"Winston" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:

FWIW, as a purple cleaner, oven cleaner, and gasoline user, I'd try them
in
that order, unless you don't mind the gasoline fumes, in which case that
would be second.

I mix my own oven cleaner for cleaning my charcoal grill but it's a
bugger
to get straight lye these days. The only over-the-counter retail source
I've
seen identified by others is Roebic Crystal Drain Cleaner, which I buy
from
Lowe's at $11.00 for two poundsouch!! It's now $1.98 for two pounds
online, under different names, but then I pay $10 shipping. d8-(

I do buy 20 pounds or so at a time online once in a while. You want 100%
sodium hydroxide crystals or pellets; mix 20% with water by weight; dump
in
some diatomaceous earth to make it stick a little to the grill. You can
use
potassium hydroxide but it's more expensive.

Mix 40% for cleaning drains, and stand back...At 40%, it's like thin
syrup.

Copied to disk and printed.

Thanks again Ed!

--Winston

You're welcome. Pencil this in: To the 20% plus d. earth formula, add enough
fumed silica to make soup, and use it to strip paint. Whole houses. I did my
whole porch with it.

It's slow with latex paints -- like, two days -- but fairly quick with
alkyd/oil/varnish. And it's cheap, with no methylene chloride fumes.
Neutralize with a dilute oxalic acid mix before painting. This stripper
treatment is used in historic-house restorations.

--
Ed Huntress