[muzikwench]

Hi,,

I've dug up an old 50 jack (25x2) normalled and balanced
rear-solderable rackmount brass telephone patch bay that's built like
a tank. I'd like to clean it up and use it. It's designed for bantam
plugs, but seems to handle 1/4" just fine. For each vertical pair, the
ground is common and the front jacks mount to a rougly L-shaped brass
plate to which the jack blades and switch blades are mounted.

Testing it with a stereo plug reveals that contacts to hot and cold as
well as the switched contacts read clean (0 ohms). But the common
brass ground isn't clean at all due to extensive oxidation of the
brass jacks which are quite dark and dirty. The brass plate is quite
clean and reads 0 ohms, but even digging into the inner part of the
front brass jacks the best I get is about 6 ohms.

Questions:

How can I clean the brass plugs easily and efficientlyl? I tried some
Cramolin I had lying around, and it really didn't do much; I imagine
it can't handle this degree of oxidation. The inner jacks are
basically dark brown.

Ideally, because I don't feel like taking the endire thing to pieces,
I'd like to take each pair apart and just dip the frount ground part
of the contacts into some corrosive cleaning solution. This front part
extends 1/2" in front of the blades, so it's possible to physically do
this. Is there a chemical that could do this?

I also have 8 1/4" bantam patch cables but these are also brass and
have the same degree of oxidation. What's the best way of cleaning
these?

Considering all of the above: am I wasting my time and should I just
chuck this thing and move on?

Thanks for any ideas.

Steve