sp cleaner?..tsp?

[Camk]

will tsp work as well as sp cleaner?
I am looking for something to use here in manitoba that i can buy off the shelf

Thanks in advance
Camk

[dadkar2]

You need a formulation that will cut the invisible grease and oil film that inevitably interferes with plating. Some people use solvents like carburetor cleaner or lacquer thinner (flammable!!). Others have had pretty good luck with Dawn dishwashing liquid in an ultrasonic cleaner. Personally I swear by my professional plating cleaner. It contains detergents and lye. These are available off the shelf but I have never experimented with making my own so I can't give you advice on that. Lye is also very caustic and nasty on skin and eyes.

BTW no matter what, I'd recommend using an ultrasonic cleaner if at all possible. I've made Dawn dishwashing liquid work pretty well in high concentrations eg a cup per gallon in a heated ultrasonic cleaner!

Ken

[sross]

On gun parts I use carb cleaner foillowed by non-chlorinated brake cleaner. The cheap, off-brand, 99-cent stuff before buffing.
After that I use Simple Green.

After buffing, clear household ammonia dissolves rouge, etc. really well. I rinse that then use the Simple GReen with a toothbrush. Water sheets off.

If you want to make a lye cleaning bath, most hardware stores carry Red Devil Lye for drain cleaning. It'll clean very well, but protect yourself.

TSP has been outlawed in this stae for 25 years, but I found some on a shelf at Meier's. It's also a good cleaner. The substitute stuff sucks.

seth

[dadkar2]

Seth,

You may be on to something with Simple Green.

I have been looking for something I could use to gently clean parts during gold plating and when using pot metal. Nothing I have tried that has a relatively neutral pH has worked. I've also been looking for a pre-clean for my process. It needs to be something that cuts buffing grease and oils, is low cost, is safe, and can be easily disposed of (my plating cleaner needs to be neutralized first, and it's damaging to the skin).

Today I tried Simple Green on a part. I mixed 44 oz with a gallon of water (1:3). I put it in the ultrasonic, room temp. I didn't have time to heat the batch. I was able to achieve a water break with this product! In fact I had trouble drying the part afterwards....the water wanted to cling to it.

This is interesting. I'm going to go out on a limb and try plating right out of the Simple Green (with rinses, of course!) and see what that does. I'm also going to measure its pH to see what it really is.

Ken

[seanc]

I've been using Simple Green for nearly a year now, for final degrease prior to zinc plate. Mostly use it for small parts and "quickie" runs, where I don't have time to wait for SP degrease to heat up. It has worked great.

Some parts I did last night. These parts had been prepped months ago, and handled dozens of times w/oily, dirty hands while fitting them up to other parts of the final assembly. A quick spritz of 50/50 Simple green, and a few seconds w/a toothbrush, is all it took to clean them. Plated perfectly.



Larger photo:

http://www.hogheaven.com/hobby/plating/zinc/parts/clear/endsl.jpg

Sean