Cleaning Side-Plates?

[dogdad1]

Hi –

I'm working on a old 115L Senator (9/0), and the side plates are very 'cruddy' (for lack of a better technical word for it).

I'm sure it's been seen before.  Things like ancient dried grease & oil, with maybe some solidified salt and sand adhering to it, plus a bit of just plain dirt, all of which that has now turned to tenacious caked-on deposits inside and out.  Several of my other reels were in similar shape and everything cleaned up nicely with my regular 'SuperClean' de-greaser and a toothbrush, but the side-plates came out dull-looking and without their original shine, so I assume the degreaser had attacked the material a little.

What is the recommended process and materials for cleaning the side-plates?  How about for returning that lustrous shine on any of the other reels?

[rjones]

Chrome polish works pretty well on returning the luster to bakelite side plates.

[akfish]

I think Penn Reel Cleaner does a good job.

[Bryan Young]

I soak in Dawn dish washing soap and water and take a brush to it to get into the nooks and cranies.

After servicing the reel, I have enough grease and corrosionX on my hands, the plates are renewed by the sheer fact of rubbing off the excess grease and corrosionX.

[redsetta]

...the plates are renewed by the sheer fact of rubbing off the excess grease...

x2

[usncporet]

Dawn works great to knock the crud off but the wife sure hates it! (Makes a mess in the sink which I just can't seem to get the DAMN sink clean enough again!    ) Kroil, lube and oil, as I'm cleaning and re-assembling, seem to work into the the panels to bring them back to life just fine.

[hartman37]

I used a product called Gel Gloss.  Seemed to work well to shine up the side plates on this old 155. I put a soft polishing wheel on my rotary tool and kept it SLOW as to not melt the plastic. I have also heard that the guys who restore old bakelite radios and such use a Starbrite product called "Plastic polish #2" I believe.

[dogdad1]

Thanks for all the suggestions. 

I like the ones that suggest the simple acts of repair and cleaning will put enough shine on the surfaces the best.   

I wasn't sure of the definition of the word 'polish', so I looked it up...
Polish:  Usually a waxy paste or a cream and a lot of time, a consumer product used to polish, shine, waterproof, and restore the appearance of various articles.  Sentence uses include: "Honey, you promised to polish the cars instead of going fishing today", or "sorry guys, can't go fishing, I gotta polish the boat today".  I quickly lost interest.

[Mandelstam]

Found an article on the subject, actually it's about restoring old bakelite telephones, but I guess the same procedure will work for any bakelite... The article is in Swedish but you can get the URL and try Google translate or something :http://www.stsf.org/arkiv/ToT/Renovering_av_bakelit_1997.pdf

I'll try to give you the highlights.

First off, cleaning old crud, dirt and other stuff.
The article suggests acetone as it won't damage the plastic and is quite cheap. For other kinds of old plastics it suggests pure spirits. Use a clean rag and some elbow grease and the dirt will eventually come off.

Polishing
Chrome polish (it names a particular brand, Autosol) with some mild abrasive in it. Again use an old clean rag and start polishing away.

Sometimes the bakelite have been "bleached" from the sunlight and, for example it was originally black, it can look a bit brownish in color. According to the article, chrome polish won't help there. But it suggests using colored car wax, which can be found in many different colors.

If you want to remove deeper cuts or scratches start with fine sandpaper (800 grit or higher) and sand away. The surface will be matt but after some chrome polish it will regain most of it's luster.

Again, the above is fetched from an article about restoring old bakelite telephones. I haven't tried it myself so don't hold me responsible for any mishap. Experiment on a broken side plate first if you have one.

/K