Maybe something like brake cleaner, I got half a dozen cans at $NZ 2 each on special a few months back, and have used it quite a bit for cleaning/degreasing around the workshop.

Ian S C

Sounds like a rather '50s kind of thing to do. Before soft loo roll and kitchen paper became cheap. While I'm not recommending it diesel is sort of like paraffin and sort of sticky and nothing like as volatile a petrol. Another possibility is used ATF if you have a car with that kind of gearbox diluted with white spirit.

Paraffin is very close , if not identical to 28 sec heating oil or kerosene. If you buy at the garden centre or country store, you pay about £2-10p per litre inc Vat for paraffin, if you buy it as Kerosene for central heating, it is just under 40p per litre, virtually all heaters that use paraffin will run on Kerosene although it tends to be a little more smoky in wick type lamps. for cleaning purposes it is ideal, and the flammability risk is very low, it is even cheaper than farm diesel (pink) which is about 49p per litre, and does not have the dermatitis possibilities that pink diesel does have. I have used paraffin in the workshop as a basic cleaning agent for MANY years right up untill the time that the oil cartels hiked the price of paraffin and paraffin wax, Now if I need an oil based solvent, I use Kerosene. Otherwise I use a water based degreaser like engineklens or whatever the local Agri place has in stock. The one solvent/cleaner that is growing in popularity is anhydrous isopropyl alcohol, which is very good for electrical equipment as it dries without leaving a greasy residue, but it is highly inflammable!

Phil