Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

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Hobie-wan
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Hobie-wan »

Skullz wrote:I have some electrical contact cleaner at home. With the contact cleaner you just spray it on the contacts and use cloth to wipe off? Do you have to use anything else after that?
Just contact cleaner and the eraser assuming there's no horrible clumps of corrosion. I spray and start erasing. It will just be wet at first, then weird and slippery, then it dries and just feels like regular erasing and you pick up all the gunk. Depending on how dirty, might have to do it more than once, but just erase until dry and you start getting the eraser bits, then use a brush or can of air to get them off.
One thing to note, I've always heard that if you use rubbing alcohol, you're not supposed to use straight alcohol, but dilute it with water.
No water, that's going to make more corrosion because its going to sit in crevaces. If you can't use electrical cleaner, they you want the least water in the alcohol so it evaporates quickly.
For the people that use Magic Erasers, for the hard to remove marker, once it's removed it sometimes leaves a dull spot on the cartridge. Anyone figure out how to re-shine that area?
Most labels will get screwed up if you try to erase marker. On the cart it should be just fine unless you don't have the right king of eraser. You do not want to use a pink eraser or one of the hard drafting kind with the sand in it. You want a soft vinyl eraser like a Magic Rub. Pentel click erasers will probably work too, but you'll probably want the bigger work surface of the magic rub. You can see th epictures in my other thread, there's no loss of gloss.
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Mod_Man_Extreme »

Skullz wrote:One thing to note, I've always heard that if you use rubbing alcohol, you're not supposed to use straight alcohol, but dilute it with water.
Hobie-wan wrote:No water, that's going to make more corrosion because its going to sit in crevaces. If you can't use electrical cleaner, they you want the least water in the alcohol so it evaporates quickly.
Only ever use 70% By Volume Rubbing Alcohol, it's not so strong that it can strip and warp the plastic lining of the silicon, not so weak that it can't clean the pins and it evaporates in seconds.

[quote="Skullz']For the people that use Magic Erasers, for the hard to remove marker, once it's removed it sometimes leaves a dull spot on the cartridge. Anyone figure out how to re-shine that area?[/quote]
Hobie-wan wrote:Most labels will get screwed up if you try to erase marker. On the cart it should be just fine unless you don't have the right king of eraser. You do not want to use a pink eraser or one of the hard drafting kind with the sand in it. You want a soft vinyl eraser like a Magic Rub. Pentel click erasers will probably work too, but you'll probably want the bigger work surface of the magic rub. You can see th epictures in my other thread, there's no loss of gloss.
I beleive he's talking about Mr. Clean Majic Erasers which are sponges that you run under the faucet which contain a cleaning aget that is safe for all surfaces and removes marker, crayon, stains etc... from walls or other surfaces. These are great and work amazingly.
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Hobie-wan
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Hobie-wan »

I beleive he's talking about Mr. Clean Majic Erasers which are sponges that you run under the faucet which contain a cleaning aget that is safe for all surfaces and removes marker, crayon, stains etc... from walls or other surfaces. These are great and work amazingly.
Ah well, see, glad we're discussing. I know that the green scrub side of a yellow/green sponge will get marks off of console and controller shells too, but it dulls them as well. I haven't used the Mr Clean things, maybe they're rough in a similar way. Though this is why I posted my refurbish service thread since I've pretty much figured out how to do it without damage. Having cleaned 100s of games and about 50 consoles, I've got it down pretty good. :wink:
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Skullz »

Thanks for some of the clarification, I thought the whole water thing with contacts sounded fishy. Luckily I haven't used it yet that way. I'm still finishing up my cleaning solution from Nintendo Repair Shop (basically rubbing alcohol)

I might give the contact cleaner way a try. I'm trying to figure out what works best for me. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah, I was talking about the Magic Eraser that you use with water. It works wonders when taking marker off. Most of the time you can't even tell there was anything there in the first place. I didn't know regular erasers would take the marker off. I might have to give that a try.

One thing to note, I've had success with taking both marker and stickers off the labels with no visible damage. It's real tricky and you have to take it slow, but the older stickers are a pain.
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Hobie-wan »

Skullz wrote: I didn't know regular erasers would take the marker off. I might have to give that a try.
Eraser + electrical cleaner.
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Skullz »

Hobie-wan wrote:
Eraser + electrical cleaner.

I see, same method as cleaning the contacts.
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Crabmaster2000 »

Any tips for cleaning stickers off of CD based games without any damage to the game. I've just been keeping them on out of fear. I've got a few cheap titles I'd be willing to try experimenting with, if anyone has any methods they've tried.
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Hobie-wan »

Paper stickers such as price stickers will come off with the electrical cleaner (its my favorite refurbishing item, can you tell?). Do not use a hair dryer or hot water on discs to try and loosen the sticker glue. Aside from heat just generally being bad for discs, the layers can delaminate especially for dual layer DVDs. I'm not sure if other 'goo gone' type products are safe since they contain oils. The stuff I use specifically says its safe for plastic.

Soak the sticker with the electrical cleaner and carefully get most of the paper off. Do not use anything metal or sharp, if you scratch the reflective later you'll ruin the disc. Your fingernail or perhaps something plastic that's not too hard would work. Then use more cleaner and the eraser or a soft cloth you don't care about to very gently to get the leftover sticky goop. Again you have to be VERY CAREFUL, if you mess up the reflective layer by pressing too hard or using something metal and sharp or you have some grit on your eraser/cloth, you'll probably ruin the disc. Have I mentioned yet that if you kill a disc by not being careful enough, don't say I didn't warn you? :P

If you've got a disc with one of those annoying full skin labels, I dont' know a safe way to remove those. I had gotten a old rental SF III 3rd Strike with one of my DCs that had that crap on it. The disc was pretty scratched up and only loaded maybe 10% of the time. The damn thing had an anti theft metal strip in it too which made it unbalanced and made things worse. I got the metal strip out, but it still didn't work very well. I was trying to carefully peel the skin off, but they're made to tear and be a pain in the ass. I accidentally peeled up part of the reflective layer in the inner boot ring and totally killed it. :cry:
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by fastbilly1 »

Green side of sponge = Scouring pad.
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Re: Cleaning Retro Games - Suggestions?

Post by Mod_Man_Extreme »

fastbilly1 wrote:Green side of sponge = Scouring pad.
Carefully though!

I've seen those sponges gouge scratches into glass.
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