Final results of the boil in oil depotting method.

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Garry F. by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <garryfre-at-pacbell-dot-net>

The good ....
 
Less smoke if you toss the container away. 
 
It appears to have worked, it did remove most of the tar and the unit still
works. It seems to remove tar better than the heat method. 
 
The bad and the ugly. ...
 
This stuff makes a gooey mess that gets EVERYWHERE!! I was as careful as can be
but before I knew it, I had it on my arms, on my legs, smeared on my hands and
in my hair!! Boiling in oil does not cause the tar to float to the top as an
old electrician claimed, but simply disolves the tar into a runny mess that
makes melted tar look clean enough to eat off of!
 
The goo does not pour out of anything without dribbling UP the side in a very
gravity defying manner. Prepare to throw the container away and have a place to
set the container down as the boiling container is sure to have it's bottom
covered in black goo. 
 
Boiling causes a lot of tar to be deposited in a muddy, clay like mess that is
harder to remove than barnicles. The only way to remove the clayey mess is to
scrape all you can remove away and then heat the thing to near red hot to get
rid of the rest. So much for less smoke.
 
This method does not completely remove the tar. The tar tends to harden into a
concrete like cake that simply will not desolve in oil. This is unfortunate
because I was hoping the coil would melt and disolve the tar completely thus
negating the necessity of using flammable solvents.
 
Conclusion ...
 
Although the method worked, the mess is not worth it and you still end up
having to use solvents in the end to remove the tar completely. If you
absolutely can't find a place you can use solvents, it is better to pay someone
to depot the thing than try this method. In the vein, is there anyone on the
list willing to depot NSTs for a fee? How much?
 
I myself melted the tar away but after the mess I was unwilling to repeat the
process to even try to remove the remaining tar after it is removed from the
pot, so I got permission to soak the NST in some solvents in the parking lot
where I work. We have a huge parking lot with a big area out back so I could
work on it out of sight of others.
 
I think I'll try the freeze and chip method but I gotta ask, How do you remove
the tar without ripping the wires out of the transformer?