[Boatanchors] Corrosion on tube pins and sockets

[Robert Nickels]

Tube pins that look crusty get cleaned with a wire brush Dremel tool on 
my bench.  A few passes around the outside and up in between, good as 
new.    Tube socket terminals were designed to exert high contact force 
and the scraping action when inserting a tube is usually sufficient to 
clear off surface crud.   Tube pins and sockets weren't designed to need 
any magic fluid or lubricant, but carefully applied DeOxit won't hurt.  
Just don't go blasting it into tube sockets, especially phenolic ones, 
which absorb liquids.   The De-Oxit knowledge base has a lot of good 
information: http://store.caig.com/s.nl/sc.12/category.3/ctype.KB/KB.218/.f

The bigger problem is when socket pins lose tension,  I recently had to 
replace several 9 pin miniature tube sockets on a Heathkit singlebander 
which had become intermittent - one was so loose that the tube actually 
fell out when I turned the radio upside-down. Never ran into that before.

73, Bob W9RAN