Mitchell Reel Museum Discussion Group

Greetings Mitchell1965,
Welcome to the Mitchell Reel Museum.
If I get a reel dirty one, I go for the Dawn dishwashing detergent, hot water, dry off, then a light wipe down with oil.

Regards,
Ted Lanham

Like Ted, I use Dawn dish soap too. Sometimes I use Goo Gone
with a very soft toothbrush too on the outside areas of the reel.
If the internals are really nasty, I'll use lacquer thinner or mineral spirits.
Last week I disassembled a 300C that I just bought, and I don't have a clue what kind of grease was used on the gears but lacquer thinner, mineral spirits and dawn dish soap wouldn't touch it.
No matter how long I cleaned, a film still remained. On the plus side whatever the grease was is very good because even after all the cleaning, it still had a slippery film on everything.

I don't use lacquer thinner on the outside of the reels because I don't want to take a chance of damaging or dulling the paint.
If the inside of the reel is really bad, I remove as much as I can
and the put a small amount of thinner inside the body and use a fairly soft brush. I do sometimes let the internal parts soak though.

I've never used wd-40 to clean reels, but I guess some people do.
Dawn dish soap is a very good de-greaser. If you get something that is stubborn and doesn't want to clean easily, you can mix up some dawn with warm or hot in a small container and let the part soak for awhile. It doesn't take a lot of soap for it to work.

Besides the fact that it works very well, it's cheap and you don't have the smell that some de-greasers, or other products used to clean have.