Turning white Naim black again. Thanks to OH.

[kennyh]

I picked up a couple of Olive boxes a few months ago which I've not yet played with. They came from a friends work colleague who was selling off his system.

He'd owned them from new but said "they look dusty", strange comment I thought and the price he put on them was very good because of this "dust"

Went and picked them up and basically the crackle finish black had gone white-ish, but as I say price was great for boxed and otherwise mint equipment.
Anyway brought them home and told my Mrs. (who's not interested in hifi by the way) about the white on them. I'd already decided to "back to black" them, she told me to hang fire on that and she'd have a look at them some time.

I was convinced they were sunbleached although none of my 10 year old black Naim has faded at all.
Yesterday I was out for most of the day and when I came home one of the amps was on the dining table and she'd obviously had a go at it. It'd honestly come up like new but she'd left one corner of it white.
Bloody furniture polish she reckons, she finished off the rest of it for me to see.
She used a damp and soft toothbrush rinsing every few seconds, you could see the milky greasy gunge coming off it.

I honestly thought the paint finish was ruined but I'm proved wrong.

Thinking back the guys house was so uncomfortably surgical spotless I think spray polish may be used in abundance there.

Crackle finish and polishing certainly don't mix.

 

[Rico]

happy endings!

 

[Whaleblue]

Mummified! Probably better than ones left alone since new

 

[2 many boxes]

The same spray will have gone all over the connections

As they're DIN connections they're much harder to clean than phonos. IIRC there are some contact cleaners that claim to remove the sticky gunge. I can't comment because me and housework are mutually exclusive. What's wrong with a duster anyway?

 

[bob atherton]

What a great Mrs you have...!

 

[kennyh]

Yes, certainly not a blokey job. She's been doing it in little tiny 2" circles, I had a go on the other unit and tried to speed things up a bit. It ended up camouflaged. So. she's back on with the little circles again.

 

[Pete MB&D]

Use a nail brush for a quicker clean, I take the cases off before cleaning.

Pete

 

[SimonB]

I think the recommendation was to use a sponge with some WD40 making sure to wipe off the excess.

 

[Pete MB&D]

No not WD40, unless you want the smell like an engineering shop and have them slip out of your hands.

Pete

 

[S_J]

Get the cases off and give them a good scrubbing with a nylon brush in hot water and plenty of soap (gel type soap stuff is ideal, I don't use Cif etc as it's slightly abrasive), and get into the inside corners with an old toothbrush. Rinse very well, scrubbing again as you go and rinse off one more, and stand up to dry. Then touch up dings with a good permanent marker if needed.

 

[SteveS1]

They used to recommend something in the 'Astonish' range iirc, might be worth a mail.

 

[Briain]

When I worked for BT, the telephone exchanges (in the olden days) all had big posters about silicon polish being banned from use anywhere within the building (just in case a cleaner suddenly decided to put a shine on something) as it was seriously bad news for electrical contacts (eg the thousands relays and uniselectors used in these old mechanical exchanges) and particularly bad is the sprayed version; it gets absolutely everywhere. The posters showed close up of what it can do to the contacts and it most certainly wasn't a pretty sight! I wonder if that's where someone in the EU got the idea for cigarette packet art; maybe designed by an ex telephone exchange engineer?

Bri

 

[ports1000]

Bring them up like new with some black boot polish when the case is clean. Works a treat.

 

[Bob McC]

So does plasticote spray paint and it won't rub off over everything it touches!

 

[Fudgemaster]

Where's Black Lead when you need it?

 

[Briain]

So does plasticote spray paint and it won't rub off over everything it touches!

I'm not familiar with that type, but worth checking it wouldn't reduce the efficiency of the case as a heat sink. Many years ago (as part of my CSYS physics) I performed some measurements on the effect of painting heat sinks black (using a proper, commercial heat sink paint; I didn't compare different types of black paint, but all these fancy new ones didn't exist back in these days) as opposed to just leaving them as shiny alloy, and it was quite easily measurable (black coated being the better option), so I'd want to check out the thermal quality of any plasticised paint before I elected to use it on a Naim sleeve (just in case it very slightly insulated insulated the case rather than help to dissipate the heat from it). Of course, when I had a 250 and Isobariks, I was a lout and it often require a fan trained on it!

Bring them up like new with some black boot polish when the case is clean. Works a treat.

Of course, same tests would have to be performed by applying black boot polish to test heat sinks before buffing up your 250 with it. That said, I can't say that polishing my shoes keeps my feet warm, so maybe it's okay.



Bri

NB I am well aware of a 250 that had a CO2 fire extinguisher blasted over the case to cool it down and thus restore the sounds at a party (which was a little brutal, but it worked very swiftly and the thermal cutout reset itself) but I can't remember if I was actually there at that particular time (there were numerous parties at that house, and some were pretty wild); all true!

 

[Bonneville]

Where's Black Lead when you need it?

Shops that sell woodburning stoves keep supplies.

 

[kennyh]

There's plenty of products you could use to re-black a case. As I said at the start I was all set to use "back to black" which is so easy to apply and it dries with a great finish.

However I'm glad my OH stepped in and twigged that the white was in fact years of spray polish. I'd hate to put anything on top of that build up now I've seen it come off in a sludgy mess.

I like the suggestion of removing the case and washing it in the sink though, it has to be quicker than the painstaking method OH used.

 

[djftw]

Working in Facilities Management I never cease to be amazed by inappropriate usage of various products I come across, bleach and spray polish being the usual culprits; there seems to be a generation to whom 'cleaning' equals drowning everything in Mr Sheen and Domestos, despite them and other brands equivalents arguably being some of the worst products on the market in terms of removing soiling. Though there are perfectly legitimate uses for both, the way many people use them merely makes the dirt shiny and turns it white respectively...

With regard to Naim cases a slightly moist general purpose microfibre cloth is adequate for most soiling and the same, but using glass cleaner rather than water will cut through grease/nicotine etc. film more easily. If it was really bad I might have been tempted to use a mild organic solvent type product such as Gumsolv, or 'Sticky Stuff Remover' ('rinsing' with damp microfibre once clean so as not to leave residue) I've never had occasion to do so on Naim kit, but have known it work well on similar surfaces and it would have got rid of the polish buildup in very short order!

 

[Briain]

I tend to use isopropyl alcohol for most general purpose light cleaning jobs (not yet tried it on polish contaminated Naim cases, though I'd expect it - and a small scrubbing brush - could be worth trying) and I always keep a few litres in stock (in the UK, you can buy it quite cheaply via Amazon). Thus far - and I've used if for decades - I've not yet caused any damage to any finish by using it, but I always try a wee bit of it on a hidden surface before sloshing it all over the shop (just to be super-cautious). If anything, it's a bit too 'lightweight' for many jobs, but very recently, I had some new windows fitted the chaps had an acetone free cleaning solvent (made by a company called 'ifi') that seemed to be pretty amazing stuff, so I must look into what it was (as in what is actually in it and this figure out what it does/doesn't react with) and I'll maybe order some up to add to my solvent store (I should stick a sign on the door saying 'Sniifers Paradise', or something like that ). They were using this acetone-free stuff on both glass and on the PVC frames (and thus far, the finish on the frames has not denatured, and the frames have not turned into a puddle of sticky PVC on the floor). On one piece of glass, there was a hand print (likely made by the double glazing manufacturer) which only showed up when condensation was present (it was on the outside). I'm not sure what contaminant was on the hand that made the mark, but I vigorously tried to remove it using IPA and it appeared again when the temperature dropped and mist arrived. The next day, I tried some of the ifi stuff and it has totally removed it, so I can see that it could come in handy for some jobs where IPA doesn't shift the contaminant.

Bri

PS I've also use zyalene (sold as carburettor cleaner) for some really nasty jobs and that is quite useful stuff to have kicking about. I'd not recommend it for a Naim case, but it worked wonders on decades of grease contamination on a device which sat on a cupboard top next to a cooker (a Scottish cooker; so many chips had likely been made upon it)!