Couple of years ago I bought a Crest brand Industrial unit, extremely disappointed….yes it cleaned, but not as well as I would have liked. It also left a sort of frosted/pitted finish on highly polished parts.
After about two years the unit died, warranty expired, opened it up to see if it was user repairable (fuse etc) unit was made in Malaysia. Sent it back to Crest…. Was quoted a price to repair… told them to keep it.
What I use now, I find very effective. Go down to your local 2nd hand store; buy a crock pot for $5. Make a mixture of 50% Sodium Hydroxide (LYE) based drain cleaner and 50% water. Put parts in and let cook. The lye/water mix will breakdown most oils greases, paint, varnish, carbon, crud etc…but not harm the steel. In fact, the solution provides an anti rusting environment, so parts can sit in the solution indefinitely without worry about rusting. The solution will also not harm most metal finishes… Bluing, CCH etc.
Do not put parts made out of aluminum, brass or zinc in the solution…it will dissolve them.
Normally when a gun comes in for a complete restoration, gun is disassembled, all parts thrown into the crock pot, set on high, at the end of the day; I’ll turn of the crock pot. Next morning take parts out, rinse with water and coat with LPS 2.
