What's new
What's new

OT What can I use to clean & restore old rubber with?

4GSR

Diamond
Joined
Jan 25, 2005
Location
Victoria, Texas, USA
I'm going to ask the "experts" out in PM land.

I have a couple of old "toy" parts made of rubber that is old. They are dirty and slightly hard from setting in a metal box in a hot attic for 60 years. I want to clean them up the best I can and maybe restore some of the oils in the rubber that has been lost over the years. I suspect the rubber is Buna N, started out as a 40 -50 Durometer in hardness, now about 80-90 Duro. How bad would I mess them up using a "Armo-All" tire cleaner on them?
 

Attachments

  • 837f_1.jpg
    837f_1.jpg
    17.7 KB · Views: 2,092
When most rubbers harden, they also become subject to cracking, due to a chemical change in the crosslinking of the molecules.

I don't think that can really be un-done, so don't expect too much.

We used to use a rubber cleaner on tape recorder pinch rollers etc that smelled powerfully of phenol. It may be around still. But it cleaned off "perished" rubber, leaving the good that was underneath. I don't think anything really puts back the original springiness

The good news is the metal box probably kept the ozone off them.......
 
There are tyre treatments used to soften rubber for motor racing; 'Grip' is one trade name that I remember.

If you only want a small quantity, the model car racers use a similar product. Most model shops will have this in small containers. Ask for 'tyre additive'.

The active ingredient is a chemical; DEHP? that is actually a plasticiser used in the rubber manufacturing process. Some of the products out there use Salicylic Acid (Oil of wintergreen); stinks and is mostly banned at race meets because of toxicity. I would avoid this.

Regards,

Mike.
 
re

Clean with whatever works to clean, but silicone spray, silicon dielectric, whatever silicone is a wonder for rubber. I soaked some rubber bungs from my 1970 car in silicone spray over 20 years ago. They were hard as a rock. They softened right up and are still that way. My process is to soak them in a pan for a few weeks in the spray then rub the grease on them before they go into service. Obviously yo don't want toys greasy, but you get the picture.
 
Years ago we used a product called Fedron to recondition typewriter rollers. I Googled it and it is still available. We never found anything that would work better.
 
Rubber

Laquer thinner works miracles on old rubber. Liberally soak a rag with automotive grade Laquer thinner and scrub the surface of the rubber. The thinner will dissolve the surface of the rubber while you scrub leaving a new looking finnish. When you are finnished scrubbing with thee thinner, wash the rubber with a mild soap and warm water to remove any remaining thinner.
Brock
 
Throw ´em in the washing machine, 60° and a phosphate based washing detergent. I often do this to restore hardened and dirty bellows from motorcycles. It works quite well most of the time. A friend of mine used it to resoften a window frame for his oldtimer, it too werked very good.

Cheers,
Johann
 
Throw ´em in the washing machine, 60° and a phosphate based washing detergent. I often do this to restore hardened and dirty bellows from motorcycles. It works quite well most of the time. A friend of mine used it to resoften a window frame for his oldtimer, it too werked very good.

Cheers,
Johann

Not sure what you mean by motorcycle bellows, but whilst doing my
M/Cycle rebuild, the carb rubbers were no longer available new, so I had
to make do with what I had. I too put them in the dishwasher which
softened them up a treat, and then just used good old Cherry Blossom
black boot polish, to restore the blackness and get a nice shine to them.
I've no before pic unfortunatley, but these came off of a 28 year old bike
that had stood out in the cold for ten years....So you can imagine what
they looked like before.

DSC002281.jpg
 








 
Back
Top