Sticky degraded plastic

[chris13]

It is not often that I use my cheap rechargable electric drill but when I needed it two days ago the plastic body had degraded and it was covered in a sticky residue. Today I successfully cleaned it up not with baking soda as recommended on one website (it was mostly ineffectual) nor with isopropyl alcohol, since I didn't have any, but with caustic soda gel which can be bought as oven cleaner. It did rather a good job but of course you must not get this substance on your skin and all traces have to be removed from the article being cleaned.

 

[Alpha-Dave]

I had a similar issue with the handle of a sharpening steel a couple of weeks ago. My solution was to wrap it in paper, hacksaw it off, and epoxy on a new handle made from oak from the offcuts bin. I appreciate that would have been much more difficult to do to a drill.

 

[Rorschach]

I have had this happen on a few items. I clean them with alcohol which helps and then dust them with talc, seems to keep them nice to use for quite a long time before needing applying again.