no, not retrobrite

[Jay West]

Al wrote...
>I didn't know how the things worked, so I looked it up

I should point out that for most things classiccmp I use them on, you have
to scrub REALLY hard, in very small back and forth strokes. When you hear
them squeaking, they are working right. It even gets out things that I could
have sworn were scratches down to the metal, but actually weren't.

I should point out that they ARE abrasive, but definitely less so than
say... Comet. As a result, yes, you CAN take paint off if you're careless.
But on hard non-clear plastics, the worst I have ever seen when I got
aggressive with it was the spot I was scrubbing is now shiny smooth instead
of textured.

So you have to use a lot more elbow grease than you might think, but it just
takes a bit of practice to know how much is too much and where you can scrub
harder.

They do fall apart quickly when used aggressively on heavily soiled items.
The ends start coming off in little balls or fragments. I just cut off the
frazzled ends with a pair of scissors and keep going. Just the top of the
case chassis in that picture I went through two of them - they completely
disintegrated. Yep, I buy them in cases of 10-packs and they don't last
long.

You're supposed to wet them with water first, then squeeze out most of it.
There does seem to be some cleaning agent in them as well, to me it smells
ever so faintly of bleach. Perhaps that's just the nature of the spongy
material, I don't know.

I recently found another "use" for them. They don't work so well on stickers
& sticker/tape residue. For that, goo-gone is the product of choice. Put
that on, wait 10 minutes or so, and then I use a razor blade (VERY gently
and extremely slowly) or putty knife. I usually have to repeat this process
a few times. But I recently found that if you put the goo-gone on the
residue, wait 10 minutes, then put on another coat, then 10 minutes later
scrub it off with a magic eraser. Because of the gunk it does destroy the
magic eraser quicker than usual, but it takes off the rest of the residue
without using a putty knife or razor, so you don't get the occasional
"scratch down the metal" if you slip.

They work exceedingly well for me.

J