Tips for cleaning steel screws... seriously

[metallicats33]

Just wondering whats the best solution to clean dirty grimy screws. I'm not trying to remove rust or anything like that but I got a lot of screws that are way too filthy (mostly grease and wd40) to put in anything white. What would be the best method to clean them without causing rust.


Thanks in advance,

[treehugger]

I have been slow baking mine i spread them out on a tray and give em a bake i have a crappy toaster oven .
then some purple cleaner you have to give a light oil or they rust but it gets them nice and black .

Paul

[aconsola]

I put them in a jar of denatured alcohol, cap it, shake it and let 'em sit overnight. the next day, or whenever I remember, I pour the alcohol off into another jar through a cheap strainer catching the hardware. The alcohol can be reused a couple times. Then I spread out the parts on a paper towel scrubbing off the residual gunk and allowing the alcohol to evaporate. This usually results in very clean hardware. I do this with just about anything metal, including bearings. After the first soak/scrub the bearings go into a fresh jar of alcohol to get any small dirt particles out. A single drop of lite oil per bearing afterwards makes for some very smooth spinning cars.

[jwscab]

aconsola has a great method there. carburetor or brake cleaner works as well, but it's not re-usable, but it's MUCH faster. Use that for automotive bolts all the time. takes off carbon, oil, wax, silicone, and other sealers.

I'll go one further on the bearings and say that once the first cleaning is done, I'll spin the bearings a bit, add oil, and then I'll keep adding oil until the stain on the paper towel is completely clean. this gets ALL the dirt out. then tightly pinch the bearing between the paper towel on both sides to wick out the excess oil.

[RedScampi]

I usually soak my dirty hardware and bearings in WD-40. I have also used Super Clean That seems to work pretty well too but don't put any aluminum in it!

[shodog]

Paint thinner and mineral sprits have been a friend of mine for a long time. You can thow everything in as it won't hurt the plastic but will disssolve grease and oil off right away.

[metallicats33]

Thanks for all the tips guys. I never even thought of Brake cleaner... and I work in a shop I'm going to take the hardware from my slash with me to work today and give them a good blast with some brake cleaner. Paul, Does the baking method cover up rust?


Thanks again,

[Charlie don't surf]

If you leave the top off of "goop" hand cleaner for a few days you get a wax/petroleum based liquid instead of the cream. I will drop hardware in there and let sit for a few hours and all rust and or grime just sinks to the bottom and you have nothing else to do but pat them dry since there is no water in it to promote rust.

Also be cautious with the brake/carb cleaner, not only does it absorb into your skin very easily it can also break down the AE nylon-

[treehugger]

\Well depends how rusty i have saved alot of old turnbuckles this way ,i read the baking tip on here somewhere i have a little swade brush that i use after.
it cleans the surface rust nicely and blacks them up like new well 15year old new
i have a set of buckles i did for my lime worlds i didnt use i will dig em out and snap some pic,s

Paul

[treehugger]

If you leave the top off of "goop" hand cleaner for a few days you get a wax/petroleum based liquid instead of the cream. I will drop hardware in there and let sit for a few hours and all rust and or grime just sinks to the bottom and you have nothing else to do but pat them dry since there is no water in it to promote rust.

Also be cautious with the brake/carb cleaner, not only does it absorb into your skin very easily it can also break down the AE nylon-

well that makes sence i use the orange hand cleaner and a nail brush to pre clean my nylon parts it cut through the crap ..that stuff will take off resin glue paint remarkable stuff and all from orange peels .

Paul

[mrhemi1971]

The orange stuff also may have pumice(volcanic sand) to help with scrubbing
I think the goop he's talking about is the cream colored stuff, if you leave the top off it builds up a "slick" of oil. Thats the good stuff you want.
the WD-40 works great too, but nothing gets the dirt out of the threads automatically, you generally need a little "scrub" to get them really clean

Don't mean to be a downer here but be REALLY careful with the brake clean and carburetor cleaner stuff, any of you brave young guys that like to wash your hands and parts with it need to realize that stuff stays in your system for a LOOOOOONG time! I didnt realize I was actually having an allergic reaction to it till I got sick BAD. If you ever get a blood test your doctor needs to know you use these chemicals. FYI

[SteveK]

I cleaned a slew of old rusty screws with a pill bottle filled with motor spray. I let it sit for a few days, shook it up every so often, then dumped it out and sprayed them off. Then I did the same thing with WD40 and they are all in good shape. The same process works on the steel pivot balls as well, and a quick polish in a drill is a good idea too.

Brake cleaner would probably work even better on metal parts, but I read years ago that it could be too harsh on the other materials inside motors, so I never used it for anything.

For bearings I use motor spray again, first spray everything to get the grime off, and then through an RPM Bearing Blaster, with the bearing seals taken out, to really clean them out. Compressed air is handy to dry them off as well. I'm trying DuPont silicone/teflon spray to lube them, in the orange can at Lowe's, and it's pretty amazing. I also got some Cow RC Moo Slick spray, probably very similar, so I will see how that works as well. Supposed to be great for protection and corrosion resistance; I am currently treating every metal part on my 1/16 Slash with it, we'll see how well it works. Lots of testing videos on YouTube about it.

New bearings are packed with grease, so I always take the seals out and soak them in motor spray to break it up (you can see chunks floating in it), then lube them, and the difference is really noticeable when you put them in.

[SteveK]

Don't mean to be a downer here but be REALLY careful with the brake clean and carburetor cleaner stuff, any of you brave young guys that like to wash your hands and parts with it need to realize that stuff stays in your system for a LOOOOOONG time! I didnt realize I was actually having an allergic reaction to it till I got sick BAD. If you ever get a blood test your doctor needs to know you use these chemicals. FYI

Agree 100%. A box of 100 nitrile gloves is about $4 at an auto parts store, I wear them whenever I use motor spray or other chemicals. Not even just to keep that stuff off my skin, but also just to keep my hands clean. I got some really grimey fingers when tearing apart some used cars I bought last summer (seriously, did these guys coat the entire inside of the gearbox with black grease or something?), so after the first one I used them and it really helped.

Spraying outside is best, but in front of an open window is OK too. A mask of some type isn't a bad idea either.

I have a stainless steel kitchen strainer/bowl that I place all my parts in before I spray them, so the spray can flow out the bottom and disperse more quickly, and I do it into a bucket lined with a trash bag. Loads of paper or regular towels soaked with the stuff laying around is probably not a great idea. This cute girl on DIY Network said to take rags of paper towels soaked in paint thinner and put them in a coffee can filled with water, and leave them outside for a day or two, which will help break down the thinner and make them much safer.

There are a lot of great videos on YouTube showing you how to do stuff, but I always cringe when I see guys doing some things. One popular one in particular just sprays parts with his bare hands, was rubbing the paint off a body with break fluid and no gloves, used one of the fraglie little Dremel cutting wheels (which shattered and flew everywhere) to cut carbon fiber.

It's not right away that this stuff bites you, it's 20-30 years down the road. They found a cancerous tumor on my kidney when I was 20, and in the intial shock of it all I was like "oh crap, was it the motor spray and paint thinner and stuff?" Turns out it was purely genetic, inherited from both sides of the family, but after that I was much more careful about anything stronger than Windex.

[slotcarrod]

All good points! Listen to the man, Safety first!

[metallicats33]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I will be trying a few out for sure later on. For my slash screws I just sprayed them with brake cleaner and it worked as expected. It's definitely the easiest and quickest way. But like Reg said, Be carefull The grease and grime came right off, not perfect but the quickest way to clean hardware for a runner.