Subject: Lighter fluid
I've been reading the Cons DistList for a long time, but I haven't made a contribution so far, since I'm not trained in preservation (this list certainly is a help there) and I don't have much in the way of mummified moa's heads or other unusual problems. I never see my favorite household/office cleaning solvent mentioned, and I'm wondering who else knows what is it good for and what attendant problems it might have. I can't imagine running a library without it. I have found cigarette-lighter fluid, sold in the U.S. as Ronsonol, consisting primarily of naphtha, to be extremely useful for removing such adhesives as rubber cement, Scotch tape, chewing gum, Band-Aids and pressure-sensitive labels, not to mention such other stains as tar and heel marks on linoleum. It cleans more things than alcohol, while it doesn't damage nearly as many surfaces as acetone, my last resort for tough cleaning. I've recently been using it to clean consumer-type photographic prints, of which we have several with tape or rubber cement residue in our image files. (In Southern California air, rubber bands also turn into strips of crumbly gluish stuff within a couple of years...) Does anybody know of reasons why it isn't more widely used or recommended? Warner Research Collection, Burbank Public Library *** Conservation DistList Instance 9:51 Distributed: Tuesday, January 2, 1996 Message Id: cdl-9-51-004 ***Received on Tuesday, 26 December, 1995