N_Cook wrote:

I've found kitchen oven-cleaner very effective at removing heavy tobacco
smoke staining from parts.
Go sparingly, squirt onto copier-paper, and then use that on a test area
first, below the tape path and don't use near the tape-heads as it may be
too corrosive on the winding enamel etc, no need as by your account not
affected there anyway. Remove any remainder with some meths or alcohol,
again soaked into paper.
No cotton buds/balls at any stage, chamois is ok.


If it went through a house fire the aluminum is pitted from the
acidic smoke. It has to be polished back to it's original finish which
is nearly impossible to do by hand. If you have some old tapes you don't
need, try running one of them for 24 hours. You used to be able to buy
special 'lapping' tape to polish tape heads, but I haven't seen any for
sale in 25 years. The old 1/2" R-R computer tape was abrasive enough,
but would have to be spliced into a cassette.

Lapping was done to studio recorders to extend the life of the tape
heads. Nortronics and several other tape head OEM offered the service
which was about 25% the cost of a new head.

That oven cleaner will cause more pitting in the aluminum. Lye (which
is in most oven cleaners) is used to etch aluminum parts to give it a
non reflective surface. Lye is used in oven cleaner to turn the baked
on fats into a crude soap.


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