Best method of cleaning thin layer of degraded plastic?

[Jonathan Busby]

(03-11-2021 08:31 PM)Bill (Smithville NJ) Wrote:  

(03-10-2021 10:34 PM)Jonathan Busby Wrote:  I have a number of old electronic devices whose enclosures are made of plastic and said plastic has degraded over time leaving a discolored sticky residue in the upper < 1mm of the plastic.
Jonathan

Jonathan,

I'm wondering if what you are seeing is what was on a lot of radios, especially some of the Grundig models. There's been a lot of discussion on the SWLing.com site on how to go about cleaning it:

Cleaning Grundig Radio

Maybe one of their suggestions will work for you.

73
Bill WD9EQD
Smithville, NJ

Thanks for the info I have an old Grundig pocket AM/FM/shortwave radio, but I don't think its suffering from the problems described in the post to which you linked. The plastic degradation that I see is mostly associated with old gaming joysticks, especially Panther XLs , although I have had a few vintage calculator / pocket-computer / organizer devices with similar plastic degradation, but, none of them had a rubber coating on them.

Regards,

Jonathan