Lots of restoration questions - your advice?

Back in the hobby after 15 years and let me tell you - SO much has changed! Can't believe the rich resources and expertise we have now!

I'm about to restore several units and have lots of random questions - please jump in with your advice

1. Is there brand new badging available? (in my case, the Panasonic logo on an RX-5010). Thought I stumbled across a photo here of someone installing a new Panny logo.

2. Is there a preferred precision lubricant for the metal moving bits of the cassette mechanisms?

3. What other internal maintenance should I be doing when I open up a unit for belt replacement?

4. Is there a preferred product for rejuvenation of rubber parts like rubber friction wheels and pinch rollers?

5. Is there a preferred product to rejuvenate the clear plastic cassette doors and clear radio dial face plates?

6. Any magical tools to make belt replacement or other maintenance easier?

7. Best place to buy high quality tape belts? right now, I'm using turntable needles.com

8. Tips and tricks for plastic restoration? (especially yellowed plastics)

9. Tips and tricks for concealing scratches and nicks? (especially on the front of the radios)

10. Technology, products, resources that have surfaced in the past 5 years or so that make collecting / restoring easier or more enjoyable?

11. Your best personal tip for restoring boomboxes?

Please feel free to chime in with anything you think I've missed. Thanks in advance!

 

Forgetting out scratches in plastic. There is an automotive product called plastics with an x on the end made by McGwires. I know I spelled that wrong and you'll have to Google it. I've never used it but I've heard it's the best for getting scratches out of plastic because I don't worry about minute scratches. Tiny scratches. Anyway moving on.

Here's what I use for really tiny metal. Lubrication I don't know if they sell it anymore, but this is what I use. Here's a picture.
And then for overall cleaning inside, I use a variety of all these things.
Yes, the b-12 chem tool is great for getting tar from the rubber belts out of carpets. How do I know?

Yes, that's a Sony cfs 88s up on my table for restoration of the cassette deck and everything else inside of it.

 

These are magical tools. I use them on every radio I take apart.
Little magnet pickups extendable I have like six of them here on the work table and a few more out in my toolbox in the garage.

More magical tools you can never have. A enough enough headlights and JIS That stands for Japanese industrial standard, screws drivers and I have a number 2 vessel brand screwdriver which is a impact number two and a variety of sizes of number one and even smaller. And I didn't show a picture of jeweler screwdrivers but I have a lot of those as well. Mostly in Phillips but also flat tip, but that's rare to be using a flat tip and a side of these things, but they're also handy on occasion.

But most of all, document what you do from the very beginning and take more pictures than you think is necessary because you'll come to a point where you'll be looking for something and if you don't have taken that picture beforehand then you'll know where the item went to. So I've even taken to shooting video when taking something apart but that's rare for me to do and normally it's just easier to take pictures as I go so having a good camera is nice. In general, I've taken between 40 to 60 pictures taking apart anything boombox related because I've never been inside of one of these models before and I don't know what to expect. So if I have a history of pictures of what happened when I took it apart then when something shoots out of it and goes flying off to who knows where. At least I know what it was before it left the scene.

 

1.) I don't know

2.) I personally use fine needle syringe with a drop or two of the "liquid bearings" 100% synthetic oil loaded into it. The fine needle can apply very small quantities of oil. Also a white plastic safe PTFE grease Labelle 106.

3.) You should be cleaning all pulley surfaces with 70% alcohol and formed (plier pinched) cotton bud / Q-tips. And oiling carefully all moving gear posts. Capstan clean and bronze bearing cleaning etc., a lot of things.

4.) From what I have gathered, one can use naptha for rubber, or Q-tips again moistened with 70% isopropyl alcohol. Not 90% or 100% as that can dry out the rubber and cause damage. Wipe the pinch roller as it is being rotated. Wear tight fitting gloves. To avoid leaving your finger oils around. I and others have had good results from simple 70% alcohol in rejuvenating rubber pinch rollers and idler tires etc., takes the white powdery film off idler tires.

5.) A lot of products. I just use Polywatch to polish up clear plastic windows. But there are better things out there.

6.) Magical tool for belt replacements, yes, for ultra small fine tape counter belts use a paper sleeve to hold the belt in an elongated shape to fit in place. I find the notorious counter belt on WM-D6C was "Easy" to replace. Make sure not to get belts twisted. Avoid the Mobius strip thing happening.

7.) Yes. And DeckTech belts and fixyouraudio.com. The latter is best.

8.) Yellow plastic, I hear it is the 50% hydrogen peroxide and 50% water mix bath overnight. Youtube is full of how-to videos on this.

9.) Scratches and nicks, there are auto care products, I experimented with the two types of "Armorall" and that worked well to remove light fine scratch marks and darken. Everyone swears by a different product. Meguire Car Care products, yes, what Cassette2go said, they have many to try.

10.) Not really. Prices are way up, selection is perhaps less than ever, stress levels are way up etc., I dunno...

11.) My best personal tip is "know thyself" and "buy once and cry once". I have very narrow tastes, critical personality type, eccentric, contrarian, highly judgmental, constantly analyzing and weighing one against another, comparing apples to oranges (why not?) you know the usual double Virgo type heavy on the Saturn

And a good headlamp with neutral 4000K color and various modes. I still use my "old" Fenix HL55 from 2015.

And I like to wear tight fitting gloves that don't stretch, vinyl, because of leaving oils and gathering up contaminants - easy to wipe fingers often with alcohol when wearing gloves or when accidentally pick up oil or grease.

And using a good Miele true hepa vacuum to clean away the old foam or contaminated debris inside old boomboxes. Ancient dust having sat and absorbed chemicals from the PCB etc for decades... then you breathe it in. Consider all this old flame retardant plastics and disintegrating foam as dangerous. Another reason to limit ones exposure to a couple of models only in total.

 

Well, I don't think I'm going to try to repair the belts in this Sony cfs- 88s as it is way too difficult and I'm not necessarily in love with this machine while it works a bit and The cassette plays. This is too daunting to get to the belts. Let me give you one picture.

I will be cleaning the potentiometers for the various controls running deoxit through them and working the controls and then I'll be buttoning this back up. If anyone's interested in it send me an email decentman4you2007@gmail.com

 

Lots of good advice here already. I recently bought JIS screwdrivers.

A bit of more general advice is to go looking for advice in forums for similar hobbies.

For removing scratches from clear plastic, here in the U.K. people recommend Brasso which is actually a metal polish.

Having struggled and failed to get an awkwardly placed screw back into my Weltron 2001 a tip I picked up on a camera restoration forum is Tacky Wax.
Using it to hold the screw on the end of the screwdriver I got the screw in in less than a minute.
Looking at the tub it says "Wax Adhesive for holding Miniatures in place". I guess they mean wargaming type stuff but very useful in at least two other hobbies.

 

Thank you for all the great replies!

This is exactly the info I was looking for. Back in the day, a little detoxit and some fresh belts was all I was doing. I knew there was a lot more to it. Thanks Again!

 

Yeah you can't go wrong with the vessel brand. Here are the chemicals that I use.

 

Use Novus 2 to polish plastic windows

 

I wanted to thank everyone for all the suggestions. I just ordered $100 worth of products from Amazon.
This thread was a HUGE help. Thanks!

 

Now you didn't forget about getting the unwaxed dental floss did you? As this is very helpful in getting the black tar stuff out of the pulleys like I just did in my latest repair that I'm doing now.

See the black stuff on the floss that I got out of this. Pulley?

 

Forgot that lol. I’ll add it to the list!

 

And now you got to be sure that you get the unwaxed because if you get the waxed and that simply compounds the issue of not slipping