2. vintage
  3. 194006-19946

polishing pins of NOS tubes

I have some NOS tubes with corroded pins. I read that you can use a short brass brush to polish them. You can even attach a brass brush attachment to a dremel and spin it, but that would be a bad idea for me as I'm very clumsy and would most likely bend the pins.

So I ordered some short brass brushes from Amazon and gave it a go. There was essentially no corrosion removed after brushing one pin for 10 minutes.

The set includes a steel brush. I brushed a couple pins with that for 5 minutes and they got shiny! However I'm wondering if this can scratch the pin and actually degrade performance of the tube.

Anyone have a recommendation?

magon
curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
5,366 posts
 

Brass brushes are great, but take your time and be gentle.  Try some whitening toothpaste as your cleanser.

onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,350 posts
 

I don't have any experience with highly corroded pins, so I just insert the tube into the socket a few times.

Are you all cleaning your interconnect pins in this manner?

markd51's avatar
markd51
766 posts
 

I wonder how a chemical product would work versus polishing methods?

Would something like Tarn-X on the Pins work?  Apply with a small brush, wipe off, maybe a final spritz with D5? 

nmolnar
46 posts
 

Try the Caig Deoxit Gold Vacuum Tube Survival Kit. It's formulated specially for tube pins as the regular Deoxit may not hold up under the high temperatures tubes generate.

Caig Deoxit Gold Vacuum Tube Survival Kit - Hosa

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