Since I will probably be selling 60% of my collection soon (on here of course) one of the items I would like to get rid of is a vintage Westinghouse sunlamp fixture. The fixture itself is pretty clean, but the SBMV r40 lamp is filthy. Since it sat in my neighbor's garage for years before I got it when they moved, it was covered in tons of grime and dirt. I wiped it with a wet towel and it got most of the grime off, but there are some really nasty spots that I could not get cleaned. I don't want to use steel wool because it might damage the glass. Below is a picture of the lamp. What can I do to clean it?


Here is the picture: http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=0&pid=121653

Why are you selling 60% of your collection? Sounds foolish to me. 

Why are you selling 60% of your collection? Sounds foolish to me. 

It's the only way my parents will let me get one of the OV-15's on ebay right now. Plus, I don't need a lot of it and it is just collecting dust here.

Quote from: wattMaster on June 14, 2016, 09:58:24 AM

Why are you selling 60% of your collection? Sounds foolish to me.  

It's the only way my parents will let me get one of the OV-15's on ebay right now. Plus, I don't need a lot of it and it is just collecting dust here.

Hint: Find a spot to place it, it could be some forgotten area in a cabinet, find a case for it, maybe that will help. Hint 2: Find a place to install it, then you might not need to get rid of some of your collection.
Hint 3: Find a source of money/income; Yard Sale maybe? Or dog walking?
And isn't not needing a lot of the collection a main point?
For cleaning the bulbs: I would use a microfiber cloth and a light blow of some air, gently.

Some WD-40 on a rag may just do it.

Ooh yeah, wd is good at cleaning. If it was in a garage, chances are it may have oil on it. The wd will dissolve that oil off. And I'll be interested in the westy, I can clean it myself if you can't get it.

Ooh yeah, wd is good at cleaning. If it was in a garage, chances are it may have oil on it. The wd will dissolve that oil off. And I'll be interested in the westy, I can clean it myself if you can't get it.

I will try the WD40 and if it doesn't work, I will probably sell it as it is. I will keep you in mind when I start selling everything.

Mow the lawn for neighbors a few times, buy a visa rechargeable visa gift card, use it on ebay.

Mow the lawn for neighbors a few times, buy a visa rechargeable visa gift card, use it on ebay.

it's not the money that I need, it's the space for it.

Quote from: xelareverse on June 14, 2016, 03:59:13 PM

Mow the lawn for neighbors a few times, buy a visa rechargeable visa gift card, use it on ebay.

it's not the money that I need, it's the space for it.

Look at the thread about accommodation for lighting collections.
If you can't find the space, constantly find combinations and you might find more space.
Do you have a shed? Or laundry room? I'm sure you could make space.
Try looking for some IKEA shelves, those are great for storing reasonably sized lighting.
You can do it! 

WD is good

Oven cleaner (Sodium Hypochlorite based) is good at removing the nastiest stuff. But use gloves and ventilation when working with that. The bad part about it, it removes etches as well as everything else. Dont know whether WD damages etches or no

WD is good

Oven cleaner (Sodium Hypochlorite based) is good at removing the nastiest stuff. But use gloves and ventilation when working with that. The bad part about it, it removes etches as well as everything else. Dont know whether WD damages etches or no

Try it on a junk bulb.
You likely want to keep the etches.

Trying on a junk bulb is not failproof :

 - Etches can be made of different materials. On some junk bulbs you can wipe off the etches simply by wiping it with hands a few times... But some other solvent might be actually more efficient at removing the "better" etches

 - Some types of vapor residues may slowly react with the etch and change the material. So for example WD40 might not harm the etch on a new or NOS lamp, but will wipe it off on an identical lamp that was exposed to some specific vapors over years

I'd suggest other thing : Everything except near the etch clean with whatever substance you want. Near the etch wipe more carefully and without potentially harmful substances. So maybe it won't be as perfectly clean there but overall the lamp will appear clean cause foreign spots in the etch are less visible

Well, WD40 (and similar low viscosity oils) remove anything printed on, it would have to be really etched into the material to survive such cleaning unharmed (it does not have to go immediately, but next time you touch it, it will get wiped off just by touching).

So even when it was the same material, if it does not wash it off immediately, it may still get soaked in and weaken only after some time.
The same applies for all glued bonds: These oils may very easily loose it after some time, just a bit of residue of the oil left on the critical part and it get loose after some time.
From my military service I remember few radio sets were practically rendered useless by such cleaning: First everything looked nice and clean like new, all seemed perfectly dry and all oil wiped off. Well, after few weeks of storage, when the unit (well, the "professional" part of it) was about to leave to Kosovo (as part of the UN mission), all the paint starts to peel off. And because the main purpose of the paint was a camouflage, having a sparkling silvery equipment was not a good idea, they had to look for other radios and let those to get repainted...

And there are the exploding PC fans in a factory where i did IT work

Computers there were starting to massively overheat suddenly for "no reason". Yet when you check in software, temps are burning but none of the fans appear stuck

They were doing metal part machining with oil and emulsion lubrication/cooling by spraying it on the cutting head as it goes through the metal. The fans in computers were exposed to the oily vapors from the air, and with time degraded to the point that the blades would simply break off from the centrifugal forces of the fan spinning (at its normal 1500..3000 rpm). As the 1st blade goes it it hit by the 2nd and after this domino they are all in pieces in the bottom of the PC case. The motor keeps running tho so no "stuck fan" detected..

Then as i come to replace it (those were HP computers with custom CPU coolers, but the fans on them were standard, so i normally did replace only the fan itself), comes out that all the mounting frames it is installed on break as i handle them