Removing lots of grease

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trade4us2, Mar 7, 1:33am
Any brilliant ideas for cleaning grease from dozens of objects with grease in them? One of those parts washers might work.
https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/A374

The objects are about 800x300mm.

trade4us2, Mar 7, 1:37am
Some sort of wet & dry vacuum cleaner would be good. Do they suck up grease?

kazbanz, Mar 7, 1:49am
what kind of grease? cooking grease or commercial

tweake, Mar 7, 1:52am
you need to dissolve the grease first. so putting them through a parts washer is a good idea.
or scrape off as much as you can and then hose it with degreaser. put it in a suitable container with degreaser and scrub it.
even kero, diesel or petrol will do.
vacuum cleaner won't do stuff all.

trade4us2, Mar 7, 1:57am
There is a total of about 1 cubic metre of grease, similar to what you might put in a car.

intrade, Mar 7, 2:03am
you would scrape it off mostly then rags then clean with parts washer or engine degreaser.

trade4us2, Mar 7, 2:24am
There are things in the way, so it's hard to scrape the grease out. But if it was dissolved in kerosene, there's a vast amount of grease and kero to get rid of.

m16d, Mar 7, 2:34am
Water blaster.

kazbanz, Mar 7, 2:35am
Is it High melting point grease ? --Hust thinking if getting it hot and pouring the bulk out like oil is an option

intrade, Mar 7, 2:51am
well if you steam clean 100 degee-c it it be off but one big f. n mess and grease is a nightmare i hate grease on cv joint work already

trade4us2, Mar 7, 5:06am
We do have a steam cleaner. I don't think heating the grease would help. It is being analysed at the moment in case it is dangerous or banned.

gpg58, Mar 7, 5:33am
Wondering what the rules are re dumping the waste from a parts washer are?
I assume tipping down household drains is a big no no.

trade4us2, Mar 7, 6:22am
I'm sure somebody will insist we dispose of it properly.

harm_less, Mar 7, 8:31am

marte, Mar 7, 11:03am
Blow most of it off with compressed air.

tygertung, Mar 7, 7:02pm
Just take it to the dump for free.

Are you sure it is 1 cubic metre? 1mx1mx1m? That is probably a ton of grease?!

trogedon, Mar 7, 9:13pm
You need to dispose of it properly (water blasting is a no no).

trade4us2, Mar 7, 9:46pm
There are about 40 containers that are about 12x12x12 inches each. Some of the grease has already been removed.
It's all very complicated!

bill-robinson, Mar 7, 11:42pm
might be worth talking to a chrome plating business, the last time i was involved they had exellent an degreasing facility

trade4us2, Mar 8, 12:12am
It's a bit like this:
https://imgur.com/EG6OdwC
The capacitors (the brown things) are full of grease. And it will never be powered up again.

tweake, Mar 8, 12:38am
its not really grease but rather a dielectric.
it will be interesting to see what the report says its contains.
i have no idea what will dissolve that or be a suitable cleaning agent.

intrade, Mar 8, 2:37am
i was thinking he works for mr burnes nuclear power plant
https://www.hr-shield.com/images/Homer.jpg

trade4us2, Mar 8, 2:44am

marte, Mar 8, 3:27am
What's the oil smell like? What colour is it?
I'd be worried that it's a PCB oil but I don't know how to identify it unless the transformer says ' No PCB's '
or maybe if it stinks like sandfly repellant, like the microwave capacitors do.

trade4us2, Mar 8, 3:51am
The grease floats on water so is very unlikely to be PCB. The capacitors were made by Philips who never used PCBs.