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

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:51
                 Distributed: Tuesday, January 2, 1996
                        Message Id: cdl-9-51-004
                                  ***