TexasCHLforum.com

I am going to reveal my age, to some extent anyway.

I used to be a Teletype repairman...

We used to clean some of our equipment in a dunk tank that agitated it and shot air bubbles through it (you did not want to leave the cover open unless you wanted to "volunteer' to stay after hours and clean up, with no overtime pay.) I don't remember the stuff that was in the tank, but it seems to me that it was somewhat similar to brake cleaner, smelled similar anyway, and it would take off just about any form of corruption that a Teletype could obtain.

Anyway, we discovered that some lubricants had a slight reaction with the stuff in the tank and little "white" flakes would precipitate out of the solution if a TTY that had been lubed with them was dipped in the tank. It didn't seem to harm anything, but it did take a little more work to get off, almost like glue or paint.

The stuff in the tank came in drums, about ten gallons IIRC.

I believe the we found that WD-40 (which was NOT, repeat NOT, a TTY approved lubricant) was one of the culprits. We never user the stuff, but some of our customers, instead of calling us, which was free, would try their own repairs and maintenance and sometimes they really messed our stuff up.