Joy Beeson wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:42:58 -0700, "Richard Knoppow"
wrote:

You might even try kerosene or turpentine, both will
dissolve certain waxes.

We're back to the original topic -- to wrench the thread back to
sewing, when I bought the White Family Rotary treadle machine, my
spouse used kerosene to clean out its guts. Kerosene was cheap and
readily available at the time. But I don't know what kerosene would
do to paint. The varnish that old lubricants turn into is a great
deal like paint . . .

Kero won't touch most good paint, not even lacquer. It's more or less the
same general family as naptha. It's a good choice for removing varnish from
old lubrication if you can get a brush or pipe cleaner in there. It's not
as aggressive as xylene or mek, both of which will damage paint but get
lube varnish off faster.

After cleaning up old equipment without disassembling it, you may still have
hidden varnish in places. One way of dealing with this is to use a synthetic
ester oil.... these oils have good solvent action and are pretty good at
dissolving that gunk in hidden corners. Just keep running it through until
it stops coming out yellow.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."