Enlarger cleaning

So, as I continue to procrastinate, I figured I should at least get some opinions on cleaning an enlarger.

A few years ago I picked up two working Vivitar 356 enlargers. They were from a "fire sale" at a photo store that was going out of business (not because of the fire). The fire was not in the store itself, but in a neighboring store - they had some sort of connected (at least through ventilation) basement.

The smoke "damage" was not bad at all. Basically the heads had NO soot. I opened the heads and could not find anything (except the typical dust) even in the crevices. The lenses are fine as well.
There are lines in the soot-stain on the bases that indicate the enlargers had dust-covers at the time. Very little soot on the base, but hard to remove entirely from the white base material. I'm not really concerned about the bases.

So far I have only cleaned up the outsides, and even though the heads seem to have been spared, considering the age of these enlargers, I should probably clean inside even if there were no fire nearby.

My typical cleaning of non-photographic items usually involves something like Formula 409 for the first few passes, followed by window cleaner (Windex, though it seems not as good as it used to be).

What suggestions can you give me, especially regarding the lenses and condensers - which have no soot or debris, but are probably due for a routine cleaning.

Windex no longer has Cellosolve which is a very effective grease remover. Any glass that you can remove, you can use warm water and a very small amount of liquid dish soap. I would be careful not to go to far. Old t shirt use dampened with your warm soapy water and some cotton swabs.
I cleaned an old Deardorff camera this way took me hours, just go slow and don't use too much water. You will be surprised how nice it will clean up.
Best Regards Mike

I cleaned one of those once...

Everything's plastic, I think acrylic (except the dichroics), so I would probably not use Windex to clean the light pipe and other optical parts.

Maybe watered-down dishwashing soap like mshchem says, but I'd get soft cotton wipes and replace them often.

I would use lens cleaner on the glass parts.

chip j, That sounds like a good idea!

Truzi said:

My typical cleaning of non-photographic items usually involves something like Formula 409 for the first few passes, .

Click to expand...

Yes, 409 works for me also...

Truzi, metal, plastic - no real questions on what's said thus far. Bellows, whether leather or synthetic can be cleaned, treated w/ a solution of 'Murphy's Oil Soap'. 'Good for most things leather, wood, vinyl. Depending on how thin, fragile they are, a cheap (fine art style) paint brush for the crevices (outside). The only reason I use a different leather treatment on the Super Ikonta is that they're leather & a friend that's done leather for almost 40 yrs developed his own oil that's great.

In High School and my undergrad, I used to clean vacant homes for real estate companies. I can easily get things "clean," but this isn't years of soap scum on tile, a dirty oven, or smoke stains baked on a fireplace window - I want to be careful and not do something that would hurt in the long-run. Fortunately the enlargers are not really dirty.

Some good suggestions so far. I'm pretty sure the bellows is vinyl.

Even when Windex was "good," it never cut through grime like 409 - but 409 would always leave a residue.
I have a bottle of ROR, so I might try that. I had read (I think on APUG) about using distilled water with a drop of Photo-Flo for condenser lenses.

Hmm, what about Saddle Soap? I used to use it a lot (as well as Murphy's Oil Soap) - any contraindications?

The leather people I talk to don't like saddle soap, but that's for leather.