What happened to Gunk?

[Richard]

A friend of mine uses Dasty, a household degreaser, on his old BMW motorcycle. Works a treat, he says. It's quite popular with gunk removers in all layers of society, but mostly petrol heads. But as far as I know it's only for sale at the Wibra, a Dutch discount store chain.

But... But Dasty is no exception: ethanolamine, which is highly alkaline, and highly incompatible with functioning eyeballs, and limonene, which accounts for the citrusy smell of Dasty and its green image, but which also is highly flammable (50 °C) and highly incompatible with functioning lungs. In small rodents it has been proven to be carcinogenic. But hey, we're not rodents...

I for one am glad they ban the bad stuff. However good it is at removing gunk. Chemotherapy is worse than gunk. I remember tinkering with my old Austin Maxi in a NS car hobby club shed and others using compressed air to clean out brake drums. This was in the seventies, eighties, when only oncologists and tree huggers thought asbestos was bad for you.

Richard

[Alchad]

Gunk.... That's a trip down memory lane. Last time I did any serious de-greasing I used paraffin as it was cheaper than petrol and didn't evaporate as much if left for a few days.

Got me idly musing that neat washing up liquid can have a degreasing effect, wonder if a mix of washing up liquid and paraffin might work? Might try and sneak some our of the house and try.😀

[Alan Drover]

what I never understood about this stuff is, usually when its "green" its more friendly, but doesn't even do a decent job. so you end up needing more/doing it more often, so surely it offsets the cost of it being "green" in the end.

worse paint, item rusts more often, needs to be replaced more often. type of deal

I remember reading that galvanising isn't anywhere near as good as the old stuff too

It seems that nothing today is as good as the old stuff. I've still got some Dum Dum left but when it's gone that's it.

[Wittsend]

Diesel Works quite well at shifting oily swarf & Crud 

[Theshed]

I find washing up liquid mixed with soap powder works well.

[Exile]

Does the "old stuff is better and worked harder than the new stuff" mantra, apply to humans too?

Just asking.....


I use a scraper and then paraffin - or this stuff:
https://www.tmchemicals.co.uk/d-grease-heavy-duty-solvent-degreaser-164-p.asp

(Albeit I am now wondering if it is as good as it used to be, because they now say they sell "environmentally friendly" products!)

[Ken]

By chance I came across a 2 1/2 litre can of hammerite which I know I must have has for 24 years because I can remember what I bought it for.
It must have been comparatively much cheaper then, I wouldn't have paid the equivalent price then to what it is now and when opened it was powerful stuff, a strong smell, very different to today's paint.
It says it was made by the hammerite paint company in Northumberland and contains xylene. The new stuff has Akzo Nobel on the can, doesn't contain xylene and is made somewhere else. It's also poor, I recently aerosol sprayed primer before painting over with hammerite. It blistered just as if it had been coated in old nitromors.

[Wittsend]

Strangely Swarfega seems to be one product that is still very effective at cleaning oily/greasy hands 





And they have a new orange hand cleaner with little balls mixed in which also seems to be effective.

[dartymoor]

I use Diesel

I used to use red diesel to wash my hands after working in the woods - it's really good at shifting pine sap along with everything else.

Then a workmate asked if the pine didn't smell better than the diesel. That really got in my head and I stopped doing it...

[Alan Drover]

I usually wash my hands in cellulose thinner. It shifts the grime very well.

[Ian F]

I usually wash my hands in cellulose thinner. It shifts the grime very well.

I hope you are joking Alan!

Ian F

[dpmstevens]

It's not always that the new formulations are 'green' – often the changes are not connected to environmental legislation, but to health and saftey (i.e human health and safety, not that of the environment.)

Dichloromethane paint stripper, which is what used to make Nitromors work, was withdrawn from sale to the public for this reason, not because of any effect it has on the environment. You can still buy DCM, as long as you tell the retailer you're an industrial user. 

[Alan Drover]

I usually wash my hands in cellulose thinner. It shifts the grime very well.

I hope you are joking Alan!

Ian F

No I'm not Ian. It takes only a very small amount to shift the grease and I usually finish with soap and water after.

[Old Hywel]

I use Diesel

Then a workmate asked if the pine didn't smell better than the diesel. That really got in my head and I stopped doing it...

Good stuff, Diesel. But it does stink.

[Uffddd]

Carburettor or brake cleaner is always an effective way of cutting though thick grease. Petrol or diesel is more cost effective though.