• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Cleaning cases - Mr Clean Magic Eraser

I use an arsenal of cleaners:
cigarette Lighter fluid (naptha) for sticky things like labels (used to buy by the gallon)
WD40 for other sticky things that lighter fluid won't touch
Windex for NO scratch surfaces like monitor screens
Goo Gone more sticky residue stuff
Goof Off more sticky residue stuff.
Alcohol, best cleaner for keyboard grime. Just don't use Jim Beam or JACK. rubbing is what I use........on keyboards:D
Graffiti Gone Paint and marker pen -- my own "works almost every time" concoction. Disolves 20 year old paint. Takes out marker pen ink. I sold it for a while in small bottles, but never got the power to go commercial.
Simichrome Polish for polishing and smoothing
Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish polishing again
Tape and other stickies require different cleaners.

Razor blades for peeling labels and tape off. Buy a box of single edge MADE IN USA blade. (I for why I did not like the foreign made.)

Always use a sharp blade. and run it almost parallel to the surface. With practice you will NOT cut into the paint or plastic of the item you are cleaning.

I put a drop of lighter fluid at the edge of a label and then peel under it with a razor blade. As the label starts coming off, I drip another drop of lighter fluid on the sticky part.

Be careful with any cleaner and test it on the bottom of an item first. Some of them will melt plastic.

Yellowing: It is a reaction between the plastic and UV light. It goes deeper than the surface. About the only way I have ever found to get rid of it is remove the surface.

With Macintosh SE computers I used to use #600 wet or dry sandpaper and a palm size electric sander to take off yellowing. I used it wet and yes I would disassemble the unit first. Care needs to be taken around logos and text.

Same wet or dry 600 on any yellowed surface. I do not do it any longer.
Anyone want to buy about 70 Mac SE & similar style computers, most with yellowing? LOL REALLY I have them --- STILL:(

Some monitors used to have a plastic coating over the glass. I guess it was a built in glare screen. I messed up a couple big CRT monitors trying to clean the screen. Use only window cleaner on monitor screens.
 
I think the acid in the lemon juice reacts with sunlight (vs bleach which I don't know what that does) but that's just a trick that I've heard people use on their hair not computers. Yes some yellowing is from sun, another popular source of yellowing is from tar in cigarettes when people could smoke in their offices (was always fairly disgusting working on a system that was yellowed from that even after the fact).

The only other thing I remember strongly was a vintage shop who yelled at a friend when my friend was looking at a monitor on their table and he put it glass side down right quick which they said never put your monitor glass on wood because it will scratch it or cause microscratches. The same goes for cleaning a monitor, don't use a paper towel use cloth otherwise you'll end up getting little micro scratches as well.

- John
 
Adding onto that last comment, NEVER put a monitor face down against the glass. On a rug, car seat, bench, NOWHERE, NO TIME.

If the monitor moves across one tiny grain of sand you can have a nice scratch. If it moves back and forth, like traveling in car, it can be a major scratch(es):(
 
Back
Top