On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:04:59 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 1/10/2009 6:55 PM tony cooper spake thus:

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:01:45 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 1/10/2009 11:04 AM Marc Bouchard spake thus:

This question has probably been asked a thousand times but here goes.

I just bought a Plustek 7500ISE scanner to scan my dad's old slides.
As I peeked at a few, they look fairly dirty. How do I clean those
up? Obviously not with water (the cardboard holder wouldn't last long
and water might damage the slide itself).

So what is the best way to clean those? Any particular product/method?

Yes, but you can't get it anymore. I have a small bottle of Kodak's film
cleaner that I've used to clean slides. It's nasty
stuff--trichloreth-something, probably been banned for some time now,
but it does a great job cleaning film. You very carefully apply it with
a moistened cotton swab and it lifts dirt, etc., off the slide.

Dunno if any kind of substitute is made. Anyone? I'd like to get some
for when my little bottle runs out.

The banned product was Trichloroethane. Isopropanol alcohol, which is
available in any drugstore, is the easiest to get, least expensive
substitute. Not as effective, but it does work and you can get it.

So is that what's in today's film cleaners (like Edwal)? I wonder how
good that is; the nice thing about TCE, as environmentally horrible as
it is, is that it evaporates so quickly. When you swab it on, you can
see it drying immediately after the swab. Wouldn't alcohol allow the
emulsion to get wet and damaged?

Don't swab. Dab. A Q-Tip partially dipped in IA and dabbed lightly
on the slide and then the dry end moved gently around will not leave a
wet slide. Be generous with the Q-Tips, though. Don't reuse them so
many times that they carry more gunk than they clean.

Q-Tips sometimes leave cotton fibers on the slide, so blowing and
brushing with a photograph blower might be necessary.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida