Originally Posted by
Slaninar
You couldn't go into a shop and buy degreaser that isn't oil based and flammable, poisonous. Now there are some, expensive. And there are cheap diesel and petrol, petrol being a weee bit better.
I did not see any mechanic that uses gasoline for degreasing go up in flames, nor did I hear of any in my city.
Yes you could. Detergents are degreasers and have been around for ages. There have been lots of products that are water based degreasers...Formula 409 in the US, for example...that are far older than 25 years.
It's rich that you are concerned about a petroleum derived product that is 'flammable, poisonous' when you are using the most flammable product that you could possible choose. Gasoline has a flash point of -40 F (-40 C) so that it ignites in just about any condition that most humans will experience. It is so easy to ignite that a simple static spark can ignite it. And it is one of the more toxic mixtures of petrochemicals that you can get your hands on. There are other petrochemicals out there that are more hazardous but not many and they aren't readily available.
For comparison, mineral spirits (aka naphtha) has a flash point of 20 to 50 C while diesel fuel/kerosene have a flash point of 50C to 90C. For my metrically challenged 'Merican compatriots, that's room temperature to 'damn that's hot'. And none of these mixtures are particularly toxic...at least not a toxic as gasoline is.
Feel free to use it as much as you like but realize that you are, literally, playing with fire. For those of you who want to use a least a modicum of common sense, there are better alternatives out there that aren't expensive and are less toxic. Even if the solvent is twice the cost of gasoline, how much does it cost to replace a house or spend several weeks in an ICU. I've seen, first hand, what gasoline does to human skin. It ain't pretty.