Quite a few nice new cleaning products have come to market in past years but where chain cleaning is concerned, I am still unashamedly old-school (though I've adopted a few envronmentally-conscious modifications). Come to think of it, not just chains... I pretty much clean all my bike parts the old-fashioned way.
Mineral Spirits is still a fantastic solvent (even the reduced-odor variant) and it is cheap, cheap, cheap. Dump a quart or so in a plastic pail, get some rubber gloves and an old toothbrush and go to town (do this outdoors!!). Repeat with clean spirits when the first batch gets murky. When the chain has shed all it's nasties, hang to dry... the mineral spirits will evaporate. Lube with your favorite slippery slidey (stay away form WD-40 tho... it has solids in it and will age to something that looks like crystalized honey)
Here's the environmentally-friendly part... don't ever pitch out the mineral spirits. Cover the pail and let it sit for several days. All the dirty crud will settle out and you can decant your mineral spirits back into the can like a fine old port. As for the sludge that remains in the bottom of the pail, I used to just let the remaining spirits evaporate and dumped the solids into one of my iron-brown pottery glazes, but now that I'm not doing pottery any more I haven't yet found a use for it.
Bob Hovey
Columbus GA USA
http://bhovey.com/
> >>Deborah Kay wrote:
>
> Hello Everyone,
> Hope everyone is doing well, and getting ready for the 4th of July.
> I was wondering if you could give me an idea, How to clean a chain up?
> Your help is appreciated, Thank you
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