[GreenKeys] Cleaning Teletypes (The older ones)

[Kenneth Gartland]

Hi all!

Back in the day in our Teletype shop, we did have the
luxury of a fairly large and deep motorized cleaning
tank...It was about the size of one of the old style
horizontal water cooled Coke coolers...

In the early days, we wud use the varsol and oil mix,
but for some reason later on, the mix was changed to
"Gunk" and oil...

It never seemed to work as well as the Varsol/oil mixture...

Cleaning and degreasing the old M14 and 15/20 machines
was quite labour intensive, and time consuming...

Our tank could hold about six typing units at one time...

The base units were never tank cleaned...

They were all cleaned by hand with compressed air
to remove debris, then cleaned with solvent moistened
cloths and air dried w/comp air to finish!

The Varsol/oil process was tuff on the cloth covered
wiring harnesses, being very difficult to get all the solvent
residue out...

Pbly the major reason the bases were never tank cleaned!

I worked in the TTY shop in Montreal for a time doing
the Teletype Corp'n sponsored M35 typing unit overhaul
program, where many front plate parts and clutch assemblies
were being replaced due to metal fatigue and case hardening
issues...

I am sure you Model 35 repair techs were involved with
this program...

More to the point, in Montreal the company had installed
a new ultrasonic cleaner which was purchased for this
M35 overhaul project...

I never saw anything clean so well...

The typing units wud literally come out squeaky clean...

After the cleaning process, the typing units were almost
hot to the touch...

Afterwards, the entire typing unit wud be immersed in oil
to ensure all felts had been oil saturated...

I believe the cleaning agent to have been a type of liquid
Freon...

I gess the cleaning situ for all of us is to use what ever
method seems to work the best...

I have heard that "Simple Green" can lead to "Rust spotting"
and/or formation of whitish deposits on equipment
being cleaned with it...

I have never tried the product myself, so I can't truly
judge the permormance...

Thanks for listening!

Cheers!

Ken
VE3-HMQ
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