Cleaning New Tools

[John Abt]

I just bought some relatively inexpensive bowl gouges and skew chisels from PSI. I bought these since the total cost was low and I'm still new at this. I figured that these would be great for practicing sharpening and turning technique.

When I took them out of the plastic sleeves, there was a sticky gunk on them. At first, I thought it was a machine grease and tried de-greaser to clean them up. No luck. So far, I've also tried 409.

Does anyone have an idea what this might be and how to remove it? Like I said, it's sticky, not greasy.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MichaelMouse]

Probably Cosmolene. Mineral spirits will do it, as will WD 40 or kerosene/fuel oil. The 409 will after a few rinses, too, but why risk the water.

 

[Steve Worcester]

Acetone. Wear gloves.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Mineral spirits or naphtha usually works.

Bill

 

[DeanGThomas]

I second the Acetone suggestion. Acetone also works on resiny, pitchy gunk, too!

The other solvent that usually cuts the gunk pretty quick is lacquer thinner, but not everyone likes to have that around the shop. It also removes blue writing from PVC pipes, nasty glues from plastic peanut butter jars (my fav for storing screws & misc stuff), and a whole plethora of other waxy, gunky stuff, all without eating the underlayment. Just don't use styro cups as a convenient means of only using a little. Styro and some solvents just don't get along.

 

[Brian Myers]

Anything that will clean off lacquer should work. It is a cheap coating and does need to be removed before use. Acetone worked for me.

 

[Jred]

I've used mineral spirits and also denatured alcohol to get the gunk off of my Harbor Freight set. Alcohol worked better. I didn't remove it at first and it was a real pain when I tried to sharpen or turn and the gouge got a little hot everything would get stuck in the laquer. So clean it off first!

 

[Brian Myers]

Jred you are right on that - remove the coating before sharpening or honing using diamond plates. The stuff clogs up diamond plates.

 

[John Abt]

Thanks, everyone. I had some mineral spirits in the shop and it cleaned them up well.

I appreciate all of the information.