Perished vinyl turntable mat

On Jan 24, 9:07=A0am, "N Cook" wrote: > On a Technics SL QL1 otherwise failure of traverse. > The mat had turned rigid and fragile leaving light oil on the underlying > platter. What has caused this (unknown history) ? is the oily stuff > dangerous to human or materials? >

Well I wouldn't eat it but I'd clean it off with alcohols or my favorite, Xylene. Xylene DESTROYS styrenes but I assume the platter is cast aluminium (UK spelling?) which would not be bothered at all. If you're skittish about xylene wear gloves but in small amounts it doesn;t seem to bother my skin.

GG

Well I wouldn't eat it but I'd clean it off with alcohols or my favorite, Xylene. Xylene DESTROYS styrenes but I assume the platter is cast aluminium (UK spelling?) which would not be bothered at all. If you're skittish about xylene wear gloves but in small amounts it doesn;t seem to bother my skin.

GG

I know a chemist who is always banging on about phthalates, the dangerous to himans softener in soft plastic, in the environment. I am aware of powercords stored around perspex deck covers or "rubber" grommets stored in perspex drawers exuding something that "melts" the hard plastic. But then a bottle of culinary/dental clove oil , tipped over, and leaking will weld ball-point pens together. Anyone know chemically what this oil is that is presumably the softener in such "rubber" mats and grommets etc?

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

That oil (of cloves) is Eugenol. there is a good entry on Wikipedia about it.

"N Cook" wrote in news:fnc57q$7i6$ snipped-for-privacy@inews.gazeta.pl: