[Heathkit] Cleaning up after Soldering and kit building.

[Greg Mijal]

I use the acetone that's in the dollar stores marked as nail polish remover. 
It's a buck a bottle and works very well cleaning up solder flux.  It will 
also remove the black tarnish off of silver plated switches.Works well on 
the boatanchor switches too but will damage silkscreening if you're not 
careful. flushes easily with alcohol or De-oxit.
If you want to try it, look at the lable on the bottle and make sure it's 
the kind with ACETONE in it.  8oz for a buck is a smoking deal.
73's
Greg
WA7LYO
Kinston NC


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Walt - WB2VSJ" <wb2vsj at earthlink.net>
To: <heathkit at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Heathkit] Cleaning up after Soldering and kit building.


> When I was a CO-OP student (College work-study program) I worked for a
> Military electronics sub-contractor in Upstate NY and they had a vat of
> stuff they used to run circuit boards thru. Did a wonderful job of 
> cleaning
> the flux off the bottoms of the boards. The boards were done by hand, no
> robots, the ladies the ladies on the assembly line were known on occasion 
> to
> using "generous" amounts of flux.
>
> The name of the cleaning stuff escapes me at the moment. It also removed 
> the
> oils right off your hands so that they were a nice chalky white if you got
> any on your fingers.
>
> One day the boss decided the Christmas wreath that hung at the door at the
> main entrance needed cleaning.  It was one of those plastic ones with fake
> pine needles.  He put it in the vat for a minute and all that came out was
> the metal support ring. Everyone else but him knew that the stuff ate
> plastic and was careful in getting only the bottoms of the boards wet.
>
> Tip - wear Latex or Nitrile gloves when handling bare or 
> unfinished/unsealed
> metals. Keeps them nice and clean. I've got another story about that for
> another time ;)
>
> Walt - WB2VSJ
> http://heilsnis.com/wb2vsj/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: heathkit-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:heathkit-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of 
> kiyoinc at attglobal.net
> Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 8:30 PM
> To: heathkit at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: [Heathkit] Cleaning up after Soldering and kit building.
>
> I recall a review of an SB-303 that had been "professionally" built.
> The reviewer remarked that the rosin flux had been "washed off" the
> circuit boards. This was one of the hall marks of a professional
> assembly job.
>
> How do you do that?  Does water wash rosin off or do you use something
> else?   I visited a commercial assembly company and they had a huge
> machine that used de-ionized water to clean their circuit boards.
>
> When I've built Heaths in the past, my finger dirt or sweat-salt has
> left marks on the aluminum panels.  I see that on the Heaths that I've
> been restoring.   Is there a way to keep the panels looking clean and
> shiny?
>
> Some guys polish the chassis when doing restorations.  There's a guy on
> eBay who does that on Hallicrafters SX-100's.  If I were building a new
> kit, is there a way to polish and protect the metal before assembly?
>
> de ah6gi/4
>
>
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