I like acetone and I haven’t had any problems ie no rust, corrosion or anything that the wiki says about acetone is false to me.
I left some bearings in acetone for a week.(I forgot I was cleaning them). All I can say is I don’t see any corrosion. They’ve been cleaned, dried and Dry Play treated. I can’t tell those from my other cleaned bearings.
Acetone will melt certain plastics, and not others. My acetone is purchased and stored in a plastic container. However, you can melt styrofoam (which itself is made with processed plastics) into a goopy mess, so clearly it will dissolve other synthetics.
I use a contact lens container for doing my clean and agitate. I can’t remember all the details, but if there’s a… “5”… on the plastic (the recyclable type?) it’s fine.
I’ve actually seen this as a recommended container. I’d say if all you’re doing is trying to get regular lube out and loosen up other stuff, this is an ideal size. Very minimal waste.
If you needed to get a greased-packed bearing clean, it wouldn’t be suitable though. You just need more solvent to remove all that grease.
Ok guys i did it. Dunk it for 2-3 minutes , squished it around, took it out, put it on paper towels, took my bearing remover and spun it for like 5 minutes. Now im leaving it to dry entirely. How long should I wait?
Oh BTW i ended up using a snapple bottle cap. (Yes i made sure that i didn’t win nothing first) It was the perfect size.
you can play it right now. that’s more than enough time to dry.
Ok i did and it spins for longer now! Its better than before definetely.
Acetone typically dries pretty fast.
I’ll take the bearing out, put it on a paper towel for like 15 seconds per side, then tap the rest out. When that stops getting results, I move to a device I use to hold the bearing(the nozzle tip for things like flowable silicone is what I use) and then spin until dry. Within a minute it’s usually pretty much as dry as it’s gonna get. If I blow it out, it could go faster.
I’d say 5-10 minutes of sitting is more than enough for acetone. Mineral spirits can take a while.
I rinse my acetone out with water, than blow dry it with a hair dryer. Drys it in two minutes.
Ok, firstly, acetone will help get rid of things like lube but will not get rid of most dust or hair or things like that, at least not over a short time period. Agitation in acetone will dissolve some lubes, most probably, but will simply act as a rinse for most dust. Pure, good quality acetone will remove all water from the bearing. This is a good thing. Chances are there are less impurities and minerals to hang around on your bearing in the acetone than there are in water. For the above reasons a combination of blowing canned or compressed air through your bearing, coupled with a couple of minutes being agitated in acetone will provide a decent but not complete clean. If your bearing is a decent quality it will not be effected by acetone. Ceramics, if pure ceramic and steel certainly shouldn’t be. Please do not attempt to dry your acetone cleaned bearing with anything hot. The combination of acetone and heat is not a good one, may well make flame. The vapor pressure of acetone is really high so it will evaporate very quickly without heat. If your bearing is still not functional after cleaning like this, chances are it has some serious gunk in it, or is what is technically known as broke. Replace as needed.