Well I'm glad I'm not the only one that's had this problem. Now I know to use lighter fluid on my shutters and TV tuner cleaner (with a little balsamic vinegar) on my salads!

Les, you said "Triclor is much better than alcohol."

Is that straight up or on the rocks?

Personally I'm a beer and wine man myself, but I'm sure gonna look for this here 1,1,1tricolorprofane in the state store.

It does get a little silly around here at times, doesn't it? I was once told to "get a life" on this forum...and I want to say that life has been much more fun and interesting since stumbling into this crew!!
AND it's a hell of a lot more fun after a couple of Heinekins, or a couple of glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: clnfrd on 2003-06-23 17:55 ]</font>

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On 2003-06-23 17:51, clnfrd wrote: It does get a little silly around here at times, doesn't it? I was once told to "get a life" on this forum...and I want to say that life has been much more fun and interesting since stumbling into this crew!! AND it's a hell of a lot more fun after a couple of Heinekins, or a couple of glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: clnfrd on 2003-06-23 17:55 ]</font>

Somoene on _this_ forum told you to get a life? And all this time, I thought this was life! Does that mean I'll have to go on searching again?

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On 2003-06-22 06:37, Les wrote: I've had a hard time with electrical contact cleaner. In theory this should be 1,1,1 Tricholoethane in aerosol form, but the retail marked usually adds "a lubricant". ...snip... Triclor in it unmodified state is a great degreaser, much better than alchohol, and can be found by the quart at Home Depot.

On a more serious side...
Les, are you sure trichlor is still available? Isn't that the stuff we used to used in electronics 30 years ago by the barrel full until the government told us it would kill us all, slowly and painfully, and forced a replacement on us that was totally worthless?
Or was trichlor the replacement??? Maybe it affects memory first???
I did look for it in Home Depot yesterday and couldn't find it though, although I didn't ask either....

I think the degreaser that we all used back in the dark ages that was outlawed was carbon tetrachloride. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why we sometimes don't appear to be playing with a full deck. Fred.

Ahem, speaking as a former R & D Chemist, allow me to add the following.

Trichlor (1,1,1-Trichloroethane) *was* considered a safe replacement for Carbon Tetrachloride.

Unfortunately, Trichlor was shown to be an ozone-depleting compound and was banned as of 1996.

Even if you *did* find some Trichlor, I'd be very wary of using it on a shutter that had any plastic components. Trichlor is/was a very aggressive solvent that could do "interesting" things to plastics and painted surfaces.

As regards the use of alcohol as a cleaning agent for shutters, I'd be concerned because the retail-grades all contain varying percentages of water. Even 100% pure alcohol (assuming you could obtain any) will absorb water from the atmosphere eventually. I'd rather not put water in my shutters, thanks.

I think Ronsonol (V M & P Naptha) is still the best degreaser for shutters, all things considered.

Yep. About what I remember
I think carbon-tet was gone by the time I started in electronics (early 70's). I do remember a lot of documentation suggesting it's use though. Trichlor was just absolutely wonderful stuff. Would clean anything off anything, except some plastics. There were a few parts that couldn't go on boards until after the cleaning. Although they did usually survive the hand cleanings they got in the repair/tech dept. We brushed on more of that stuff than I care to remember... That poor ozone layer I never did find out the name of the replacement stuff, but it was worthless...
I haven't had a problem with naptha yet, but it does take a while to evaporate. And it's a bit flamable (well, so is alchohol) and not something I like to do in the house. The evaporation rate may be the cause of some people's problems. I've had a couple of shutters that wouldn't work at all after the cleaning until two or three days of drying. Then they worked like new. I noticed in the worst one, there appeared to be a layer of possibly some kind of cloth above & below the shutter blades. My guess was that this expanded when saturated with the naptha and took a couple of days to shrink back to size while drying. Shutter worked fine after that.

RichS:

Oh yeah, the last bottle of Carbon Tet I got my hands on was in 1968. (Jeez I feel old.)

I was winding down my chemistry career in the late '80s as we were all scambling to find suitable replacements for Trichlor and all the other CFCs as degreasers and solvents. You're right: all the candidates were crap. Ugh, I remember evaluating solvents based on isomers of orange-extract (d-limonene). They sure smelled "real purdy", but they had the evaporation rate of kerosene and left gummy residues.

I wonder what the electronic parts industry eventually settled on?

"feeling old" really gets around Hope they find a cure for it soon!

I don't remember at all what the replacement was. Don't remember any citrus odor, maybe? Thought it was more 'chemically'(?) There's a tech term for ya!
Those 'orange' products exploded in the market. Everything from dish soap to paint remover. And about the only thing I like about any of them is the smell...

Unfortunately, the comany I worked for went under in the very early 90's and I don't really know anyone in the business anymore. And I'm _still_ looking for a decent job!

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"feeling old" really gets around Hope they find a cure for it soon!"

Oh, there's a "cure" for it all right, but you won't like it" X(

thanxxx...

OLD? Who's getting old? They say when you get old you can't remember s--t. Hmmm. What was I going to say? Uh...anyway... when I retired in 1998, I was still savoring the last can of spray Tri-chlor, which we used for the contacts in a 100Kw TV Xmtr. We knew we couldn't get anymore, so we used it sparingly. Don't know what replaced it...but I bailed out in the nick of time. ANYHOW...I don't have any Ilex shutters...and I have used Ronsonol with extra fine graphite to CL several Kodak and Wollensak shutters with great success, and I highly recommend it. But, I will say again, that if I had a shutter with plastic moving parts, I would try to find 100% alcohol. The guys at the studio used it to clean lenses in the field ENG cameras...and I was told that you could use, as a substitute, Everclear, found at package stores, that is 180-proof grain alcohol. AND, don't throw out the bathwater...use it to good advantage in your next Bloody Mary. Fred.

For the chemists on this board, CRC QD Electronic Cleaner #05102; [www.crcindustries.com]; contains Methanol 67-56-1, n-Hexane 110-543-3, Isohexane 107-83-5, Petroleum Distillate 64742-48-9, and Carbon Dioxide 124-38-9.
(Had to use a 8x loupe to read it from the can.)
Charles

Some larger Ilex shutters have hard rubber blades. These are not affected by Naphtha (Ronsonol). However, they definitely _are_ affected by heat. Don't try to speed up drying of the cleaning solvent by heating the shutter or you will have lumps of melted glop instead of shutter and iris blades.