Tape head etc cleaner.

[meow2222]

oil

NT

[Huge]

And perfectly acceptable if you want to coat everything in a layer of methylene blue and aniline.

[polygonum]

Which side of the Atlantic you are on...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Dave, since you're still working, what does the (an) maintenance dept use these days? Like AF? As a general purpose cleaner aerosol?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Acetone will dissolve a number of plastics and glues, etc. I'd not consider it a safe solvent. Not that any is totally - but some are far more likely to cause damage than others.

I've never known AF spray to melt anything - hence wanting something similar.

[Dave Liquorice]

I maybe still working but I haven't been near a maintenace dept since

1992 when I became freelance, I only work on OB's now. I just write on a red label (or on a bit of tape) and attach it faulty kit and tell the Unit Manager where it is...

Trucks these days are tapeless (audio and video) but even before that you didn't routinely clean the heads on beta machines. The only sort of cleaner squirt a truck might(*) have is for fibre ends.

(*) If the fibre cleaning kit can be found, it's more likely to come from a racks engineers personal "useful things" collection.

[meow2222]

a layer that's at most microscopically thin compared to tape oxide dust, an d has no real world effect. But personally I always wiped solvent off when cleaning tape heads... there really is no issue.

NT

[george]

Ingredients in Surgical Spirit (Bottle in our Bathroom Cabinet) - 2.5% Castor Oil and also Methyl Salicylate as well as Industrial Meths!

[meow2222]

no good then! my bad

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I routinely used AF spray to dry out/clean XLRs, etc. I assume you still use those? ;-)

[Dave Liquorice]

Nope, modern Neutrik XLRs don't seem to suffer with dirt/damp like Cannon ones did. Shake out excess water, blow, remake. Duff pairs due to wires coming adrift in the multi connector are far more common.

[jrwalliker]

On Saturday, 24 January 2015 13:40:09 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote: > I think I remember using acetone on a Q-tip for just this purpose - it

Yes, acetone has a very bad effect on some plastics. Even exposure to high concentrations of the vapour will cause cracking of perspex for example.

Isopropanol always seemed to be a favourite for cleaning tape heads and it is certainly one of the more benign solvents as far as plastics are concerned.

John

[Chris Bartram]

Surgical spirit leaves an oily residue. I found meths fine.

[Ian Jackson]

I've already come out as a meths supporter - if only because it's the sort of thing likely to be found in any DIYer's arsenal.

As for the dye leaving a residue, this will be minuscule compared with the amount of oxide shed by the tape. In any case, I note that a lot of meths these days is very pale indeed, so there can't be much dye in it.

However, the other significant contaminant is water, which is often quite obvious after the alcohol has evaporated.

Isn't about time some one suggested WD40 or an angle grinder?

[Dave Liquorice]

Meths: I was under the impression that meths had significant quantities of water in it as well but wonkypedia doesn't think so. And thinking about it would it burn nicely for your Mamod steam engine if it was 30% water?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Meths have been around for ages. But I've not seen it used in a pro environment for cleaning tape heads.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

IPA can have significant amounts of water, depending on quality.

[john james]

Depends on what you mean by significant. It certainly has more than absolute alcohol does.

It does actually.

[Windmill]

Besides the dye, I'm told it does contain something to impart a bitter taste. Maybe not enough to matter, but I always use IPA.

[Windmill]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Fascinating things for a small boy, weren't they?