Mini Hot-Tank Idear

Neat! So conceivably could one stick lye in the crock pot and have good results that way?

 

Yeah, but lye is dangerous. It's the active ingredient in Drano.

 

Hippo: Lye is corrosive to your skin! I've made soap and rinsed hands and arms off many times--kind of fun though!

 

Not so different than how it used to done. I remember as a kid reading Hot Rod and Rod & Custom that you scrob the block down and out with Tide and hot water. Firt guy I ever worked around that rebuilt engines did it that way didn't have a hot tank.

 

Makes sense. Tide used to have TSP as its main active ingredient before everybody figured out how bad phosphates were for the environment.

 

My wife just discovered her crock pot (and parts of my transfercase! ) in the garage. Anybody got a couch I can crash on!?!

 

Let us know your results. With both the parts and the wife.

Looks like my comments were too late! (see above) At least let us know how the parts turn out.

 

Used to have a very large hot tank in my shop. And yes it was lye and water. It did quite the job on cleaning engine parts. You have to be careful what you put in it, had a guy working for me came in the office and asked who took his set of cases out of the tank and where they were. I asked what he was talking about, he said he put VW case's in the hot tank and left them through the weekend (I thought to myself he was an idiot!!), well we went out to the tank and in the basket was all that was left of his cases was the studs! They were really clean! After our lye solution wore out we pumped the used hot tank engine grease soup into drums and had a hazmat contractor would pick them up. I think if you use simple green till it was so bad it would not work any more let it evaporate and the greasy clump that was left would be no worse than what we scrape off our hands at the end of the day. I would just sop it up in rags and put in trash bag and toss out with the trash. What do most people do now? Carb cleaner/ engine degreaser/ paint thinner/ gasoline (no one uses that!!)/ and a lot of rags. It would be no worse than that. If a heavy/toxic solvent was used in the crock pot proper disposal should be thought of.

 

I use a purple cleaner in my tank that is reasonably priced. Does a decent job, but very rough on the hands. I have went to using gloves and still get ate up around the ends. It says it is bio degradable. So when we are getting to the end of it's usefullness I skim it off and put in a bucket. Let it evaporate and dump the dried crud in the trash can.

My tank is about 40 gal if it were filled compleetly up. I am thinking of adding heat to it to speed the process, but have not found a suitable way of doing it. I don't want any open flames if I can keep from it. Also need to buy a pump. get tired of washing and scrubbning O like the turn it on and leave aproach!!

As for lye,,, What concentration do you use?? Granny used to make some Lye soap that put lava to shame. If you washed your hands to much in it it would start taking the skin off....

 

You need an electric immersion heater. They are used in coffee vending machines and electric water heaters - probably other applications too. The ones I've seen mount in a welded-in bung at the bottom of the tank and thread into pipe threads the right size for the heater.

You may be able to scrounge one from a junk electric water heater. Often water heaters fail because of corrosion of the tank, and the heating element would be fine.

These things will really make your electric meter spin... otherwise we'd all have electric water heaters (compact, no fumes or flue).

 

Rio Grande: My Granmother used to make soap all the time also. In fact it wasn't till 1960 that we started to use "store bought" laundry detergent. Gram used to shred the soap on a cheese grater. Mom finally changed her to the store bought stuff. R)

I have made it several times. The first time was from memory and it came out kind of strong--but worked great! In fact my neighbor loved it for "ring around the collar" use. You can get the receipes on the net and I made it several other times. I always use "bacon drippins" just like Gram did. Worked fine. If you want a more pure product, use store bought Lard--it's cheap.

 

Jim I remember my grandmother talked about using the fat from hogs they slaughtered in the fall for soap. Probably same process huh? I know my mother said it'd burn your hair if you wased it in it. Haven't seen it(Lye) around in the last few years. Used to be able to buy in the grocery store and/or feed store.

 

Pottasium hydroxide (KOH, caustic potash) can be leached from wood ashes. Works the same as lye. I expect you need a lot of wood ashes to make a little soap though.

 

jd7: In Encino in the SFV of LA, every store carries lye--for some reason that I don't know, but they have it. Also here in every store in Havasu.

Tim: They call it "drippin the lye".

 

There are high-strength industrial types of "drano" available at the local hardware store. Would that werk in the crock pot?

At Wal-Mart tonight I saw they had an 18-quart cooker for $28. That's alot bigger than the 4 or 5 qt. Crock pot. Looked like you could fit a 225 ex. manifold in it sideways. Hmmm....might have to go for it.

 

<guinness>BRILLIANT!!!</guinness>

 

For a heater try a farm supply store for an immersion heater for a cattle water bowl. Cows gotta drink in the winter too.

Paul

 

Got to looking,,, I need to find an old water heater with the controls on it as well... and to think I just threw away an old water heater. I need one that runs off of 110 though as opposed to 220v