Originally Posted by
SteveH
1. Welcome to the board.
2. Usual remark: Please include pictures, it really helps
3. Sounds like Shellac. Try reading the "sticky" post (the ones that stay at the top) about cleaning machines
4. I would recommend stopping until you have a chance to do a bit more research. water is not necessarily what you want getting under the shellac/top coat. Rust forming UNDER paint is really not fun.
Thanks for the advice: I searched earlier and couldn't find quite what I was looking for, but I may have missed it; and no water at all has touched this machine except for the dime-sized spot where I tried to soften the gunk to see if I could remove it. There are a few places the cast iron is visible, and I'd prefer not to have to deal with rust
Originally Posted by
singerguy
When you say gunk, is it dark in color? Try oil first and if it's not working, try cleaning it with kerosene. But don't ever use alcohol to clean it. Alcohol will wipe out your shellac and decals.
Yes, the gunk is dark. The lighting in a few of the pictures here make the color of what i'm trying to remove look lighter than it is, but in natural light the stuff is the same color as the machine beneath it, just matte instead of shiny. The color of the first picture is about the shade that the residue I scraped off was.
As requested, pictures
Mystery Gunk:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]478877[/ATTACH]
Hard to see in this picture, but the pillar and arm are covered as well, just a different light at this angle:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]478878[/ATTACH]
The whole machine, for reference:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]478879[/ATTACH]