[Lafayette] Those pesky (and fragile) Lafayette dials

[manualman at juno.com]

You should never use Windex on any glass that have dry emulation markings
adhered to them. Windex is designed to clean everything off the glass. A
damp micro cloth, if anything, should be the only thing to clean the
glass with no rubbing, and even with that, one has to be careful. After
40 plus years, the emulation on the glass is very dry, causing it to
flake off and with too much moisture applied, it will cause the lettering
to run off.

Ideality, it one has a receiver with these types of dials, the dial
should be removed and several high quality paper copies of the dial
should be made. Then, if you clean and wipe away part of the markings or
all of them, you can at least make a paper dial and mount it behind the
dial pointer. Or you can take the paper copy and have a copy center do a
copy to a transparency ( to black, red, yellow,etc. print but not white)
and adhere the transparency to the fully cleaned and completely wiped
glass.

Pete, wa2cwa


On Sat, 27 Sep 2014 12:39:06 -0400 Ron via Lafayette
<lafayette at mailman.qth.net> writes:
I know that everyone who has several of the Lafayette radios like the
HE-80, etc, with the slide rule dials, has seen the lettering flake off.
No cure for that, I'm afraid. However, here's something I discovered this
week........

I just received a HA-52A receiver. I buy these and after fixing them,
give them to friends who don't have or can't afford a NOAA radio.
This particular specimen was (is) a mess. It appeared some components
shorted, letting the magic smoke out of the power transformer.
This smoke made it's way to the back of the dial. which had all the
numbers, logging scale etc.
I cleaned the front with Windex and started cleaning the back with a
q-tip around the numbers, it looked worse than before. The Part # is the
same material as the numbers and sure enough Windex wiped them away.
Then, I tried the use of a Micro fiber towel, dry and gently. Some of the
smoke came off and the letters stayed put. Next, I 'fogged' the dial with
my breath. Wow, worked perfect. No smoke, clean as the day it left Japan.
No onions that day!

BTW, my first 'experience' with this lettering came when I absentmindedly
wiped the inside of a HA-63 dial. That radio now has a digital dial!

ha ha 

ron
N4UE
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