On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Doug Mitchell wrote:
> Some time ago, on the British or Triumph groups, someone raised
> the question of a good parts cleaner. I don't know if anyone
> else caught the program "My Classic Car" on cable TNN, but during
> a shop talk segment, the segment host used a crystal drain cleaner
> to clean parts. He put three cups of the drain cleaner in ten gallons
> of water. The parts came out looking quite shiny and clean. You could
> then pour the mixture down the drain and clean them as well.
>
> He suggested using a piece of coat hanger as a handle so that you could
> drop the items right into the mix. He said that it was useful in cleaning
> both paint and oil off of parts. I don't know about pouring contaminated
> cleaner down the drain, but otherwise I thought that it would be worth
> a try.
>
> BTW, for those that receive TNN, "My Classic Car" is a new show on
> Sunday afternoon at 3 pm EST. This Sunday is the third show in the pilot
> series. Recommended.
My guess is that some (most? all?) crystal drain cleaners are NaOH. Cheap
and effective, I suppose. But you want to be very careful not to splash
it in your eyes. It isn't all that pleasant to get on your skin, either.
Warning: NaOH may react with aluminum parts-- any chemists on the list?
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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