[GreenKeys] Cleaning solvents for Teletypes...

[Kenneth Gartland]

Hi all!

Lots of great chatter on the various kinds of solvents
and cleaners used to clean up old & varnished Teletype
units...

I saw the name carbon tetrachloride mentioned in one
of the posts...

This product was routinely used in our shop
for cleaning type pallets​, type boxes, and typewheels etc.

I agree, it was really toxic stuff, but it was all we had in
the shop for this kind of thing...

It came in small brown bottles, abt 6oz as I recall,
and were carried in our service kits...

There wasn't. much attention paid to safety back then,
and I am surprised I can still breathe these days!

Eventually tho, the carbontet was not available, and we
cleaned type faces with a kind of "Gummy" block which
was pressed onto the typefaces, in an effort to remove
the crud & ink buildup...

There was also a mention of what depth a restoral
of Teletypes shud reach, and it is really a choice
of how much time a person wants to spend on his
machine...

The question on whether or not to remove the
various wiring harnesses, to effect a complete
restoration, is difficult to answer...

Generally speaking, the harness assemblies can be quite
difficult to remove, especially on the 15 base...

The wiring can be brittle, and hard to work with...
Most colour coding is long gone, and with "Varnishing"
and/or anti-fungal treatment commonly present, makes
wire tracing more difficult...

It can be challenging, however there are now available
cloth covered wiring supplies, approximating the original
colours, shud your harness be badly deteriorated...

To clean my harnesses, I generally blow them off with
canned "Air", followed up by hand brushing with sprayed
on contact cleaner such as CRC 'QD' it stays on long enough
to clean the harness, then evaporates leaving no residue...

It works well for me, and freshens up the old wiring,
without removing or disturbing the wiring...

One shud also be cautious handling this old wiring
for some, if not all of it, may contain asbestos fibres in the
insulation...

Thanks for listening!

Happy TTY'ing


Ken
VE3-HMQ
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