5 Sep
2011
5 Sep
'11
2:20 p.m.
On 05/09/2011 18:08, Tom wrote:
I worked for an office equipment store back in the
80's. They had a
concrete laundry tub filled with kerosene or some similar solvent, with
some metal racks in them. Any major repairs to typewriters or mechanical
calculators was proceeded by a dunk in the solvent, perhaps over night.
I think they used the other half of the sink for a second dunk. Might
have been more kerosene or maybe kerosene with a small amount of light
machine oil dissolved in it. They only dunked the metal parts. I'm not
sure if the removed each plastic key first or not-- maybe they did.
I've been thinking along those lines for my ASR33. It's got a lot of
old sticky lubricant all over the typing unit, and I heard recently of
one that was dunked. Mine doesn't always work reliably when it's cold,
but usually is OK after running for a while and has warmed up.
What do people think about that? My feeling is it wants a good clean
and a proper re-lubrication, and cleaning would be easiest by the
"dunk". Obviously a lot of electrical or plastic parts want taken off
first (the motor, for example!).
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York