Originally Posted by
Litespud
Rubbing alcohol (70% or 91% isopropanol) isn't great for cleaning chains. I use it all the time for cleaning and degreasing surfaces, but for some reason, when I drop a chain into a jar of rubbing alcohol and shake it up, very little happens (unlike, say, acetone, which turns black in seconds and delivers a significantly cleaner chain). Going with the "like dissolves like" theme, I think rubbing alcohol is just too polar to effectively dissolve chain grease
Yep. Acetone is still a bit too polar to be very effective. Mineral spirits is much more effective. There’s a limit to how much oil you can dissolve in acetone. At some point, there will be a phase separation with acetone. But oil has essentially unlimited solubility in mineral spirits. At some point, you can have more oil than mineral spirits and still be able to dissolve more oil in it.