How do you clean tube pins?

The EXACT SAME principal(common sense) applies to the use of contact cleaners and contact enhancers, but neither of them will remove the very thin anti-corrosion plating(gold, nickel, etc) that most tube pins have. Steel wool(no matter how fine), working the tube in and out of the socket or abrasive cleaners will.

Abe, too bad you did not like the story.
However that is what happend to one guy who was going nuts about cleaning pins and suckets......and thought he knew everything. Since that day , he did not touched pins or suckets yet.
If you feel it should NOT be posted in this thread.......
piece of advice:
get in touch with the moderator or become one, it is that easy.
I am still useing brass polishing cream that costs close to nothing as well as regular contact cleaner from RS and comp.air. You experiences might be different........I am just shareing mine. However IMO, you are over-analizing the importance and benefits of the simple thing as tube pins.
So polish all you want and feel good about your pins. :)

Mariusz

Nahh, why would I feel that you cannot post in this thread? Anyone can, of course. We are here to entertain ourselves.

You know the problem with the Audiogon forums, everybody is pretending that it is real! Including me.

Great read though!

FWIW, I rarely use 9 pin small signal tubes nowadays. The smallest of tubes that I use extensively are the octals so steelwool is convenient to use in cleaning the pins. So in my case, scraping the audiophile approved gold plating on the pins is not really a factor.

There...I lied...I still have something to add......

9 pin tubes can be easily clean using wire brush,for octal and 4 pin,I use hair brush,soap and water but be careful not water getting in between glass and the tube  base.

You can clean sockets and tube pins but it should be done with caution!

Do not use any abrasives. The best thing I have found is spray contact cleaner that leaves no residue. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE ANY "CONTACT ENHANCERS"!!!

-If you do, you can contaminate the socket and possibly ruin the circuit board on which the socket sits or at the very least the socket itself. Contact enhancers can be identified as they usually have to be applied with some sort of swab and they most definitely leave a fine film. This film can migrate across insulators such as the socket material. This can degrade the performance of the circuit dramatically over time, and can even damage components! We had a customer ruin a set of circuit boards in his MP-1 preamp once- the only solution was to replace both boards with new components.

Tubes can have high voltage differentials on them so if you contaminate the tube or its socket you can get leakage voltages and stray capacitances that should not be in the circuit; that is how damage and degradation can result.

So: to clean the pins or the socket, use a spray contact **cleaner** that leaves no residue. Spray the pins of the tube itself, wipe off excess, insert in the socket and pull it out again. If a miniature tube, rock the tube in the socket and you are done. No more than that!

Tin plating is a common sight on tubes and tube sockets. Like gold, tin is highly conductive and does not corrode easily. Unlike gold though, it is rather hard and so holds up much longer to use. However it is, just like gold, a plating on the pin of the tube and the socket. If the plating is damaged by abrasion (such as steel wool) the result is that the material beneath the plating will be exposed to oxygen and could see significant corrosion! SO DO NOT USE ABRASIVES WHEN CLEANING TUBE PINS OR SOCKETS!

BTW, the use of silver and gold in tube connections really isn’t that great an idea. Tin is much more reliable in the long term. This is why you can still find tubes and tube sockets on ebay that are decades old and yet are perfectly serviceable.