Metal Contact Cleaners?

The Caig products are generally very good. The red stuff does an excellent job of lifting crud from nickel, tin, and similar surfaces. The yellow stuff does a good job with gold surfaces. I use them on all my equipment. Whether there is any "real" improvement is debatable, but the surfaces certainly _look_ better. And you can see shmutz on the cloth when you wipe off the cleaner.

I think I posted this info before, so at the risk of being repetitive...

Back in the day one of my work-thru-college jobs was working in the repair department of the largest hi-fi/video dealer in the area. It was a pretty big shop with 8 of us doing repair. Times were good so we were free to try a lot of products.

The best I've ever used was called "Blue Stuff" at the time. Pretty low-tech name but it worked better than anything else we'd tried. You spray it on and literally coats the contacts with sort of a wet paste, blue- colored. Along with the usual contact cleaning agents, the paste contained fine abrasives which over time burnished the oxidation off.

After we began ordering this stuff (by the case!) we learned that once we treated any potentiometer, relay contact, etc. with this stuff, we could assume we'd never see it in our shop again. It worked really well.

Of course, for real relay contacts which were heavily oxidized, we used the GC "Contact Burnishing Kit" - a bottle of solvent with a small metal burnishing tool (sort of like very fine grit emery board) and hand-cleaned the contacts.

Cheers.

I think I posted this info before, so at the risk of being repetitive...

Back in the day one of my work-thru-college jobs was working in the repair department of the largest hi-fi/video dealer in the area. It was a pretty big shop with 8 of us doing repair. Times were good so we were free to try a lot of products.

The best I've ever used was called "Blue Stuff" at the time. Pretty low-tech name but it worked better than anything else we'd tried. You spray it on and literally coats the contacts with sort of a wet paste, blue- colored. Along with the usual contact cleaning agents, the paste contained fine abrasives which over time burnished the oxidation off.

After we began ordering this stuff (by the case!) we learned that once we treated any potentiometer, relay contact, etc. with it, we could pretty much assume we'd never see it in our shop again. It worked really well.

Of course, for real relay contacts which were heavily oxidized, we used the GC "Contact Burnishing Kit" - a bottle of solvent with a small metal burnishing tool (sort of like very fine grit emery board) and hand-cleaned the contacts.

I just Google'd this and found it here, appears they have quite a variety of contact cleaning products (we used a lot of Blue Shower, also):

Cheers.

Our shop got a lot of work from that stuff. Other shops had liberally sprayed tuners with it, and when we got them, it was nearly impossible to get the tuners to work halfway decently unless we sent them out for tanking and rebuild.

I've found DeOxit to be quite useful for removing corrosion from contacts, particularly with A/V equipment exposed to a lot of moisture. However, as for lasting protection, it would depend on what is causing the oxidation. In some cases it can be caused by frequent connection and/or disconnection. It could be due to high humidity environments. Who knows? We use a product called eGloop to protect microphone connectors used in fitness studios. It's a di-electric paste which prevents oxidation and acts as a moisture barrier as well (to prevent sweat from running into transmitters). Another part of the solution is the use of heat-shrink as a physical moisture barrier. You will get the best solution by first figuring out what is causing the oxidation, cleaning it off once, and re-assembling/ modifying your setup in a way that oxidation is prevented. For frequent connect/disconnect, it might be a good idea to look into a different material for your connector (I believe gold is quite good at resisting oxidation).

William...,

"The Caig products are generally very good. The red stuff does an excellent job of lifting crud from nickel, tin, and similar surfaces. The yellow stuff does a good job with gold surfaces. I use them on all my equipment. Whether there is any "real" improvement is debatable, but the surfaces certainly_look_ better. And you can see shmutz on the cloth when you wipe off the cleaner."

Thanks, my contacts are all non gold so seems Red is the one to try.

Ken

Mr. Land,

"The best I've ever used was called "Blue Stuff" at the time. Pretty low-tech name but it worked better than anything else we'd tried. You spray itonand literally coats the contacts with sort of a wet paste, blue-colored. Along with the usual contact cleaning agents, the paste contained fine abrasives"which over time burnished the oxidation off."

Thanks for the tip! Do you have any contact info for it?

Ken

MisterSt..., We use a product called eGloop to protect microphone connectors used in fitness studios. It's a di-electric paste which prevents oxidation and acts as a moisture barrier as well (to prevent sweat from running into transmitters).

Thanks any info on eGloop? Did a quick search and found it

Ken

I just got a couple cans of Blue Stuff. I'm new on its use, but I may have bought the last cans in existance. Well at least i'm in.

greg

greg,

Where did you get it?

Thanks

Ken

Newark Electronics.

greg

Really? That's a little surprising. Unless the shops sprayed so much of it around the tuner electronics that it screwed up all the impedances/ tuning.

When used properly on contacts and pot wipers, it worked very well for us.

See other replies - apparently it's been discontinued (too many ruined tuners?)

I would try Googling: "envi-ro-tech" "blue stuff". You might luck out and find a dealer with a few cans left.

The good news is that there seems to be a wealth of other products to take its place.

Good luck.

That's the problem with field cleaning of tuners. Further, I don't know if they were any more careful when doing it in the shop. Just drop the shield covers, stick the nozzle in and spray every place they can.

We tried cleaning one out once with regular tuner spray (GC "Action"). Figured we could make some money if we could. We had zero success; didn't even get close.

I don't see anything like Blue Stuff. Well I guess one can try making his own by getting some white grease spray and Diatomaceous earth, mixing with a little blue coloring and there you go.

greg

...and there're probably more.

The challenge would be to find a place with a few cans left to sell.

The first place Vance Baldwin above says 0 stock.

greg

Techspray "Blue Shower":