Comment by foobarian

Well, I was not. I keep thinking there has got to be a way to dissolve the black, caked on oil resins, and so far I haven't found a solvent that works. I tried the relatively harmless stuff found around a household; the more aggressive being the lye solution, brake cleaner, acetone, citric acid, muriatic acid (i.e. HCl but relatively weak). Sibling has a good point to try more heat, which should be easy to try since the object is stainless steel.