Kerosene wont cut it.
 

The Singer 127 I picked up a couple weeks ago is soooooo very filthy up underneath and on other parts I decided so soak the bottom of the machine and the peripheral parts in kerosene to loosen up and get rid of the ancient oil.
It won't touch it.

So, before I try my next idea, what would you try next?

I'll do a pic in a bit. I'm moving real slow today.

Joe

My first though would be HOT water and Dawn - it's a pretty amazing combination when it comes to grease. I'm sure something more heavily caustic - say, Liquid Plumber - would work better still but you'd have to be so careful of the decals.

The old hard oil really looks like baked on oven grease. I'll bet oven cleaner might work on that, I'm still cogitating on what to try next.

Joe

Stay away from the decals, but a good solution of OxiClean and Hot water does it for me. Then a good wipe / rinse with hot water to clear the Oxi away.

It's possible the oxi wouldn't have taken the decal off my 127, but the OxiClean and a microfiber cloth did. I noticed quickly, it's about 3/8" sq, but still. The underbits should be totally fine as long as they're well oiled afterward. I always use the air compressor to blow out as much water as possible, then oil immediately afterward.

OMG, Joe, I was going to pm you with the same question. I have a 127 that is gummed up just like yours. I've used kerosene and WD40. I'm about to pull my hair out. They're so many parts that I can't reach. I was going to ask you if I could spray oven cleaner up inside her, then flush with hot water. She is frozen up, not rust, just gunk. I've also tried to use a blow dryer to heat her parts up, but that didn't work. She's a treadle. I was going to put a handcrank on her. HELP!!!!

mawluv,

My machine has been soaking in kerosene for about a week now. Well, just the bottom gears and such and the crud is still not coming off most of the parts. In some places where it wasn't oiled as much it's beginning to come off. Internally it's a mess too, but not seized up. The insides of the plated parts are untouched by the kerosene.

I won't use water on a sewing machine cos of rust. I just can't be sure I've gotten all the moisture out of it, or enough oil into it to prevent rust.

So, in a day or so I'm going to crack open the last quart of Hoppe's #9 I've got and clean that gunk off. I hate to use it, but it works and won't hurt the decals if you don't leave it on for a long time.

Joe

Joe,

I have had great success with 90% ( or 99%...can't remember) ethyl alcohol. BUT can't let it touch the paint. I use lots of q-tips and lots of patience. The q-tip should be wet, but not dripping.

Cathy

Cathy,

Another idea to keep in mind.

Joe

Joe, would ammonia work? I know you can use it to clean baked on crease from ovens and the oven racks. Mawluv

Not Joe, but ammonia should do well. Be VERY careful not to get it on japanning/decals, though - ammonia cuts right through shellac!

Thanks, pinkCastleDH. I'll let you all know how it worked,Mawluv

Ammonia ..... not for me. My sinuses are extremely sensitive to that stuff. I'll be using Denatured Alcohol.

Muwluv,
Between all these suggestions we'll get 'em all cleaned up and spiffy.

Joe

power steering fluid for a car works good to loosen up things,, and its oil based too.

Well, I ran out of denatured alcohol and went to the Hoppe's #9. Over a week soaking in kerosene and the gunk was untouched. 10 minutes in the Hoppe's and it's coming off by itself. Got some of the outer things cleaned of gunk and in the Evapo-Rust.

Found some parts I need for the 127 at Sew-Classic so as soon as I can make an order I'm gonna be in business.

Not that I have any idea what I'm going to do with the 127. But it will be cleaner and usable.

Joe

I use lighter fluid, it works well and does not harm the paint.

Lighter fluid, acetone, benzine, and other light weight extremely flammable vaporous fluids worry me. I have some of them, but don't really like to use them for cleaning if I can avoid it. Perhaps in this case I'm just being paranoid.

I do use the denatured alcohol and that is also flammable. But at it's rapid rate of evaporation the vapors don't pool in an area as bad. And I only use a cap full at a time. When I use a q-tip and clean a part it's dry by the time I reach for another q-tip.

Hoppe's #9 is a heavier oily chemical and although it has a distinctive odor it's not near as vaporous as the others. And it works.
It's job is to cut through oils, grease, carbon and to a lesser extent metallic fouling. I've used it for many years.

Joe

Joe, when I had a machine like that, I turned it upside down in a big box with large pieces of styrofoam holding it in place. Then I soaked some cotton (you could use rags) in kerosene and laid them over the gunky gears. I put a lamp over it with a regular, old school lightbulb and left it on for the small amount of heat it produced. I checked on it often, and eventually the gunk loosened up.

Stephanie,

That is one idea that never occurred to me.

However I got it under control now. I'm gonna build a big bon fire and put the machine in it and burn the crud out. Just like you do cast iron pots and pans. Then a couple coats of Rustolium and some oil and it will be good a new .......


Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha ............... :D

I'm just kidding. I have most of the removable parts cleaned now. Tomorrow I'll bring in the machine and start on it.
Hoppe's #9 does wonders for this kind of thing.

Joe

A couple of my machines were so gunked up that I wasn't sure what to do. They were dirty, rusty, seized and yucky. My DH brought in his PB Blaster (he has encountered some bad stuff in his former work as a GA mechanic) and it was what Skip had previously suggested to me. It took several applications over the period of a few days and on the appropriate parts I used a grill screen. My fingernails took a few days to get the black out but the machines look better and they work great. Just a note to the ladies, I found out that not dish-washing, food-handling or surgical gloves even triple layers don't protect the nails. Any suggestions from any of you to clean the nails after working on the machines? Nail brush and Dawn helps but the black color remained for several days.

Anytime I've used OxiClean to clean a machine's parts, my nails have been the cleanest, clearest things you'd ever see.

Ok,.. the clearest part is more the "eggshell nails" I have, but previously, they would always be black from crud and oil and grease on the machines.

I sincerely doubt that Oxi is great for your skin (probably not worse than kerosene though, that really dries the hands and makes the skin feel awful), but if you were to use a scrub brush with a weak solution of that and Dawn, perhaps it would be OK once rinsed really well? Test on an area for any sort of irritation first, I guess, but it's never bothered my eczema.

ETA: The other thing is, a Car Detailer once told me "that which you ruin it with, you fix it with".... perhaps a greasy sort of hand cream,... or cleaner grease that you can wash off? The SuperLube that I've been trying on the machines lately is food safe, so I'd think it shouldn't irritate the skin too badly.

Thanks for the good suggestions, Tammi. I'll give them a try "next time".
Donna

Hey Donna,

The other thing I've tried, but I suspect you have too, is the Fast Orange. It's a hand cleaner product with a pumice in it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I think it depends on how grungy the grunge is.

If you use any cleaner with pumice you can write off the decals and most of the paint. It will destroy them.

I've run out of Hoppe's and am still not finished cleaning this little thing. The remaining gunk looks like the inside of an oven with all the baked on grease. But I don't want to ruin what's left of the paint and decals so I'm only going to use non abrasive cleaners.

And so far, the following is all that's worked:
Hoppe's #9 Gun Cleaning Solvent.

And these have not:
Simple Green
Dawn dish washing detergent
Lighter fluid
Sewing machine oil


I think I'll try some paint thinner on the edges that's giving me the worst trouble.

Joe

Oh, Sorry Joe, we were talking about the cleanup afterward. No abrasives on the machine, abrasives on the hands to remove the grunge.

I had no idea you could use Simple Green on a sewing machine. hmm....

We were addressing the cleaning of our dainty lady hands AFTER the grunge work but thanks for the warning anyway. I think our skin is tougher than the decals.

OK, sorry I missed those posts. Simple green is OK when diluted on most newer machines. But it will destroy decals on older machines. I found that out the hard way.
If I were to use it on an older machine I'd use q-tips and make sure it didn't get near the decals.

Joe