Originally Posted By: DrRoughneck
Originally Posted By: MotoTribologist
I would think either mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol should make a much better diluent.
That being said, a metal sprayer with either a PTFE or nylon seal should hold up to the rigors of acetone.
Edit: Didn't see the video before I posted. I suppose I can't argue with results like that.
This is where the acetone/ATF mix idea comes from (disclaimer I don't own a copy of this publicaiton but have tried the mix and it works for me):
Machinist’s Workshop Mag™ recently published some information on various penetrating oils that I found very interesting. Some of you might appreciate this. The magazine reports they tested penetrates for break out torque on rusted nuts.
They are below, as forwarded by an ex-student and professional machinist. They arranged a subjective test of all the popular penetrates with the control being the torque required to remove the nut from a “scientifically rusted” environment.
*Penetrating oil .......... Average load*
None ........................... 516 pounds
WD-40 ..................... ... 238 pounds
PB Blaster .................... 214 pounds
Liquid Wrench ............... 127 pounds
Kano Kroil .................... 106 pounds
ATF*-Acetone mix...............53 pounds
The ATF-Acetone mix was a “home brew” mix of 50 - 50 automatic transmission fluid and acetone.
Note the “home brew” was better than any commercial product in this one particular test.
Our local machinist group mixed up a batch and we all now use it with equally good results.
Note also that “Liquid Wrench” is almost as good as “Kroil” for about 20% of the price.
Steve from Godwin-Singer says that ATF-Acetone mix is the best and you can also use ATF- lacquer
thinner 50 - 50 mix
I don't disbelieve this, but I assume these are averages, so I wonder how many times they replicated it and what the variation was.
I wouldn't expect "scientific rusting" to be very consistent.