For all of you that have bought an old machine, and fixed it up, what did you use to get all the old grease, oil, dirt, etc... off of the machine without taking off the paint and filler? Preferrably without dismanteling the machine. I have tried engine degreaser, and acrylic laquer thinner, wd-40 to break it down, they work, but it would take me months at their rate to get it ready to be painted.....I mean I'm not looking for it to be ready to be painted tomorrow, but something has to work faster!

try simple green

There was a formula posted in a back issue of Home Shop Machinist.

As I recall, it was a concoction of Simple Green, the cleansing agent out of a specific 2 part radiator flush, and I'm pretty sure, some mineral spirits. However, DO NOT USE THE ABOVE CONCOCTION as the formulation is critical so you won't strip off the paint.

Contact HSM and get a reprint of the article. As luck would have it, it involved the resurrection of an old, grease laden Bridgeport.

I will try the simple green first before trying to mix the "concoction". I'm not really into mixing chemicals if just one will do the same thing.

I used oven cleaner. Scrape off the thick crud, spray on the oven cleaner, wait, wait, wait, scrape off the crud. Clean up with some WD-40 and a rag. That worked for mine which was fairly dirty. However, the oven cleaner may damage the paint some if you let it sit too long.

steam/pressure washer would strip all the grease off pretty quickly and painlessly
we bought one to wash our cnc's before we moved to a bigger building , nothing works better ,you could rent one and you'd be done in a hour

I gave my stepson, and one of his friends $20 each and here is what they did......started out with simple green straight, and got all the major stuff off, then did a 50/50 simple green and water mix and went over it all a second time. all done with a spray bottle and a couple of detailing brushes.....now a once over with some paint prep, and ready to paint!! here are a couple of before and after pics.

I used go jo hand cleaner and it worked great
use a sharpening stone for the table
thats a trick that i learned from my die maker when I was an apprentice
many years ago.

ok, now that it's ready to paint, this weekend I want to get it all pretty.....I was looking at paint, but there are SOOOO many types, what would be the best paint to use on a machine? I was at sherwin williams, and they had no clue what a mill was......so I told them an "industrial" paint, they recommended acrylic latex gloss, but that is a water based paint.....would that be ok with the coolant?

nothing will really hold up. there is still oil in the casting which ruins the adhesion. An epoxy is your best bet. Buy a bunch and do your floor at the same time

This topic was discussed some time ago in a thread on CNC Zone. There was even a link posted to a very good article on paints/finishes for lathes and mills.

Try doing a "mill painting" or "mill refinishing" or "bridgeport refinish" or something like that in the search engine. Perhaps a member has saved the link. It is a good read and worth the effort to find.

Water based paints are NOT robust enough for a mill, house paint, yes, MILL no. And YES, epoxy and or at least polyurethanes are far superior and thus the minimum option to use for your mill. You need to go to a place that specializes in industrial paint supplies. Sherwin Williams et al are generally home and consumer oriented, not the much more abusive industrial paint market.

You might also contact a professional painter. There are guys who do hydrostatic painting with epoxy's and other stuff that is electrically charged so it is "sucked" to the mill. We had some stuff done that way a number of years ago and it looked superb when done.

This topic was discussed some time ago in a thread on CNC Zone. There was even a link posted to a very good article on paints/finishes for lathes and mills.

Try doing a "mill painting" or "mill refinishing" or "bridgeport refinish" or something like that in the search engine. Perhaps a member has saved the link. It is a good read and worth the effort to find....

I think it was a thread started by Mxtras so if you go through his posts or threads you may find it.

EDIT" And even if it wasn't you need to see the paint job he did on his machine!