I have a static master brush designed for vinyl records. Scratched the hell out of a negative.
Really?
Just the public forum style... just passing the important info the way I would have wanted to see it when I was a youngster. In regular life... big fan of sly practical jokes, and I learned long ago that if people don't know me well that I have to tell them when I'm being sarcastic - else they'll say, "oh, I thought you were being serious." On the internet... well it just takes away the fun of a joke. Plus, there's always someone from somewhere who is gonna be genuinely offended.
Btw, my familiarity with anti-static goes much deeper - we used to use several dozen 3M polonium 210 devices in our lab ops - yearly leases, individually licensed by the (US) Nuclear Regulatory Commission with my name on the license. And if I don't know what I'm getting into I don't go there. If the devices were under a certain rating, like Static Master, no license was required, which always amazed me; you could buy a handful and be in the same place, but evade record keeping requirements.
Ps, our standard demo, when someone says, "how do you know it's even DOING anything?" used to be to take a strip of scrap film, wipe it against another such piece, maybe a couple of wipes, then pass it over a well-used ashtray. If the humidity is fairly low ashes will just jump up and stick to the film. Then, as you bring the ionizer closer the ashes will just start falling off. Or if you have a static meter the reading will go way down. If the ionizer is small, or older, it mainly just takes longer (or you have to get it closer) for the effect to happen.
As I recall, the Static Master record brushes were one of the very early applications for carbon fiber. Conductive, so it did an even better job of sucking the static off the vinyl -- but too stiff and sharp on the tips for negatives. There were versions with camel hair as well, and should should work fine on negatives.
Yes, Eli... to help reduce dust during reassembly, keep the parts under lint free cloth like Kim Wipes, have a duster can nearby to blow particles off, and just realize essentially there’s always going to be some small amount of dust on the lens and there’s not much that can be done about it.
But that’s ok because to actually affect the image, there would need to be a massive amount of dust on the surfaces. Better to focus on keeping smudges, fingerprints, fungus, etc off the surfaces.
The polonium insert ionizing brushes were commonly sold for cleaning record discs, for those old enough to remember what those are. Removing the dust from the groove both improved playback sound (fewer pops and crackles) and increased the longevity of the record itself (kept the diamond stylus from gouging those dust flecks into the relatively soft vinyl of the record surface and making a permanent pop-crackle). In fact, there was at least one of these that mounted to the cartridge itself, brushing the surface of the record several turns ahead of the stylus as the record was played.
High end Shure pickups had a tiny carbon fiber brush which tracked the record. In addition to discharging the vinyl record and removing some of the dust the brush assembly furnished a damping effect on the cantilever displacement when tracking record warps. I use the last V15 MRV pickup in my Acoustic Research ES-1 turntable, the little brush is quite effective. The pickup will track reliably at about 1 gram. Good sound, too.
There is or was a pistol-like "gun" which produced a stream of ions. Zerostat is a name which comes to mind. Squeezing the trigger flexed a pizeoelectric element, generating a pulse of high voltage which then went to a needle, spraying ions. It worked fairly well; I have one somewhere.
I still have two of the 1 inch StaticMaster brushes. Mine definitely are camel hair. The polonium expired 2+ decades ago. Until about 5 or 10 years ago, you could still buy replacement polonium units, and I recall a B&H price of $50.
There is or was a pistol-like "gun" which produced a stream of ions. Zerostat is a name which comes to mind. Squeezing the trigger flexed a pizeoelectric element, generating a pulse of high voltage which then went to a needle, spraying ions. It worked fairly well; I have one somewhere.
for the sake of further discussion, if someone took the active strips from two 3 in. carts, and joined them to a probe, wood or otherwise, they could be lowered down to or near a problem area in a camera or lens, or rather UP , so the dust might fall free from the insides of the target device?
The brush to which you are referring is the D3 Discwasher® . You used it with D4 Hi-Technology Record Cleaning Fluid. I suspect this magic fluid was some liquid that contained no solids and dried quickly, like the lens cleaning liquid that your optometrist gives you with a packet of cleaning cloths when you buy new glasses. I know about the Discwasher because I have one right here next to my desk. I use it with my Linn turntable. But honestly, I find it easier to puff off dust from a record with a rubber squeeze bulb.That's the one I was trying to remember. I knew someone who had one, between that and a wiper brush that incorporated a little fast-drying fluid that came in a little dropper bottle, you could make a record play like brandn new, and last dozens of playings without damage (though the vinyl will still eventually show wear from the forces of driving the diamond stylus to reproduce the sound). A Zerostat might be welcome for enlarging or scanning -- no contact, and it neutralizes the surface pretty well. That and a Rocket blow-brush should be enough.
I also have a Kinetronics StaticWisk®, which is supposed to generate a charge when you brush it over a negative.
The fluid you mention is LAST record preservative. Here is a link to the producer https://thelastfactory.com/ The preservative is applied to a thoroughly cleaned record; in my experience LASTed records seem to have a lower static charge and seem to sound better following being LASTed. Of course, as a fellow vinyl devotee, YMMV.That's the one I was trying to remember. I knew someone who had one, between that and a wiper brush that incorporated a little fast-drying fluid that came in a little dropper bottle, you could make a record play like brandn new, and last dozens of playings without damage (though the vinyl will still eventually show wear from the forces of driving the diamond stylus to reproduce the sound). A Zerostat might be welcome for enlarging or scanning -- no contact, and it neutralizes the surface pretty well. That and a Rocket blow-brush should be enough.
Yes, really.Really?
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