On Dec 22, 0:03, Neil Cherry wrote: once for aerosol local experience, problem. In the printing industry, Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) is used to deep-clean ink rollers and "blankets" on offset litho machines. It's a powerful ink solvent, and also causes rubber to swell very slightly, so it removes the glaze you sometimes get, and lifts the dents you get in the blanket as a result of a paper smash[1]. MEK works well on pickup rollers, and it doesn't harm the ozone layer. However, like many solvents, it does dissolve some common plastics (polystyrene, ABS, PVC, etc) and paint; it also leaches the oils and fats from your skin, so don't wash in it :-) Not for too long, anyway. It's also flammable. However, it's much safer than benzene, xylol, etc. It's a relative of acetone (nail varnish remover) and you can get it from print suppliers (they may call it something like blanket rejuvenator, and charge extra), lab suppliers, etc. Put some on a cloth and wipe the roller with it. I've used it on lots of printer rollers, and the carriages of daisywheel and dotmatrix printers. You don't really want to use anything that is a good solvent for rubber or rubber cement as that will end up distorting the roller or making it gummy and ultimately leave you worse off. [1] In an offset litho press, the image is transferred from an image "plate" -- a very thin sheet of metal or plastic wrapped round a large drum -- to a rubber "blanket", also wrapped round a large drum. From there, the image is transferred to the paper. If a sheet of paper gets crumpled in the press, it makes dents in the blanket, which then fails to pick up ink "blanket smash". -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York