Well, I broke down and got the 2131 yesterday. Very nice.... =8^) I just had
to
go out and rotate the tires last night; heck, nothing better to do in the
rain... =8^)
I think this weekend, I'll need to go back and pick up that 60 gal. compressor;
life is good..... Oh, and I did see a 20ton press for sale; it was $160. Seems
like a pretty good deal also.
Back to the original reason why I'm posting; parts washer solvents. Now I know
this
was covered a little while back, but I have somewhat different questions. I'm
trying
to fill my HF cheapie 20 gallon washer; I figure 10 gallons of some solvent
should
be enough. Due to space constraints, it located in the garage diagonally
across (a
3 wide garage) from the gas furnace/hot water heater, to try and reduce any
chances
of starting a fire. This also happens to be right next to the breaker box, but
is
about the best I can do. So I really want to find something safe to put into
it.
I seem to recall Agithene (sp?) from Grainger was the ideal choice, but it's
beyond
what I can justify. I'm thinking kerosene, mineral spirits, or something
non-petro,
like Simple Green, or that bid-degradeable stuff HF sells. Safety-Kleen would
be good also, although I think they won't sell to home users. I'm guessing that
kerosene or mineral spirits would be effective, though there's the fire hazard
(someone told me he put a cigarette out in the stuff, though I don't want to try
it....), and there's a warning label on the washer which specifically states
that
it would kill the pump. I just don't think that Simple Green has enough "tooth"
to really get through old grimy muck though.... Has anyone found a safe solvent
that really works?
Another thing I wanted to do before I fill my washer and break it in, was to put
a lever drain valve on the bottom instead of the simple plug that's in there
now.
The idea is that, first, draining the thing won't make a huge mess. Also, I
have
some 5 gal buckets sitting around. I figure I could drain really gunky solvent
into the buckets and let the crud settle out in the buckets; then I could refill
the washer by pumping solvent off the top. If the solvent wasn't water soluble,
I could put a water layer on the bottom and really make things easy. The
problem
is that the drain bolt doesn't appear to be any standard pipe thread, and I
don't
think extra layers of teflon tape are going to cut it. Has anyone tried making
anything similar?
Thanks,
Mike
(whose shop is slowly coming together....)
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