Best solvent for removing tobacco tar from camera exterior

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Pablito,

This reminds me of something from when I lived in New Mexico. I worked at a camera store in Santa Fe for a while after I moved there, and one of our regular customers was an old man (about 65) who smoked so much (and had done so his whole life) that he talked with a raspy voce and smelled like a gigantic ashtray. One day, he brought in his Nikon LS-5000ED scanner for us to sell for him on consignment. He had gone digital a while back and was using the scanner to scan his film archives. He'd finished, so he wanted to sell the scanner. It was covered in such thick tar that you couldn't tell what color it was. You could scrape it off with your fingernails in thick globs. One of my co-workers spent two days removing it layer by layer with Windex, a cleaning chemical originally made for cleaning windows, but popular for cleaning countertops and other surfaces in the home. It worked, but took her many hours of hard work! She had to be careful not to get the chemical in the scanner, and we never did take it apart to see how bad it was INSIDE! Nastiest thing I've ever seen!

 

[greyelm]

Whatever cleaning fluid you use I would avoid getting any of the resulting brown goop on exposed skin, it is probably carcinogenic.

 

[Darthfeeble]

The beauty of using alcohol is that even if it gets into the innards, it will evaporate in a short time and harms nothing.

 

[Bill Clark]

And think of the gents lungs.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Reviving an old thread.

Wintergreen or Simple Green, what are those products? Anything in the EU that resembles it?

I don't know about the EU, but can vouch from personal experience that Simple Green, (Brand name) applied carefully as described above, works unbelievably well on tobacco tar. Windex would take forever and you would be likely to abrade the surface in frustration. It's a lousy solvent for tar stain, and so is alcohol, in my experience. It can work, but it is really slow. Simple Green is literally probably ten to twenty times faster, and gentler.
Downside on a camera is that it's soapy, so don't use too much, and rinse well with water so you get it all off. Just be careful, as always.

 

[johannielscom]

For reference: In the Netherlands and Germany, it seems 'Dasty' is the best alternative. Might have to dilute it a bit though, if the tales about how effective it is are actually true.