Printer roller rejuvenator recommendation?

I have used Rubber Renue with success. Be careful and use with plenty of ventilation.

Dan

And available locally?

Thanks!

Rubber Renue is simply Acetone (with something added to slow down the evaporation rate) as I recall.

John :-#)#

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"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

According to the MSDS, MG's Rubber Renue is about 60-70% of a xylene mixture, 20-30% ethylbenzene, and 15-30% methyl salicylate ("oil of wintergreen"). The latter accounts for its distinctive odor.

I've found Rubber Renue to be pretty effective at removing the hardened varnish-like layer on rubber rollers, and restoring "grab" to rollers that are in reasonably decent shape. Really old or oxidized rubber may be too far gone and may not "renew" properly... I don't think Rubber Renue can soften up a whole roller that has hardened up with age.

Agree, be careful using this stuff... the ingredients are significantly toxic... best to use it outdoors, and wear good chemical-resistant gloves (not rubber for tolerably obvious reasons; nitrile looks like a better choice).

Nope.From the label:

dimethylbenzene methyl salicylate

It is the Benzene that is very toxic and should be used with ventilation.

Dan

Hi Dan,

Thanks! Appreciate the correction.

John :-#)#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

From twenty years ago, fixing up impact printers...

I distrust brandnames... but start with a wipedown with isopropyl alcohol (quick, removes ink) followed up with automotive brake fluid (which replaces plasticizers and makes 'hard' rubber slightly more pliable). You might want to leave the brake fluid on the roller for a few minutes.

Brake fluid is mainly heavy alcohol (glycerine), so it wipes off with a damp cloth.

A lot of years ago, too long to count, I was running a hazardous waste program.

We drummed up similar solvents for disposal.

But...........one of them ate my gloves. Turned out to be one of those roller restorers.

Rubber Rejuvenator. My can is in the office so I'll post the brand tomorrow. I think I bought it on eBay. MSDS:

The stuff really stinks and attacks most everything it touches, especially plastics. Use outdoors, downwind, with gloves, eye protection, and breathing protection. I had a minor headache the last time I used the stuff.

The problem with all these rubber resurrection compounds is that they soften the outer surface of the roller. If you then run the roller in a dirty machine, or with used paper, the dirt, crud, clay paper coating, filth, etc will imbed itself into the rubber roller. The effect is that the roller treatment works for about a week, and then starts to slip again. Clean the paper path, clean the mating plastic rollers, and clean the friction pads before using the stuff.

Also, the rubber resurrection compound won't do anything for a worn roller. Eccentric rollers, such as the paper feed roller or those in the paper tray, will wear on the leading edge. If worn, these rollers are going to slip, no matter how well you clean the roller.

Rubber rollers also come in a variety of rubber harnesses. To measure hardness, I bought a rubber hardness meter: I measure the harness of a new roller, and compare it with whatever I find in the printer. If the rubber has turned to mush or concrete, it will be quite obvious. This hasn't been as useful as I originally expected, but does help with Chinese clone rollers, which tend to have random hardness (durometer) measurements. It's also quite useful for buying automobile and bicycle tires. Harder rubber lasts longer.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Looking for roller rejuvenator that you can recommend (ie, have used). Not Google results?

I?ve seen several brands, but it?s hard to judge from a distance.

One personal recommendation beats a hundred choices.

Thanks! I used to repair VCR's and always used Platenclens to revive the pinch rollers. Also works well on audio tape deck rollers and printer rollers.

kenny

It depends on the rubber, but 303 aerospace protectant will soften and swell some rubbers. They don't say it will, and it's not supposed to, but it sure as heck does. The best part is my bottle of it has a cracked and crazed label. Maybe the bottle should have been treated at the factory, or it leaches though the bottle. Not really sure.

The beauty of it over solvents like turpentine is it has a very mild smell and wipes up easily and isn't a hydrocarbon solvent.

I use some cleaners that add a nasal desensitizer to "control" the odor. It's something similar "lemon fresh" or some "air freshener" that magically eliminates odors. What it really does is temporarily take your sense of smell out of action. Try a blast of the stuff, and then bite into some food full of aromatic ingredients. The food will taste like cardboard.

The surface "varnish" is a mixture of mostly toner (powdered plastic), clay, and phosphors. The clay is the shiny coating found on most better papers. The phosphor give the paper the bright white color. You can see the phosphor with a UV flashlight. It's much like coating the rubber roller with slippery polished plastic. Too bad that most rubber rollers are not lighter color, or you would see the surface crud on the rollers. I've often been tempted to add some powdered phosphors to the toner cartridge so I can see with a UV lamp where the stuff lands.

Oxidation, usually caused by ozone, causes surface cracking. Early laser printers had rather high voltage corona wires which would produce prodigious amounts of ozone and do an impressive job of destroying rubber parts. HPII and III printers were quite good at producing rubber rollers with surface cracking. Some of the clone roller vendors hid the problem by pre-cracking the surface of their rollers. Todays selenium drums use a lower voltage roller instead of a corona wire to charge the drum, which produces no ozone. However, the laser beam is also a source of ozone. It zaps oxygen (O2) molecules along its path to produce ozone (O3). LED printers eliminate the laser, so no ozone.

Nitrile (Nitrile Butadiene Rubber) is rubber. Note that Nitrile is attacked by both acetone and xylene but is slightly better than Latex (natural rubber) for xylene. The major benefit is that Nitrile causes fewer allergic reactions. What you want for solvent resistance is Viton or something with a silver foil lining, such as Norfoil (used for Hazmat service) at $10/pair:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I have refreshed my memory on the time the rubber solvent ate the gloves.

(I found an old post where we discussed it.)

There were two of us dumping small containers into a drum. We thought it w as all pretty much the same stuff, tiny bottles of solvents. The other guy was wearing latex gloves and I had on what we called triwall neoprene. Ha lfway through he let out a yell and ran for the emergency shower. His glov es had melted off and his hands were stinging. No real harm was done but i t gave us a scare. When we checked that bottle it was the rubber rejuvenat or. At any rate it didn't seem to bother my gloves but it destroyed his.

Looking for roller rejuvenator that you can recommend (ie, have used). Not Google results?

I?ve seen several brands, but it?s hard to judge from a distance.

One personal recommendation beats a hundred choices.

Thanks! I used to repair VCR's and always used Platenclens to revive the pinch rollers. Also works well on audio tape deck rollers and printer rollers.

kenny

I'll second that, it works well on pinch rollers anyway, and isn't particularly noxious.

It also isn't an aerosol despite being in a suspicious container, it's a pump thing.

Gareth.

I couldn't find anything by that name, but did find these: It's a mix of latex, neoprene, and nitrile. These might be the ones, but the chemical chart at: doesn't show that it's resistant to any chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I just rinse using soap and water for water-based rollers. For oil-based paint, I use some paint remover worked into the roller, and cleaned out with whatever solvent the paint remover said to use as a follow-up to using the remover on anything.

Frankly, it is a lot easier and not a lot more $$ to just get a new roller, when you consider the time and effort and $$ to buy the removal chemicals.

(...)

You missed the part where the OP mentioned that it's for rejuvenating a PRINTER roller, not a paint roller.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

FWIW..... I needed to refurbish the printer rollers on a Dell P1500 this we ekend. I read everything I could find about what products to use or not us e. I have a chemistry background so that helped. At any rate, I settled on the following simple cocktail for restoring the rollers.... It worked fa ntastic:

1 teaspoon DOT brake fluid 1 teaspoon naphtha (old fashioned lighter fluid) 1cc acetone

First I scrubbed the rollers lightly with soapy water and a lint-free towel . I mixed the above in a Dixie cup. Then I rubbed this cocktail on each roll er with a Q-tip, and wiped it off with the lint-free towel within 30 second s. Then I repeated the application, wiped clean again. I was amazed. The printer works again, it was throwing the "jam" sensor every time, because the paper wasn't advancing.

weekend. I read everything I could find about what products to use or not use. I have a chemistry background so that helped. At any rate, I settle d on the following simple cocktail for restoring the rollers.... It worked fantastic:

el.

ller with a Q-tip, and wiped it off with the lint-free towel within 30 seco nds. Then I repeated the application, wiped clean again. I was amazed. T he printer works again, it was throwing the "jam" sensor every time, becaus e the paper wasn't advancing.

I've used similar concoctions but they are all temporary. The rollers get hard and slick because the rubber is deteriorating with exposure to air (an d sometimes light).

Back when phono idlers became tougher to get, I used to machine down the ou ter hardened layer of rubber with a cutting stone. This exposed "better" m aterial to the friction surfaces but it was still not the perfect solution

- although it lasted much longer than any liquid did.

Hopefully, your solution will outlast the printer.