Cleaning: Ranking solvents

D

DrivebyTrucker

Joined
Nov 8, 2005
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Hey forum brothers and sisters,
I edc a swiss champ and another folder daily, and they get dirty. Paint thinner is no longer sold in CA due to new regulations. So now they only sells mineral spirits, acetone, denatured alcohol, rubbing alcohol, wd40, etc.
I was wondering how those solvents rank. Can someone list them in order of strength and toxicity? I have never used Klean Strip paint thinner before, but I've used acetone and it will dissolve some strong glue. I'm thinking of just pouring some of the alcohol into a spray bottle to clean my knives with. Then follow up with mineral oil. An almost non toxic clean and lube job!

How does this plan sound to you?

And what the heck is in goo gone? Is it essentially the same stuff as lighter fluid?

Thanks
 
Isopropyl alcohol works fine for most, but not all, cleaning jobs. Different types of 'solvents' will act differently on specific materials. Generally, petroleum-based solvents work well for cleaning up most petroleum-based materials (paint, oils, greases, etc.). Alcohol/acetone-based solvents work well with other similarly based materials. A great example of this is using alcohol to clean Sharpie ink off of something. It works best for this application, because the Sharpie ink is alcohol-based (alcohol is used to maintain the ink as a liquid in the pen). Re-applying alcohol to dried marker ink will simply suspend the pigment back into a liquid solution, which can then be wiped away.

I think lighter fluid is based on Kerosene and/or Naptha (petroleum products). Petroleum products probably have the widest range of toxicity, because each one is a very unique chemical composition. It's hard to say what solvents are 'more toxic' or 'stronger' than others, because that largely depends on how each is used. The best thing to do, when looking for toxicity issues with a particular product, is to look up the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for that product. A Google search like, 'WD-40 MSDS' or 'miniral spirits MSDS' will usually return a .pdf document with the pertinent safety/hazard risks (toxicity, ingestion, inhalation, skin absorption, fire hazards, etc.).

I've never needed anything other than isopropyl alcohol, Goo-Gone (mostly petroleum based, with a little citrus/acetic acid thrown in), or Windex (ammonia-based) for cleaning my knives. For oils, greases and the like, any one of them will work (mineral spirits works for this, too). For something like glue/adhesives/sap, I usually go to the Goo-Gone first, which breaks that stuff down, and then follow with Windex (the Goo-Gone itself will leave a little oily film behind; the Windex does a great job cleaning that up). Windex or isopropyl alcohol work well on most 'natural' stuff, like cleaning fingerprints/natural oils from blades.
 
The stuff in goo gone isn't the acid from oranges, it's d-limolene or limonene or however it's spelled. Chemically it's a terpene, basically a version of turpentine that's orange derived instead of pine. Goo gone contains around 5-10% limonene with the rest being a couple different oils. The benefit is that limonene is a slow evaporating solvent, and the oils it's mixed with keep any gunk from re-adhering when the solvent content evaporates. Don't confuse it with other similarly named products like Goof Off, which contains a much stronger and more toxic set of solvents.


The majority of my knife cleaning is simple hot water and dish soap for most jobs. A trip to a simple green/water ultrasonic bath for inaccessible mechanisms. And sometimes if there's something those two won't remove I'll soak it in goo gone or isopropyl for a while followed by the hot water/toothbrush or ultrasonic tank.

edit: The stuff sold as "paint thinner" is usually mostly mineral spirits, I don't know if it's a lower grade or just has some other stuff added to help paint flow better, but Mineral Spirits is probably the closest thing on your list. If you're talking about laquer thinner that's usually a blend of solvents, mostly MEK and Acetone with more specialized lacquer solvents added.
 
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Ballistol: you can literally dunk your whole knife in it, won't hurt any type of metal, and won't hurt MOST types of handle materials including micarta, G10, plastics, woods, etc. It both cleans and lubes, and is non-toxic and also food safe.
 
fmendez said:
Sometimes, I don't get these laws, acetone is very toxic. Stay away from it.
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I agree with you, the only exception being that for me it's not "sometimes." I RARELY see a good reason for laws that are created anymore: the main purpose is government micromanaging our lives. California and NY State are always the worst representatives of that tendency.
 
They banned it due to high levels of VOCs. The other solvents are just under the new threshold. If the laws get too bad, I'll leave.
By the way, I remember seeing these ultrasonic cleaners before. I've tested one at a store to clean some jewelry. I never thought about buying one for pocket knives. This would be great for my Swiss Champ. It gets all sorts of crap from riding around in my pocket all day.
 
fmendez said:
Sometimes, I don't get these laws, acetone is very toxic. Stay away from it.
Click to expand...

Acetone is one of the least toxic industrial solvents. Your body produces it on a daily basis. Water (obviously) and possibly alcohol are safer, but acetone is less harmful than mineral spirits and turpentine. It doesn't have nearly as strong of an odor as those two, and the odor vanishes almost immediately after you are done using it. Mineral spirits and (especially) turpentine odors seem to linger around much longer. This is because they have higher VOC levels, which is what the state of California is concerned with. They banned paint thinner, which is a cheap, less refined version of mineral spirits and has very high VOC. "Mineral spirits" are more refined and slightly better, and "odorless mineral spirits" are better still, though definitely not odorless, and quite expensive. Naphtha (most lighter fluid) is somewhere around paint thinner or mineral spirits.

As a cleaner it's hard to beat acetone. Takes off almost anything, dries extremely fast, leaves no residue, less smell. It will dissolve some plastics extremely quickly, though, so beware of that.
 
Acetone is a very effective cleaner. It can (and does) leave a little residue, though, if used for cleaning some other contaminant off a surface. I used to work in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, specifically wafer fabrication & testing. When testing the microchips on the wafers, we used inkers to mark the 'bad' chips on the wafer. Occasionally, due to errors in the process or some other malfunction, some of the 'inked' chips would need to be cleaned and re-tested. We used acetone to remove the ink, after which a whitish, cloudy residue was left behind. We followed the acetone with isopropyl alcohol to remove the acetone residue. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the residue is a by-product of whatever the acetone is dissolving. For a knife blade, it may or may not be a significant issue, depending on what the blade is being used for.
 
The "odorless" mineral spirits are a lot more pleasant to work with than the cheaper stuff with the powerful odor. It is the cheap stinky stuff that was recently removed from our California market.

The strong smell is due to ring hydrocarbons like benzene and toluene. Also known as aromatic hydrocarbons (for obvious reasons!), they are much more toxic than the straight chain aliphatic hydrocarbons the comprise the odorless variety. The stinky stuff will kill grass if poured on the lawn while the odorless stuff doesn't seem to hurt it.
 
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