Ira,
I have gotten that off with Windex and an old (or sometimes my wife's) toothbrush. It helps to cut down the bristles of the brush to 1/4" or less to stiffen them up. After the knobs have been cleaned - they may be dulled due to the effects of the 'mold' and may need hand polishing with a polishing product - I've even used toothpaste with good results. If the knobs are Bakelite however, they can be polished to a nice shine with a buffing wheel and jeweler's rouge - later plastic knobs don't do well with this method though. Some people have told me that dilute Clorox will remove the mold from knobs, but I've never tried it.
:
:Ira,
:I have gotten that off with Windex and an old (or sometimes my wife's) toothbrush. It helps to cut down the bristles of the brush to 1/4" or less to stiffen them up. After the knobs have been cleaned - they may be dulled due to the effects of the 'mold' and may need hand polishing with a polishing product - I've even used toothpaste with good results. If the knobs are Bakelite however, they can be polished to a nice shine with a buffing wheel and jeweler's rouge - later plastic knobs don't do well with this method though. Some people have told me that dilute Clorox will remove the mold from knobs, but I've never tried it.
Ira;
Rather than a toothbrush, in case you might kiss your wife, go the the hardware store and get some "acid swabs", originally used to put acid on things to be soldered (not electronic). Cut the bristles down to about 1/4 inch, and you can dig out stuff a toothbrush can never touch.
Lewis
I do the same thing with the acid brushes. Trim off different lengths for different jobs with scissors.
marv
:::Hi all,I have a Westinghouse H-397T5 with maroon knobs.I just need to know if any thing will get the mold/discoloration off the knobs.They have a funny white color to them.Thanks ahead for any info.The help I have gotten in the past has been great.
::
::Ira,
::I have gotten that off with Windex and an old (or sometimes my wife's) toothbrush. It helps to cut down the bristles of the brush to 1/4" or less to stiffen them up. After the knobs have been cleaned - they may be dulled due to the effects of the 'mold' and may need hand polishing with a polishing product - I've even used toothpaste with good results. If the knobs are Bakelite however, they can be polished to a nice shine with a buffing wheel and jeweler's rouge - later plastic knobs don't do well with this method though. Some people have told me that dilute Clorox will remove the mold from knobs, but I've never tried it.
:
:Ira;
:Rather than a toothbrush, in case you might kiss your wife, go the the hardware store and get some "acid swabs", originally used to put acid on things to be soldered (not electronic). Cut the bristles down to about 1/4 inch, and you can dig out stuff a toothbrush can never touch.
:Lewis
::
::Ira,
::I have gotten that off with Windex and an old (or sometimes my wife's) toothbrush. It helps to cut down the bristles of the brush to 1/4" or less to stiffen them up. After the knobs have been cleaned - they may be dulled due to the effects of the 'mold' and may need hand polishing with a polishing product - I've even used toothpaste with good results. If the knobs are Bakelite however, they can be polished to a nice shine with a buffing wheel and jeweler's rouge - later plastic knobs don't do well with this method though. Some people have told me that dilute Clorox will remove the mold from knobs, but I've never tried it.
:
:Ira;
:Rather than a toothbrush, in case you might kiss your wife, go the the hardware store and get some "acid swabs", originally used to put acid on things to be soldered (not electronic). Cut the bristles down to about 1/4 inch, and you can dig out stuff a toothbrush can never touch.
______________
Lewis: I've tried those flux brushes too - but I've found the bristles are sometimes too coarse to reach into the small fine grip grooves of some knobs. That's where a tooth brush with shortened bristles will really shine. Athough I haven't tried this yet - some folks swear by ultrasonic cleaners (+ a little baking soda in the water) for grungy knobs. Watson
:::
:::Ira,
:::I have gotten that off with Windex and an old (or sometimes my wife's) toothbrush. It helps to cut down the bristles of the brush to 1/4" or less to stiffen them up. After the knobs have been cleaned - they may be dulled due to the effects of the 'mold' and may need hand polishing with a polishing product - I've even used toothpaste with good results. If the knobs are Bakelite however, they can be polished to a nice shine with a buffing wheel and jeweler's rouge - later plastic knobs don't do well with this method though. Some people have told me that dilute Clorox will remove the mold from knobs, but I've never tried it.
::
::Ira;
::Rather than a toothbrush, in case you might kiss your wife, go the the hardware store and get some "acid swabs", originally used to put acid on things to be soldered (not electronic). Cut the bristles down to about 1/4 inch, and you can dig out stuff a toothbrush can never touch.
:
:______________
:
:Lewis: I've tried those flux brushes too - but I've found the bristles are sometimes too coarse to reach into the small fine grip grooves of some knobs. That's where a tooth brush with shortened bristles will really shine. Athough I haven't tried this yet - some folks swear by ultrasonic cleaners (+ a little baking soda in the water) for grungy knobs. Watson
I have used ultrasonic cleaners since my AT&T days, when they were used to clean the microwave relay cavaties. We cleaned everything at Delta with ultrasound. The trouble with ultrasound, it doesn't work really well with softer plastics, and even may discolor the plastic, depending on the detergent used. We used plain old Calgon, and it really took the nicotine and dust off of metal, glass, and ceramic, but tended to discolor plastic. (You could tell who washed his plastic glassed in the ultrasound by the whit stains on the rims).
Lewis
Also, kicking in on the "Acid brushes" situation , I don't care to say how many years / decades that I have used them for cleaning and solder flux residue removal. Always feeling guilty about wasting that initial protruding 1/2-3/4 inch of bristles sticking out.
If one spreads open the metal side seam a bit for inspection, they will find the bristles being of a long length and folded over with a center wire holding the bendover.
Sooooooo what I started doing, was taking the protruding bristles end and sliding the whole mass further down into into the handle , with only the desired shorter length then being exposed. That handle seam is then crimped shut again. In the future , opening the seam again will permit about an additional 1-1 1/2 in of internal bristles being incrementally pulled out at different times.
Also a sharply blunted bristle tips will certainly clean better than one with naturally tapered or frayed edges...that procedure can be done by flush trimming using a cutoff wheel in a Dremel tool , cutting across the end while the tip of the mass is tightly wrapped with a multi turned encircling of sewing thread...works much better than scissors.
73's de Edd
:::::Hi all,I have a Westinghouse H-397T5 with maroon knobs.I just need to know if any thing will get the mold/discoloration off the knobs.They have a funny white color to them.Thanks ahead for any info.The help I have gotten in the past has been great.
::::
::::Ira,
::::I have gotten that off with Windex and an old (or sometimes my wife's) toothbrush. It helps to cut down the bristles of the brush to 1/4" or less to stiffen them up. After the knobs have been cleaned - they may be dulled due to the effects of the 'mold' and may need hand polishing with a polishing product - I've even used toothpaste with good results. If the knobs are Bakelite however, they can be polished to a nice shine with a buffing wheel and jeweler's rouge - later plastic knobs don't do well with this method though. Some people have told me that dilute Clorox will remove the mold from knobs, but I've never tried it.
:::
:::Ira;
:::Rather than a toothbrush, in case you might kiss your wife, go the the hardware store and get some "acid swabs", originally used to put acid on things to be soldered (not electronic). Cut the bristles down to about 1/4 inch, and you can dig out stuff a toothbrush can never touch.
::
::______________
::
::Lewis: I've tried those flux brushes too - but I've found the bristles are sometimes too coarse to reach into the small fine grip grooves of some knobs. That's where a tooth brush with shortened bristles will really shine. Athough I haven't tried this yet - some folks swear by ultrasonic cleaners (+ a little baking soda in the water) for grungy knobs. Watson
:
:I have used ultrasonic cleaners since my AT&T days, when they were used to clean the microwave relay cavaties. We cleaned everything at Delta with ultrasound. The trouble with ultrasound, it doesn't work really well with softer plastics, and even may discolor the plastic, depending on the detergent used. We used plain old Calgon, and it really took the nicotine and dust off of metal, glass, and ceramic, but tended to discolor plastic. (You could tell who washed his plastic glassed in the ultrasound by the whit stains on the rims).
:Lewis
Steve
:Steve
___________
Steve: Not to mention the "minty freshness" of the knobs when you're through. Perhaps I can use some of my PolyGrip to hold loose knobs on and Preparation H to lubricate the tuning condenser :)... Watson
As for polishing, all knobs I have encountered so far (besides wooden ones) can be polished well with Brasso. Bakelite ones gleam. I have two light blue knobs off of a 1950s one tube phonograph that were covered with white stuff. They gleam now. They're made out of some soft plastic. I have also polished that shrinking plastic so popular in the 1940s on such items as an Admiral phonograph (forgot the model number, but it's the late 40s all bakelite model with a radio, brass speaker grill and slide-rule dial, and the wonderful but never working stress gauge (or whatever it's called) pick-up), and the dial and knobs of an Airline 04WG-806A. In all cases Brasso worked well, though with those strange plastics, a buffing wheel must be used cautiously. It will melt and deform them.
Scrub the white stuff off with Windex first, and then proceed with buffing with Brasso and a soft rag.
T.
Back in the mid sixties (1960s) I worked at Bendix Aerospace in Teterboro NJ...
We had seven (7) Bendix manufacturing plants all in about a one (1) square mile area!
... with ELEVEN thousand (11,000) employees!!
... that's like a small city of people!!!!
Anyway ....suffice it to say... that there was a great deal of electronic soldering going on there everyday.
.. and ...every "wire-former" woman/person who was soldering anything had a small bottle of some kind of clear, banana-smelling, flux cleaner fluid to clean up each solder joint.
.. AND every one of them also had one of those flux/acid brushes to scrub the solder joint clean with that banana-oil stuff.
..and with their wire snips they'd cut those bristles right down to a nub, practically, to get maximum scrubbing action.
...so ends my tale... and they all lived happily ever after..
On all plastic knobs, I have a standard procedure of placing them in a small glass jar with 2 tablets of Efferdent false teeth cleaning tablets overnight. Then you can start buffing and caressing them with other proprietary rubs.
Wouldn't baking soda and white vinegar do just as well?
marv
::Hi all,I have a Westinghouse H-397T5 with maroon knobs.I just need to know if any thing will get the mold/discoloration off the knobs.They have a funny white color to them.Thanks ahead for any info.The help I have gotten in the past has been great.
:On all plastic knobs, I have a standard procedure of placing them in a small glass jar with 2 tablets of Efferdent false teeth cleaning tablets overnight. Then you can start buffing and caressing them with other proprietary rubs.
If you have access to Novus #1 plastic polish, it will work, otherwise, follow the suggestions already listed.
There is a mutlti-surface plastic cleaner available at Home Depot that may also work (Pledge brand-blue spray bottle). It is relatively inexpensive and works well cleaning glass and plastic surfaces.
Terry F
:
:If you have access to Novus #1 plastic polish, it will work, otherwise, follow the suggestions already listed.
:
:There is a mutlti-surface plastic cleaner available at Home Depot that may also work (Pledge brand-blue spray bottle). It is relatively inexpensive and works well cleaning glass and plastic surfaces.
:
:Terry F
::
::If you have access to Novus #1 plastic polish, it will work, otherwise, follow the suggestions already listed.
::
::There is a mutlti-surface plastic cleaner available at Home Depot that may also work (Pledge brand-blue spray bottle). It is relatively inexpensive and works well cleaning glass and plastic surfaces.
::
::Terry F., Hi everyone,Thanks for all the advice,hope everyone had a great thanksgiving,Ira.