"Roy" wrote:

What best to safely clean the usual shop gunge off machine tools?

It depends what's on there. Oil over time dries to a varnish. Removing
this varnish can be difficult. On bare metal kerosene and a stiff brush
followed by a shot of compressed air used JUDICIOUSLY can work. I also
like Hoppe's No. 9 nitro solvent for removing old-oil varnish from
bare metal.

In general, you have to use a combination of solvent and mechanical
scrubbing. I've tried lots of stuff, even tried steam once back when I
temporarily owned a steam cleaner. Usually you just take what you have
and start. Here are some of the cleaning supplies I keep:

rags
simple green
kerosene
Super Agitene (in my parts washer)
Kroil/WD40/other spray light oils ..
Comet
TSP
Cascade dishwashing detergent (actually I keep this in my kitchen :-)
lye
muriatic acid
paint thinner aka varsol aka mineral spirits aka turpentine
carburetor cleaner
acetone
lacquer thinner
M.E.K.
Brasso
Knorrostol (use this a lot)
a whole variety of tube brushes from about 1/8" dia up through about 2" dia.
several scrub brushes
old toothbrushes
toothbrushlike brushes with stainless/brass/plastic bristles
Tom's machinist brushes (big plug, these work great)
cup-style wire brushes in knotted and plain
disk-style wire brushes in knotted and plain
3M deburring wheel
lots of kinds of sandpaper
an old file ground like a scraper (use this a lot)
3M pads, the brown ones
"shop rolls", those rolls of abrasive paper about 1" wide, several grits
3M roloc-mounted sandpaper and 3M pads with arbors for die grinder
disk grinder flap wheels, several types and grits
random orbital sander with coarse 3M pad (puts pleasing finish on AL)
variety of auto body fillers (e.g. Bondo, fine putty)

I've probably forgotten a few. Some of these will make your skin feel um
crummy so I also stock several kinds of rubber/plastic gloves.

I use *all* of the above for different things.

Things like precision layout tooling I don't use often I coat with a
product called "Lano-Lube" from Flexbar. It's the stuff that gage block
manufacturers recommend.

That reminds me -- I've got a filthy Baldor carbide grinder to clean up
and paint!

There was a guy in Seattle that was instrumental in introducing me to
machine rebuilding. He always says "once you paint it, it's yours in a
special more permanent way".

Grant Erwin