Someone told me to let traps sit in a bucket of oak leaves and water would could dye them does this work?Whats a good cheap way to clean up used traps from last year and some new ones to get the dirt and grease off, with out having to go buy something?

You can use oak leaves or sumac leaves or walnut hulls to dye traps. Probably wouldn't hurt to boil them in those things rather than just leaving them sit in a bucket of water.

Vinegar is a good way to clean up rusty user traps. Will have to find something a bit stronger to get the factory oil off of the new traps. If you had more time, you could just throw the new traps out on the lawn to rust, but that is going to take a couple weeks or more, especially with the colder temps.

Maple leaves make a great dye too!

That's how I do all my traps...oak leaves....except I boil them...not just soak in cold water. They come out black as coal.

For cleaning...I boil with some drain cleaner. It's about the only lye I can get here as apparently the meth cooks use lye in the process and it is hard to find anymore as it is being made hard to purchase.

I want to find something round the house to take old dye off my traps from last year

Whole walnuts work for me.

Boil in water with any acid based toilet bowl cleaner.

I use walnut hulls but that is cause they are free from our trees, clean them in hot water with a little detergent and let 'em rust just a bit. Oak & maple leaves work fine if ya start with a good amount and boil them to get the tannins out. If ya want it done fast and fairly cheap I'm moving more and more to paint on everything but my k9 traps and am happy with it.

Add 2 or 3 dishwasher tablets to 4 or 5 gallons of water, get it boiling, then boil the traps for about an hour or so. Then put a garden hose in the bottom of the water container and turn on the water and let the bucket overflow for a few minutes before taking the traps out. Do not lift the traps up through the nasty junk until it is overflowed out of the container.
Take em out and rinse em with the garden hose. Cold dye from leaves or walnuts will work but will take 2 or 3 weeks. It you can boil them in maple leaves, oak leaves, sumac pods, or walnuts etc. , it will dye them dark in about an hour or so,if they already have a light coat of rust.

Rickey

ok thanks