Of Solvents and Solutions

[shadowfox]

Hi all, just dwelving into camera repairdom.

Can y'all help me with a basic repair question. Of these three solvents/cleaners:

1. Denatured Alcohol

2. Acetone

3. Naphtha

What are the differences? when should I use what?

Tell me your experiences with any of those three.

 

[anselwannab]

If none of those three work, use a blow torch.

An alcohol, a ketone, and some apliphatic hydrocarbons. If what you are trying to clean doesn't come off with that, you might try an aromatic based solvent.

Horses for courses. I don't know the nature of the lubricants used in cameras, but I would think that in the order you have them, they would be the least likely mess something up, or melt a plastic. Denatured alcohol and Acetone probably have some water in them (or soon will after you open them), so I wouldn't leave parts soaking in them or use it willy-nilly in a camera.

Mark

 

[clintock]

Denatured Alcohol is the cheapest, and pretty gentle to most surfaces, but can mar some plastics and paint.. Not to be confused with 'Isopropyl Alcohol', which has up to 50 percent water content. Alcohol works ok to get light grease off of some things, and sticker residue..

Acetone is more likely to attack plastics and evaporates faster than the other two, but does a good job dissolving stubborn things like glue. It will mar lacquer paint; it's the active ingredient in finger nail polish remover, finger nail polish is lacquer.
Acetone will really get the grease off of things, including your skin. If you have a leaf shutter with no plastic parts out of a lens and you want to really get all the oils out of it, dunking in acetone will do it.

Naptha is to me like a really thin oil that will evaporate all the way.. I'm not sure it's an oil, but it seems a like one. It is gentle to almost all plastics and paint, and does a good job of dissolving grease. If you get oil on a shutter curtain and need to wipe it off, a swab with some naptha on it will do the trick (never leave oil on a shutter curtain, the oil will cause the rubberised fabric to become brittle and crack).

Naptha to me is the most useful, with denatured alcohol second.. Acetone can be dangerous and stinks up the house.

 

[bsdunek]

Hi all, just dwelving into camera repairdom.

Can y'all help me with a basic repair question. Of these three solvents/cleaners:

1. Denatured Alcohol

2. Acetone

3. Naphtha

What are the differences? when should I use what?

Tell me your experiences with any of those three.

These are quite different things.
1. Alcohol - will remove dirt and fingerprints (or nose prints if you have a dog!). It won't hurt metal, most plastics, glass, and probably not lens coatings, although I'd rather use a commercial lens cleaner. It will loosen leather coverings if they were applied with shellac as older cameras were.
2. Acetone - will remove almost anything from your camera. Will dissolve most plastics, the adhesive used to hold the covering, and I sure wouldn't use it on a lens. It probably won't hurt most metal for short time periods, but some castings might become etched.
3. Naptha - kind of inbetween. Wouldn't use it on plastics, lenses and coatings. Ok on metal, leather (will dry it out though), and may loosen the leather adhesive.
The only time I would use any of these solvents on a camera if I was removing the adhesive for a recover, or cleaning disassembled metal parts. I use commercial lens cleaner on glass and a soft cotton cloth moistened with Windex on the body. Never had a problem. Just IMHO. 😎

 

[clintock]

Not to hijack, but will acetone harm coatings? I've been afraid to use anything 'stronger' than alcohol on lenses, and then only on a cloth.
The coatings are not organic, so I thought acetone would do no harm, but my fear has always been that I might get acetone onto the edge of the glass and mar the black paint if present and/or the glue holding the elements together if the glass is part of a cemented group.

I've been afraid to use windex on coated lenses after reading something somewhere about how guys with custom motorcycles avoid windex on chromed surfaces, as the ammonia can mar the chrome. By extension I have thought that the thin thin metal coating on glass could also be harmed by the ammonia in windex..
I've never heard of or seen anything bad happen to a coated lens due to windex though.

 

[shadowfox]

Hi all,

Thanks for the informative answers. The project that I am currently undertaking is a gummed up shutter assembly of an old MF folder (a Welmy Six).

When it came, the shutter dial is stiff to the point of almost frozen. The aperture is nice, and the shutter only operates on the fastest settings, no matter where the shutter dial is moved to (with a great effort).

Over the weekend, I dripped denatured alcohol within the crevices of the shutter assembly, and on the shutter diaphragm after working on it for about 10 minutes, I got the shutter dial rotating semi-smoothly, and the slow shutter speed starts to work.

Now, two days later, the shutter speed still works charmingly, but the slow shutter is now sluggish again, and the shutter diaphragm won't close completely. Fastest shutter speed 1/200 still works, though.

Now should I:

1. Give the shutter assy. another shower of denatured alcohol?

OR

2. Revv the solvent strengh, maybe using Naphtha?

 

[clintock]

I've tried to get shutters going without taking the shutter out to the point of getting the blades out, and had only limited success. I now think it's easier in most cases to get the shutter out so I can open it to get the blades out. Cleaning it in place appeared to get the oil/grease to flow thin enough for the blades to move fine, until the solvent dried, leaving the oil/grease residue behind to resume it's mischief.

The culprit in my case was the surface between the blades and the area of the shutter assy where they retreated when the shutter is open. That surface kept getting grease etc on it, no matter how many times I cleaned the blades, new goo would get on after the shutter was fired. Sometimes took a day for the problem to recur.

But first try naptha, as sometimes water forms on the surfaces after alcohol due to the cooling effect I suppose, naptha evaporates more slowly.

There's supposed to be grease on the plates that slide around at the front of the shutter, where the sandwitch holding the plate with the speed cam cutout is. Also there may be other sliding ring actuators on the back with grease. I think flooding to get the actuators and plates moving again often carries the grease to the forbidden zone- the blade area- but if the shutter was not working it was already contaminated.

 

[Tom hicks]

I was a factory rep for Leupold Optics for 6 years and the factory uses acetone to clean all lens before they are assembled in the rifle scopes, binos, and spotting scopes, dries fast and won't leave a film on the lens , alcohol has to much water and will spot glass, dries to slow, the other is like most fuels it has oil in it .

Acetone will attack most plastics.

Tom

 

[dmr]

Hi all, just dwelving into camera repairdom.

I'm not an expert, but I have used these solvents.

Tell me your experiences with any of those three.

1. Denatured Alcohol

Or isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. Good all around solvent which will not attack most plastic or most finishes. Dissolves oil, grease, etc. fairly well. Tends to dry out things.

2. Acetone

Nasty on many plastics and will dissolve many finishes. This is the main ingredient in nail polish remover. You'll find that whenever you spill this, something will be ruined. 🙁 This will also dry things out.

3. Naphtha

Ronsonol. Lighter fluid. Not as nasty as acetone, but it will dissolve more things than alcohol will. It will attack some rubber items. Great for repairing a sticky shutter. Will revitalize some dried-up lubricants.

Hope this helps.

 

[shadowfox]

Dee (or Annie? 🙂 )

I can't help noticing that somehow your avatar and your answer fits so perfectly 😀

 

[dmr]

Dee (or Annie? 🙂 )

I've been known to answer to both, actually. They call me Annie for short. 🙂

I can't help noticing that somehow your avatar and your answer fits so perfectly 😀

ROFL! Yes, it does. 🙂 🙂

I stumbled on that image on line a while back, and the wording reminded me of an iconic 1970s parody of a hygiene poster which you still see from time to time. (Google "tommy toilet r crumb" if you're curious.) 🙂

Since I do change my avatar every so often, I'm attaching what is my avatar as of this writing. 🙂

To keep this on topic, if you spill the acetone, it's too late to wipe. 🙂