isopropyl alcohol vs degreaser

ok, so what’s the difference between these two things – what is each one for?

IA tastes much better!

Depends which degreaser.. IPA leaves no residue but degreaser might?

i thought that degreaser was specifically for that – lifting off the heavy grease, oil etc, whereas alcohol better for leaving no residue after something has been cleaned and would have more limited use.
Eg you might use alcohol to wipe off disc after cleaning the bike to ensure no residue, but you wouldn’t use it on chain to remove grease/oil.

TBH it’s mostly about strength and suitability. Isopropyl will degrease- even soap’ll degrease- but it’s not that powerful against grease and oils so it’s not as good at cleaning a manky chain as, say, paraffin or an aerosol engine or chain degreaser. (it’s very good at sticker adhesive, light oil contamination, decent at silicon sprays and the like. Paint or sticker prep, taking finger grease off before you handle helitape…) But you want something more aggressive for other jobs.

It also flashes off fast so it’s not ideal for soaking things in- you can soak a chain in an open tub of paraffin, do that with isopropyl and it’ll evaporate away.

IPA is a solvent, it dissolves grease (and water, and anything else) into itself, so you can wipe it away.

Degreaser is a surfactant, so it allows the grease/oil to form microscopic globules in the water, which you then wash or wipe away. It’s essentially concentrated soap.

Both will do the same job, but degreaser works better at stripping large amounts of gunk off drivechains as the degreaser and oil form an emulsion, which you can then wash away. If you put IPA in a chain cleaner you’d just be diluting the oil and it still wouldn’t wash off. IPA works best for removing small amounts of gunk, or where you don’t want to leave a trace of soap/water afterwards for example cleaning calipers and levers after bleeding brakes, or sloshing around in suspension forks to remove the last traces of the old oil and any dirt.

The third option (not advised for bike cleaning!) would be sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, drain unblocker) which reacts with grease/oil/fat to form soap, so it not only dissolves it, but it turns it into something that washes more of it away! Usually only used in parts washers though, it’ll strip oil, grease, anodising, paint, aluminium, flesh.

white spirit is quite good for cleaning chains etc.
but of course you are diluting the stuff that’s there.
i sometimes clean in white spirit, then alchohol, or even acetone.

I use surgical spirit, which seems to work well. Especially good on braking surfaces.

IA tastes much better!

Certainly with coke. Degreaser and coke really isn’t too great, although the old Finish Line citrus was a close second.

I use surgical spirit, which seems to work well. Especially good on braking surfaces.

Surgical spirit is usually mixed with other stuff to make it a good antiseptic, things like surfactants (so it clings to and soaks into the skin), oils (to stop skin drying out and going wrinkly around the cut), methyl salicylate (an oil, works a bit like deep heat to relieve pain).

But all that may contaminate your brake rotors so I’d never use it there. It doesn’t even have to necessarily contain alcohol!

Whereas IPA is sold as 99.something% pure, with the remained being mostly water so it’s not going to leave a residue.

Surgical spirit can be different things. IPA or other alcohols and often with oils such as castor oil added, which obviously isn’t ideal for brake cleaning etc. Not saying some surgical spirit isn’t suitable, just read the label to make sure you know what it is.

ive been using my mower petrol for degreasing my chain/ cassette etc. works well and is cheap (and had it in the shed..)

IPA or other alcohols and often with oils such as castor oil…

An IPA with castor oil? You really are a wrong ‘un.

It has been said, on numerous occasions 🙂

The surgical spirit I use is from Boots and works great on discs and the rest of the frame and components.

IPA is pretty poor for degreasing, kerosene, or more accurately MobilJet A1, is what you want. Only thing I miss about my last job, 99,000 litres of the stuff on tap…..

Learnt a lot of new things in this topic so far 🙂

I leaned on 99% IPA for years as my go-to ‘degreaser’ and now wanting to give proper degreasers a shot. Learnt the hard way that 99% alcohol melts acrylic clear lacquer on contact! Going for a re-spray, no sanding of the original coats, just looking to degrease and spray. What degreaser would you recommend? Ideally with no post-wash residue as the new coats of lacquer need to stick to the existing coats 🙂

Seen this. Any good?
No Nonsense Heavy Duty Degreaser

Diesel is the best all-round degreaser going. If you then need to remove the oily residue it leaves behing IPA is your friend.

thepleasantpheasant – Member

Seen this. Any good?
No Nonsense Heavy Duty Degreaser

Switched to this after previously using white spirit to de-gunk drivechains. It works really well and is cheap.
Rinse off, pat dry, a quick spray with GT85 and wipe

[Environmental engineer hat on]

I hope all you lot using diesel / kerosene / white spirit are collecting it in a suitable container and disposing of it correctly at your local tip rather than lettting it soak in to the ground or pouring it into the drains.

[/Environmental engineer hat on]

Is ipa ok on a brand new spanking frame?

I need to degrease my frame before I fit the invisiframe kit.

I use the big tins of Green Gunk from halfords, i think it works out quite cheap and is very good.

TINAS – I dispose of it accordingly, generally on the weeds…