Best cleaner to remove cosmoline...

I heard somewhere about using a hand steamer to deal with cosmoline in a stock.

Anyone here have any experience with that approach?
 
yeah, i have tried the steamers that shoot pressurized steam for cleaning around the house etc.... and they work on small parts, but would not recommned for a stock.

that is why I either use the oven cleaner in a bag or the dishwasher method.

some of the yugo sks stocks clean up real nice and add a bit of oil and you have a great looking gun stock

I am TDY to denver right now, otherwise I would take a few shots of my albanian sks that looked like a big chuck of sh@#$ , but clean off the junk and then sanded down and added some oil and it looks really nice. now the gun looks nice, but the albanian sks is junk in general do to poor craftsmanship from the factory. Now, my yugos and my mausers all cleaned up really nice with the exception of a few that I have not touched due to the markings and stampings that would have been ruined.

JOE
 
For the metal parts: Simple Green, paper towels, heat in any form, elbow grease.

For the stock: Wrap in newspaper, put in black trashbag, put bag on hot dashboard. Wipe and repeat. Works REALLY well and doesn't stink up car.
 
Mach II Sailor, in the Navy, we used 115-145 AvGas.

???

Good luck finding that ANYWHERE in the last 10 years even in th Miami area now!

C.
 
diesel or kerosine works also, but would have to let site for long time soaking.

Maybe JP-4 or JP-8, but jet fuel prices are cost inhibitive.

JOE
 
I used a hand steamer on my SKS that was caked in cosmo. It worked pretty well on the hard to reach places. Boiling water worked great in combo with the steamer. I dumped the smaller parts in boiling water and what didnt rising to the surface got blasted out with steam. For the barrel and stock, I took a space heater(rewired to bypass the auto temp shut-off) and stuck them in a trash can. Ater 30 mins or so, wiped off the melted gunk. Repeat. The stock took me a while, I just kept cooking until it stopped oozing stuff :)
 
Last time I thought I was done cleaning cosmolene, I put the barreled action next to our woodstove. The heat showed EXACTLY where I was wrong. So, heat and hot water are good.

Lee
 
The last time I used 115/145 AVGAS was in four R3350 PRT engines on a EC-121K Super Connie in Newfoundland and Iceland flying the Barrier....use hot water, it does the trick...USN 1958-1988
 
Live steam or hot, hot water...

Okay. Your wife's away for the day... Go crank your water heater from "child safe" up to "scald."

Go steal the strainer from her kitchen. Preferably one with teeny tiny holes that she just uses for lettuce and stuff that you don't eat.

Take all the small and teeny tiny parts, and put them in the strainer. Put the strainer in a pan of boiling water. Agitate (which she'll be if she catches you). Put the parts on a few paper towels, and IMMEDIATELY use a light oil on them.

Now you should just have the receiver, the barrel, and the stock. If you've got anything that'll fit in the strainer, go do that again, Homer...

Now, after your water heater has done its thing, put the stock and barreled action in the shower. Using that flexible shower massager dealie, and just hot water, start spraying. Now turn the exhaust fan on so you can see. Do not spray yourself. That crap's hot! You're going to want to do this for a while...

Then take it all out, oil it lightly IMMEDIATELY, and clean the shower before you get caught. Go turn down the water heater.
 
Guy

I realise this thread if over a year old, but it had great information in it that people always ask for.


I would just like to mention, if using the above method (which works fantastically), make sure you run the water for a few minutes after the parts are cleaned. Remember how gunky that cosmo was on your gun? Now imagine that gumming up your water pipes. It's like pouring grease down the sink
 
Mineral spirits work, but is tedious. I recommend mineral spirits on the wood stocks. On the metal parts, aerosol brake cleaner works quickly, cleanly, and won't ruin anything. It will get into the hard to reach places, too. One to two cans will do even the gummiest rifles.
 
^^ This is the method I used today, actually, on an old cosmoline-PACKED SKS. This thing was drenched.

The only thing I found problematic was... well... the brake cleaner cut right through the cosmoline, but it still stayed in the hard to reach corners, just thinned out. Runny like water, but it didn't go anywhere.

If I had an air compressor I could've blasted the parts dry and everything would have worked perfectly, but I don't.
 
For most wives, any of that dishwasher stuff will go over like a fart in a diving helmet save the fight, don't do it.:D Sgt. Pepper has it right, the safest thing for the stock is mineral spirits, but the metal parts brake cleaner is good, engine gunk is great,
 
Wow, I must be an old-timer ...

For the stock wood or matel, hot soapy water, dish detergent works fine.

The the metal parts, I use brake cleaner from the auto-parts store.

Who services their own brakes any more?

YMMV
 
Poindexter Cosmoline Cooker

I know this is an old post, but it comes up when you search Google for cleaning cosmoline off of old guns so I thought I would add this...

After research and experimentation I discovered that heat works when you control it to 145-155 degrees. Cosmoline melts at 135 F.

I built a simple 'cooker' that works great. All you need are 2 pieces of heater duct (6"), one 6" to 4" heat duct converter, and a heat source. For the heat source a 4" food dehydrator motor/heater works the best. A hair dryer works OK, but the food dehydrator motor/heater is made to run longer and controls the heat better.

I drilled a 1/8" hole in the side and put a meat thermometer in the hole to monitor the temperature. I also put some oil dry/kitty litter under it but a rag will do.

For a stock, I suggest wiping it every 20 minutes or so for an hour or two.

Pictures are available on http://sites.google.com/site/poindexterwi
 
I know that this is a very old thread, but since it still comes up as one of the top results in Google, I think it's worth noting that the link in that last comment no longer takes you directly to the picture it mentions, but three pictures are still on the site that the link refers to along with a nice description. It really is a very cool-looking cosmoline oven he built:

https://sites.google.com/site/poindexterwi/home/poindexter-cosmoline-cooker

Also, since this thread is many years old and is still a top Google result, please continue to contribute to it if you have cosmoline-removal advise that isn't listed.
 
Diesel fuel and gas for that matter do work, but at $3.00- 3.50 per gallon, maybe mineral spirits would be a better choice, and non flamable as well.
Click to expand...

I realize that this is an old thread as well .... and while there is some good info in here, there is some ridiculous stuff as well.

I've been buying mineral spirits for a long while now, to clean floor finish off of brushes/applicators ...... I can not remember a time when 100% mineral spirits was cheaper than gasoline or diesel fuel.

....and it most certainly IS flamable.

That said, a 2 qt. plastic container of mineral spirits and a china britstle brush is what I use to remove the cosmoline from milsurps. A cleaning rod and the correct jag can be used to draw the solvent up the bore from the container ..... put a rag in the bottome to keep from having any sharp part put a hole in your container .....
 
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