Topic: solvent tank Q?

[Don R]

 My solvent tank has gained a bunch of solids when I cleaned a grungy 750 case, has anyone found a reasonable way to screen the solvent? Paint strainers maybe? Cheesecloth? Let it settle and skim off the top?

[BenelliSEI]

Don……i put a 1 gallon bucket in the tank sink. Pump the bucket full of your solvent. Let it sit for 1/2 hour and all crud eaither sinks to the bottom or floats to the top. Skim off and then pour it gently back in. Toss out the crud in the bottom. Repeat several times.

Here's an idea a buddy shared with me, years ago, when I built my own tank. It’s a stainless (hospital size) sink with a 5 gallon bucket below. Pardon the lousy drawing, but hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words! We use varsol in this tank, so it sits on top of the 1-2 gallons of water in the tank bottom.

The trick is to get the drain pipe deep in the water, so the varsol bubbles up slowly and drops all the real crud drops out, to the bottom. When the drain gets plugged, it’s time to scrape out the bottom of the barrel!

[Don R]

 That's an interesting idea, I'll work on something similar, my solvent washer is just too big to keep full of solvent so I'm using the 5 gallon can.

[dave500]

i use a home made trough with kerosine,no pump etc,i have a very powerful magnet wrapped in cloth i use to attract ferrous rubbish from time to time,the bottom gets muck though,i use a separate wash for final clean of parts.

[Kelly E]

I put a ball valve on the solvent tank drain. I line a funnel with T-shirt and drain into the 5 gallon cans it came in. Clean up the bottom of the tank and refill. I run 12 gallons in the tank.

[Don R]

 I did the old T shirt in the funnel trick, then filtered it again when it went back in. I used a flashlight battery powered boat pump made for transferring fuel or water. I got it at Menards in the "as seen on TV" aisle. That allowed me to pump off the top liquid without disturbing the gunk in the bottom of the tank.

 Harbor freight is the source of the pump now, the "as seen on TV" aisle at Menards ran out of them.