Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Best method of cleaning hoist ropes ?

What's the best way to the gunk from hoist ropes? The rope cleaning brushes from nylube just smear it more. Don't say replace them . That ain't happening anytime soon

oilers and carpet

I have scraped gunk off ropes, especially dry ones where a section barely has the crowns visible. Just a small screwdriver down the valley seems to work alright
I have heard of pouring powdered borax on the ropes and wire brushing. Seems a bit sketchy to me, I remember hearing to not use a wire brush on ropes, and an acid doesn't sound like it promotes rope life.
Also tried using rope oil and carpet. Didn't seem to do that well. Maybe as a last step to clean them

need to oil the ropes over the course of a few visits. the rope oil will soften the rop tar/sludge then put on the carpet wipers.
having carpet on both sides of the rope is ideal but one side is fine. the more contact area the better if your keepers/guarding will allow it. you will need to start checking every visit and advance to fresh carpet as it will fill up quickly. at some point you will need to oil the ropes again as the carpet will "dry" them out. repeat this process until ropes are clean. if they are loaded with rope tar you may want to start with the wire brush. Bethlehem wire rope has some good literature on this and rope maintenance

I take 2 medium-ish bristle brushes, mount 1 on a L- bracket and the other with all- thread, connecting it to the L-bracket brush. Install it so it rubs against both sides of the ropes, then run the car up and down on inspection. This usually cleans all the bills up pretty well. Typically I'll just install it in place of where the nylube Oiler is. When done cleaning, I put the oiler back. I can post a picture of the brush assembly on Monday when I'm back at work

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12zWTGrycBg9YVuZe_uWjD0zOO5IfjeZz/view?usp=drivesdk

I haven't used it in a while, so excuse the rust.