Best alcohol for cleaning tape heads?

Trovador98

Trovador98

New member
Hi guys -

I'm a biochemist and work with various HPLC grade solvents. I've seen that people recommend cleaning tape heads with an alcohol solution with a low water content. I have access to 99.9% isopropanol (rubbing alcohol), methanol and non-denatured ethanol (grain alcohol). Should I use these pure alcohols or perhaps dilute them down to 90% just to be safe?

What about for the rubber parts?

Danke schön
 
The denatured alcohol or the 99.9% iso alcohol are good for the heads and any metal parts in the tape path. Do not dilute.

For the rubber parts I just use water...a damp lint free cloth. If there is more stubborn soiling of rubber parts I spray a little window cleaner on the dampened cloth. If the parts are glazed, hardened or cracked, you can use a rubber renew product, but I consider this to be a temporary "Band-Aid" fix...if a rubber part is glazed, hardened or cracked it is beyond its service life and needs to be replaced. Do not use head cleaner to clean the rubber parts.

Hope this helps.
 
Trovador98 said:
Hi guys -

I'm a biochemist and work with various HPLC grade solvents. I've seen that people recommend cleaning tape heads with an alcohol solution with a low water content. I have access to 99.9% isopropanol (rubbing alcohol), methanol and non-denatured ethanol (grain alcohol). Should I use these pure alcohols or perhaps dilute them down to 90% just to be safe?

What about for the rubber parts?

Danke schön
Click to expand...

If you can be sure of the purity of denatured alcohol, then that's OK...but if you buy off-the-shelf stuff at your local hardware store, check the label.
Not all producers keep it pure, and there are many denatured concoctions that include other solvents that may(?) be bad for some of the other material around some head blocks...mostly the concern is for certain types of plastics.
Yes, it's used often for cleaning...just saying that it's not all made to any set standard from what I've seen.

I prefer to use isopropyl alcohol.
I get this 99.9% pure anhydrous isopropyl from MG Chemicals, in Canada...through Mouser Electronics.
It comes in nice large 1 quart bottles, and it's pretty reasonable compared to buying small bottles at the pharmacy.
I have at least a half-gallon of it on hand right now...so I'm covered for a few years. :D

Oh...and yeah...if the rubber is still good, but just needs to be cleaned --- warm water.
If you can easily remove the rubber rollers...take them off and clean them at the sink. If real stubborn, a drop of basic dish washing soap will help.
 
Iso alcohol is my go-to. Miroslav's point about the quality of the denatured alcohol is an excellent one. There is something to look for on the labeling to ensure it is good quality and I can't remember what it is...Beck always preferred denatured alcohol but with stipulations...
 
sweetbeats said:
Iso alcohol is my go-to. Miroslav's point about the quality of the denatured alcohol is an excellent one. There is something to look for on the labeling to ensure it is good quality and I can't remember what it is...Beck always preferred denatured alcohol but with stipulations...
Click to expand...

Yeah...:D...Beck and I had some disagreement about denatured alcohol. He insisted it was perfectly safe, 'cuz he used it for years without issue (I wasn't disputing his personal experience with it)...and all I was saying was *check* the label, because I've seen cans that listed other solvents in the mix.

Older decks that had mostly metal all around, weren't a concern....with the more newer stuff, and especially pro-sumer stuff...there's a lot of plastic there. Heck, many erase heads are mostly plastic.
I mean, you just want to be sure, nothing more.
Would hate to find some plastic starting to "melt" over time from repeated exposure to some solvent that you weren't aware of was in the can.
It's a minor concern, but then, easily avoidable with isopropyl. :)
 
I have 100% non-denatured ethanol, analytical grade for HPLC analysis. Ethanol is "denatured" by adding various additives to make it undrinkable...either toxic or very bad tasting. Usually it has methanol....which will make you go blind if high enough doses.

That said...I'll stick with using 100% isopropanol without dilution per your recommendations.
 
Im been using American Recorder S-721H for years on my machines with superb results, highly recommended.



Gustavo
 

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Isopropyl is also the favourite in the UK too - certainly for the 40 years I've been using it. The video guys always used Colclene, which was in aerosol applied, and seemed to evaporate quicker than isopropyl alcohol. I looked up the ingredients and they are as follows:
INGREDIENT NAME
HALOCARBON DECAFLUOROPENTANE TRANS-1,2-DICHLOROETHYLENE ETHANOL
R20 – Harmful by Inhalation.
No idea what that actually is! A single can is around $15, so not cheap, compared to iso!
 
I know old thread, but..

Here in the states JASCO Denatured Alcohol is in the paint section of most of the big box hardware stores:

Ethyl alcohol {Ethanol} 30.0 -50.0 %
Methanol {Methyl alcohol} 40.0 -60.0 %
Methyl isobutyl ketone < 1.0 %

It's the ethanol that breaks up the oxides... and it works. Just don't drink it or try to use it as hand sanitizer!
 
dbonin said:
I know old thread, but..

Here in the states JASCO Denatured Alcohol is in the paint section of most of the big box hardware stores:

Ethyl alcohol {Ethanol} 30.0 -50.0 %
Methanol {Methyl alcohol} 40.0 -60.0 %
Methyl isobutyl ketone < 1.0 %

It's the ethanol that breaks up the oxides... and it works. Just don't drink it or try to use it as hand sanitizer!
Click to expand...

I would worry about the Methyl isobutyl ketone...which is an acetone derivative...so how safe is it when coming into contact with any plastic parts in and around the cleaning path...over time, with lots of use?

I know we've covered much of this already...but I just wonder how dirty people let their tape decks get, or what quality of tape are they using, that there would be a need for stronger solvents to cut through the tape residue...? Maybe if you're reconditioning some used deck you picked up...but I find that I can run my tape deck all day long, and I never see even a spec of residue on the cotton pad when I clean it at the end of the day.

So for me, plain isopropyl 99.9% pure is still the cleaner of choice, and IMO, it's the safest one.
I think I have around a gallon of that stuff right now...I picked up a couple more quarts after the COVID-19 stuff hit, because I thought it would be hard to get...but it wasn't a problem, though I doubt the average person would know to look for alcohol at an electronics supplier. :)

Mind you...even if they did, the 99.9% stuff is not good for sterilization...it has to be between 60% minimum, and 91% max...which is why you never see anything higher if you get it at your local pharmacy. Apparently, you need some water in the alcohol for the disinfection to work...it acts as the catalyst.
I guess if you have 99.9% pure alcohol you could simply add the right amount of water to it...?
Of course...you don't want any water in it for tape deck cleaning...since some metals might rust, but I think that would be a concern for real old decks.
 
One thing to watch for with using 70% rubbing alcohol is that it often had additives like lanolin to limit the drying effect on the skin. The 91% version is pure isopropyl alcohol and water, which is the maximum purity you can get by simple water distillation.

To reach 99.9%, you have to distill with a different cosolvent.
 
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