How do you clean tube pins?

Mrjstark, I don't think you want to go so far as to say there is no benefit from cleaning gold pinned tubes. Most plating is ultra thin and I have seen dirty quetips using cleaner on gold pins. Also pipe cleaners, I have found, work better than compressed air in sockets.

It is hard to find a "plain metal polish," as most try to retard oxidation. I have no idea what voodoo crap means.

Do not use steelwool or voodoo crap

Wait, wait, wait!! Yes, it's expensive, but other threads have said vodoo crap is ok!

Well, use voodoo as well as magic clocks and report back to let us all know how great it sounds. :)

Cheers

Mariusz

Voodoo, meaning $150 for a tinny bottle of miracle product that some make money of poor naive souls. No names need to be mentioned. When I said "Steelwood" I was refering to my genius friend who used it and shorted his preamp. Very fine particulars find its way into the tube sucket and it was 4th of July. As to gold plated pins, I believe the whole idea behind it was to.......yes, preserve the perfect connection and prevent the oxidation..........I could be wrong though.

How many times one needs to clean the pins.....come on, give me a break.

Gold is a good conductor and it doesn't oxidize. That's why it's used. And because it can be spread very thin, in the order of a few angstroms, it's not too expensive.

However, even though it doesn't oxidize, it can get grungy with air borne pollutants. That's what the Caig products can clean up for you. However, there is the the danger of putting solutions on the pins and subsequently getting it into places it shouldn't be.

IMO, the best cleaning is simply to insert the tube in and pull it out of the socket a couple of times. The mechanical abrasion will clean off any surface grunge. Quick, easy and cheap.