Purple Power vs. Green Power

[beelsr]

Also known as Agitene. From GrayMills. Awesome stuff. Sorry Andy, I like Purple Power too but Agitene is _the_ parts washer fluid. It's liver frinedly, lung friendly, hand friendly (they sell a Super Agitene with 1% lanolin in it too), metal friendly, plastic friendly and bark/sap/resin/dust UN friendly. I have one parts washer with Agitene and another with kerosene. And I find that I'm only using the kerosene when I want some residual lube on the parts

I've never really detail cleaned a saw until the 066 earlier today but I've used Agitene for car parts, bike parts, gun parts, anything and never had a problem. I've left stuff sitting in the tank for weeks and never had a rust problem (it is water-based).

It costs more than purple ($40-ish/5gal) but I've been using the current 10 gal for 4 years now. Use a good filter and the stuff stays pretty clean. Doesn't evaporate. Doesn't rust anything.

I use it diluted in the ultrasonic cleaner as well.

 

[Lakeside53]

I agree - It's very good stuff... but Regular and Super Agitine is not water based... has a flash point between 110 and 141 depending on the version. Which one do you use?

From the same guys there's also Aquatene. Cheapstihlsawparts uses it in a hot water wash system - cuda-like - and turns disgusting saws in to real nice, real quick! - aqueous alkaline (I believe it's similar stuff to purple cleaner).

The secret to a good oil-freewash and long solution life on aqueous wash system is an oil skimmer (rotating wheel) that removes the oil from the surface. Even with purple cleaner, skimming help a lot - I just take it off with a large paper towel dragged slowy across the surface before I stir things up. There are special mats to use, but...



For those interested, here's the graymills site and info:

http://www.graymills.com/SourceParts/cleaningsolutions.html

 

[beelsr]

Yeah, it was late when I posted.

When I first got the stuff 10 years ago, I thought it was water-based so I got super agitene figuring the lanolin would be rust-preventative but when I read the MSDS I realized it was not. So I switched to regular agitene and started using it primarily instead of the kero.

now use regular agitene - lower flash point stuff. I think they only make the super 141. I don't want the lanolin over everything so only use the regular.

I've seen aquatene used but I just have the regular non-heated tank-based, flip-up-lid parts washers. So, I don't use it but it is amazing stuff.

For filtering, I use the "sock" type filters. I've used the paper towel with purple cleaner - usually tip the pail and paper towel skim/drag it over the edge into another waiting paper towel.

I have a friend who's parts washer is an old stainless steel sink sitting on a 30 gallon drum (rebuilds racing engines). He puts 15 gallons of agitene and 10 gallons of water in the drum. Has the pickup near the top and the drain pipe goes close to the bottom. The solids sink to the bottom and the water "rinses" the agitene as it floats up to the pickup. And when he wants to soak something, he just puts the drain plug in.