote sawn in half with about 80 gallons of cleaner in it. Not completely sure what the stuff is, but it's around $250.00 worth of chemistry (10 gal) mixed in. One of my customers is in the industrial parts washing business and he gave me the stuff to wash some of my bigger castings with. The tote can be moved around easily with a pallet jack. I've been restoring a Mori Seiki SV-50 with a pallet station. The machine is all back together now, but I still have to wash the pallet station before I send it out for sandblasting. What I'm getting at is when I'm through with this stuff (in perhaps a month)I'd be happy to give it to you. It's used but still has tons of fight left in it. You'd need a dock high truck or lift gate as I only have dock high access. The tote is 40 X 48 X 30" tall. 80 gallons can submerge about a 12" thick part. The top half that was sawn off is slipped over the bottom and makes a great sealed cover for it. If you're interested and can hold off for a spell, it's yours if you come get it. This stuff worked great when I first mixed it with hot water, but still did great later on at room temperature. After this Mori I'm done restoring machines so won't need it anymore.

Zep and the Tractor Supply Brand of a similar cleaner (Purple Power, or a similar name) works quite well for me on cleaning/degunking old engine and machine parts and machine tools. The active ingredients are butotoxyethanol ( spelling ?) and sodium hydroxide. I put the stuff on full strength using a plastic squirt bottle or a paint brush on machinery that is too big to go into a pan or pail. I let the stuff work, and keep wetting it down with more of the full strength liquid, maybe 15-30 minutes. Then, I hose it off using a garden hose. Scraping off the encrusted gunk is a first step.

The sodium hydroxide is "lye", and will strip most paint, if applied full strength and left on painted surfaces. I've had good luck with using these types of cleaning agents cold/full strength, and cold water/garden hose rinsing.

Precautions to be taken when using this stuff are a MUST. I use the stuff outdoors or in a well ventilated garage with the doors opened. I wear either a face shield or full face respirator as it is all too easy to get a splash in an eye. Seems like when I wear safety glasses, I always have a near miss with a chip or splash that comes over the top of the glasses and hits my eyelids or lands in the corner of my eye. Using the stuff full strength in the garage, or washing parts in a pail of full strength cleaner, I do not care to breathe the fumes coming off. I also wear long neoprene heavy weight gloves. These are chemical and oil resistant. I wear old clothes and keep the hose and a bottle of white vinegar handy in case of splashes on my clothing. The sodium hydroxide is a base, so white vinegar will neutralize it, followed by rinsing or flushing with the hose. The full strength cleaners of this type will attack unprotected skin quickly, with a resulting chemical burn, and possible absorbtion of the butotyxyethanol thru the skin.

Heat does increase the reactivity of a chemical cleaner like sodium hydroxide solution. Heating a metal washtub or pail of sodium hydroxide solution with parts in it will also cause some circulation of the cleaner due to convection.

The use of lye or sodium hydroxide in a heated dip tank is nothing new. Years ago, the big railroad shops had lye baths for cleaning entire steam locomotives. When a steam locomotive came in for "shopping", certain parts were stripped off. After that, the entire locomotive was run onto a track in an open-framed "elevator". This elevator was then lowered into a large tank full of a strong solution of sodium hydroxide. Live steam was "sparged" or bubbled into the solution thru perforated pipes. There were also steam coils on the sides of the tank for heating. The sparge steam violently agitated the solution as well as heating it.
The soaking in hot lye would remove everything not made of metal or other materials insoluble in sodium hydroxide. A locomotive that was cleaned to bare metal would be raised up out of the lye tank. The asbestos insulation under the boiler jacketing was "taken care of" by the lye solution, simply mixed into it. Oil, grease, soot, paint, scale from water run thru the boiler all were dissolved by the lye. Smaller parts such as piping and auxiliary equipment were placed in steel baskets and hot tanked in the lye was well. After the lye bath, the locomotive and loose parts went into a hot water rinse with numerous jets of heated water shooting at it. Most locomotive backshops on the bigger railroads had hot lye tanks. What those railroads did with the effluent from the lye tanks is a question best not asked.

On a smaller scale, we have the same sort of problem when we clean parts with sodium hydroxide. I try to neutralize the spent solution with white vinegar, scoop out the sludge and put that into waste oil containers, and then deal with the effluent. I've tried mixing the effluent with cat litter and dumping it in the garbage. I also dilute the effluent with lots of fresh water and let it go into a storm runoff ditch at the foot of my driveway. No easy way to get rid of the wastes from this kind of cleaning.

These days,I use my dry method-a 4-6"piece of power hacksaw blade ground on end to a good knife edge. With practice you will get to original paint or metal,just needing a quick rub with red ScoTchbrite,or wire wool,with paraffin to finish.

13engines said:

Hey Projectnut,

I noticed you're in Wisconsin. I'm in Saint Paul, MN. I've got a thousand gallon tote sawn in half with about 80 gallons of cleaner in it. Not completely sure what the stuff is, but it's around $250.00 worth of chemistry (10 gal) mixed in. One of my customers is in the industrial parts washing business and he gave me the stuff to wash some of my bigger castings with. The tote can be moved around easily with a pallet jack. I've been restoring a Mori Seiki SV-50 with a pallet station. The machine is all back together now, but I still have to wash the pallet station before I send it out for sandblasting. What I'm getting at is when I'm through with this stuff (in perhaps a month)I'd be happy to give it to you. It's used but still has tons of fight left in it. You'd need a dock high truck or lift gate as I only have dock high access. The tote is 40 X 48 X 30" tall. 80 gallons can submerge about a 12" thick part. The top half that was sawn off is slipped over the bottom and makes a great sealed cover for it. If you're interested and can hold off for a spell, it's yours if you come get it. This stuff worked great when I first mixed it with hot water, but still did great later on at room temperature. After this Mori I'm done restoring machines so won't need it anymore.

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Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass. Machine restoration isn't normally my thing. This was somewhat of an anomaly in that I don't believe the machine had ever been cleaned in the past. It's far and away the nastiest piece of machinery I've ever dragged into the shop. It was more of a nostalgic impulse buy than a need for another machine. Plus the price was so good I couldn't turn it down.

In any case I loaded the tank base of the machine in the trailer and hauled it to a do it yourself car wash yesterday. I sprayed it liberally with the ZEP (which turned out to be an acetone based engine cleaner) and gave it a good wash down. I was amazed at how well the part cleaned up. The combination of hot high pressure soapy water and solvent worked wonders. It's clean and dry setting in the shop awaiting the cleaning of the remaining parts and reassembly.

The project will be on hold for a while since we're heading out of town for the holiday weekend. Sometime after we return I'll take another load of parts to the car wash and repeat the process. I expect I'll have to take at least a couple more trips, mainly because everything has to be blocked in place for transportation. The parts are so dirty I don't want them rolling around getting the black slimy goo everything they touch.

Thanks everyone for your help, and I do appreciate the offer.

Projectnut,
You probably know this, but I'll throw it out anyway... cover your floor. I really wish I had thought of that when I started the restoration of my Hendey. The Hendey is all nice and shiny now but I'm going to have to redo my floor. I didn't intentionally scrape crud off the lathe onto the floor or try washing parts on the floor or something but somehow, as if my magic, the dirtiness that was the lathe is now on my previously perfect epoxy painted floor.

Going down to metal? it is not uncommon that a lot of filler was used to fill casting errors.... some times it may be good to try to avoid going to metal.

RCPDesigns said:

Projectnut,
You probably know this, but I'll throw it out anyway... cover your floor. I really wish I had thought of that when I started the restoration of my Hendey. The Hendey is all nice and shiny now but I'm going to have to redo my floor. I didn't intentionally scrape crud off the lathe onto the floor or try washing parts on the floor or something but somehow, as if my magic, the dirtiness that was the lathe is now on my previously perfect epoxy painted floor.

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I learned long ago to cover the floor. I save large boxes from furniture and similar items to lay on the floor when cleaning parts or painting. I now make sure to cover enough of the floor so overspray isn't a problem. Several years ago I had a job making a railing for a second story deck. After the fact I found I hadn't covered enough of the floor. I managed to get overspray several feet from the area where I was painting It looked like a brown and black striped zebra had crawled into the shop and died. I think it took 2 months of traffic and scrubbing to erase the marks.

Can you get your hands on a pressure washer?

k3vyl said:

Can you get your hands on a pressure washer?

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then for most tool room machines don't use it IMHO.

It can even blow lead out of an old car body if it's got rust around it.

k3vyl said:

Can you get your hands on a pressure washer?

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I have a 2,500 psi commercial pressure washer. I use it to clean dirt (not grease) from equipment, and occasionally pressure wash our house and deck. It works well, but also makes a mess when it blows the dirt off anything being cleaned. I don't have a suitable floor drain in the shop and don't want the nasty goo and slime all over the building and concrete drive. If I only use it to clean mud and dirt cleanup of the drive isn't a problem. I couldn't imagine how tough a job it would be to clean this crud off concrete, plus I would be blowing it off into the grass where it would eventually get tracked back into the shop.

The car wash I use has a nicely sloped floor with a center drain. It has the option of high and low pressure heated water along with soap. I can even give things a spotless rise or a liquid wax coating if I desire. It's also enclosed and keeps the spray confined to a relatively small area. After cleaning the parts it's a simple matter of spraying any residue off the walls and floor. The pressure is probably more like 1,500 psi a couple inches from the end of the nozzle. The place is less than 2 miles from my place and takes only a few minutes to get there. It only cost $6.00 to wash the tank, which in my mind is more than reasonable. I don't have to deal with the mess on the shop floor, or the chance I'll get crud on other machines. It'll probably cost less than $25.00 to clean every piece of the saw, and I won't have to deal with the aftermath. Time and money well spent in my estimation.