OT: Cleaning video head on my Betamax VCR

[John Aldrich]

On Saturday 09 August 2008, Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Saturday 09 August 2008 22:20, Frank Cox wrote:
> > On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:59:50 +0200
> >
> > Nigel Henry <cave.dnb2m97pp at aliceadsl.fr> wrote:
> > > Any suggestions as to what I can use to manually clean the video head?
> > > I'm thinking cleaning fluids here.
> >
> > Alcohol.
> >
> > That's what I use to clean crud out of the film projector in my theatre
> >
> > .
>
> Thanks Frank. I was sort of thinking along the alcohol line, but just
> wanted some confirmation.
>
> What are you showing in your theatre this evening?
>
PLEASE don't go out and buy a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Go get some medical 
grade alcohol, or PGA (as pure as possible) and take a piece of an old, CLEAN 
sheet and soak it in the high-grade alcohol, hold it *LIGHTLY* against the 
drum and then spin the drum. Try very hard not to let it catch the cloth on 
the heads.

FWIW, I've got my BS in Mass Comm and spent about 8 years as a videographer. 
If you can get ahold of it, there was some special cleaning solvent that the 
chief engineers used to use. I forget what it was called, but if you can find 
a TV engineer, they can probably help.