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Cleaning ugly oily floor hack saw mess 30 years worth...

Phil in Montana

Phil in Montana

Stainless
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Location
Missoula Mt
What is the easy/ best way to clean up the mess from a old hacksaw area? Hydrolic saw with a leak,cutting oil, rusty chips ect 30 years worth about, shop boy didnt do job, hi hi 20x20ft...cement floor and wall...Thanks Phil
 
Would the area be OK for you to use a pressure washer? i.e a drain, nothing to get damaged from water, etc. I might try using a combination of emulsifiers or solvetns to break down the grease/oil followed up by detergents in a pressure washer.
 
There are hand maneuvered rotary floor cleaners for power washers that do a pretty good job of containing the splash. They look about like a round small push mower. You still have lots of water to control, but a couple of squeegees should handle that. A good thing about the rotary floor cleaners is they take a lot of the reaction out of the nozzle. You can handle a gpm/pressure combination that you would never be able to handle in a wand.
 
I sprayed down my Racine saw with Gunk engine cleaner. Let it set a few minutes then pressure washed it with warm water. In this case the motor and electrical panel had already been removed for cleaning and upgrading so there was no need to cover them. I also tipped the saw on it's side and flushed out all the caked on swarf in the reservoir. The degreaser dissolved the crusty hydraulic oil so it could be flushed down the drain The swarf could be swept up and disposed of. Just make sure you clean up the swarf before it dries. Once dry it's hard to move and leaves stains on the floor.


As a side note you probably should have fired the "shop boy" 29 years earlier. I was the one assigned that particular duty when I first started in a machine shop. Luckily it had been done on a regular basis before I arrived so it wasn't that big of a deal. To put it in the proper context is was a far more pleasant chore than helping my father (a plumber) clean up sewage spills from broken pipes.
 
I'm here to tell you that oil loves concrete.

If it's been there for that long it will keep resurfacing IME.

Clean it with muriatic acid and pressure washer, in 3 days it will be oily again. :wall:
 
projectnut said:
I sprayed down my Racine saw with Gunk engine cleaner. Let it set a few minutes then pressure washed it with warm water. In this case the motor and electrical panel had already been removed for cleaning and upgrading so there was no need to cover them. I also tipped the saw on it's side and flushed out all the caked on swarf in the reservoir. The degreaser dissolved the crusty hydraulic oil so it could be flushed down the drain The swarf could be swept up and disposed of. Just make sure you clean up the swarf before it dries. Once dry it's hard to move and leaves stains on the floor.


As a side note you probably should have fired the "shop boy" 29 years earlier. I was the one assigned that particular duty when I first started in a machine shop. Luckily it had been done on a regular basis before I arrived so it wasn't that big of a deal. To put it in the proper context is was a far more pleasant chore than helping my father (a plumber) clean up sewage spills from broken pipes.
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Thats funny stuff there. A couple jobs ago they were so into environmental protection that all the machines that used coolant had to have a sheet metal box under them that was twice the volume of the tank to contain any spills.
 
100% agree with Dan from Oakland. Scrape it up before trying to clean further. If it's really stuck I'd suggest a pneumatic floor scraper. I bought one from HF years ago for under a hundred and it holds up well if you keep it oiled with air tool oil. I bought mine for ice removal during one brutal winter.
 
ChipSplitter said:
I'm here to tell you that oil loves concrete.

If it's been there for that long it will keep resurfacing IME.

Clean it with muriatic acid and pressure washer, in 3 days it will be oily again. :wall:
Click to expand...

You got that right, oil permeates concrete. Long term equipment placement that spatters/drips etc oil just seeps into the upper layer of the concrete. We tried industrial chemicals ,hot high pressure washers, even knotted wire wheels. We finely hired a concrete grinding company to clean it up.
I can't off the top of my head recall the correct name of the machine they used but it's the same machine they use to expose the pea gravel in concrete when polishing. They took about 1/8"or a little more off the top to get clean material.
 
When we built our new shop in January we had the floor sealed and painted with a water based epoxy with a "high percentage of solids" (sales lit statement). Damn glad we did, it is SO much easier to keep clean. Our old shop was bare concrete and it was saturated with oil under several pieces of equipment.
 
I have this small powered scrubber I bought at a garage sale that uses 2 6" brushes and that combined with purple power or ZEP floor cleaner does a decent job on the floors I've had to clean.

The powered scrubbing makes things much better/faster.
 
Mike1974 said:
Thats funny stuff there. A couple jobs ago they were so into environmental protection that all the machines that used coolant had to have a sheet metal box under them that was twice the volume of the tank to contain any spills.
Click to expand...

It seems there are different rules for different industries. There's a do it yourself car wash about a mile from our house. You'd be surprised what goes through there. I've seen everything from farm tractors to construction equipment to off road vehicles go through there. Sometimes the walls and floors are covered with all kinds of grease, oil, goo, and who knows what.

That's where I cleaned my saw. I asked before I did it to avoid potential problems.
 
projectnut said:
The degreaser dissolved the crusty hydraulic oil so it could be flushed down the drain.
Click to expand...

Where I live, that is a huge no-no. A better way is to plug your drain and use a shop vac to suck up the effluent, then go out in a field and dig a hole and pour the waste fluid into it. The critters in the soil will eat it eventually. Way better environmentally.

metalmagpie
 
Thanks guys, I scraped up the top stuff, used diesel fuel and scraped more, added floor dry and scrubbed.... let sit 3 days swiped up floor dry... then purple soap and water... a lot better but the oil is weeping up so now on to saw dust...Phil
 
EmGo said:
The sawdust will eventually soak up most of it. Enough so it doesn't look like an Exxon Valdez memorial, at the very least. You can help it along by adding some light solvent to the mess.

And then your concrete isn't destroyed.
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I’ve been tasked with cleaning 171ksf of transmission factory floor after they’ve moved out and have to prepare for new tenant. There is literally 1/8 inch and more of black tar like material that is 30 years of cutting fluid, trans fluid, metal shaving, grease and good ole dirt. Can’t scrub it up, all degreasers have proven pathetic up to orange peal, literally scraping with 12 inch floor razors and then scrubbing what’s left. Need an expediant and economical solution for my customer as this is getting outta hand $$ wise. I’ve been doing this for 35 years and this is bad as I’ve ever seen and the sheer amount of sf 171ksf
 
What will be effective is tri chlor ethane .............this solvent literally carries all oil stains down into the substrate of the concrete,and leaves a clean surface ..........unfortunately its hard to get now .............methyl chloride is also as effective ,but you will need protective and gas masks..............another well know cleaner is high strength phenol solution at highest steam cleaner temp ...again protective and respirators.
 
#1wolf said:
I’ve been tasked with cleaning 171ksf of transmission factory floor after they’ve moved out and have to prepare for new tenant. There is literally 1/8 inch and more of black tar like material that is 30 years of cutting fluid, trans fluid, metal shaving, grease and good ole dirt. Can’t scrub it up, all degreasers have proven pathetic up to orange peal, literally scraping with 12 inch floor razors and then scrubbing what’s left. Need an expediant and economical solution for my customer as this is getting outta hand $$ wise. I’ve been doing this for 35 years and this is bad as I’ve ever seen and the sheer amount of sf 171ksf
Click to expand...
I've seen a ride on machine with a vibrating blade out front made for removing floor tile, if you can get one make a run with that then maybe get a big ride on dual rotor cement trowel, fit some sort of scrape blades that will do something or put down a paste of wet sand and detergent and go at it?
 
Lye Lye
Cheap Cleans very good Not too harmfull for the envirement (Lye only Not the stuff you get from cleaning That depends on what is on the floor)The stronger the faster Strips paint even when strong enough But wear gloves Not to be used on aluminium
Peter
 
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