Cleaning a musty Super Graphic

By John, 24 January, 2013

A friend of mine gave me an old Super Graphic recently. It had been in his basement for quite some time and had gotten a bit musty. After my experiences with the basement flooding and the mold, this was something I wasn't terribly happy about, but I figured I could do something about the problem and not vaguely ignore it.

I googled some variation of 'clean musty super graphic' and came upon a few pages that recommended wiping it down with [vinegar / dilute vinegar / dilute bleach / Formula 409] and letting it dry for a few days.

I didn't have any Formula 409. I do have this amazing cleaning solution that I made from vinegar and orange peels (fill jar with orange peels, fill jar with vinegar, put in fridge for a few weeks). The vinegar / orange peel solution is really thick though, so I diluted it down with a little extra vinegar and some water.

I grabbed a bunch of q-tips and cotton balls, and started to work. Of course, I had my ever-present helper elves with me.

My son cleaning out the inside of a super graphic camera with cotton balls and vinegar

My son cleaning out the inside of a super graphic camera with cotton balls and vinegar

(Fortunately these older cameras are fairly sturdy. My 20 month old son (that's his hand at the extreme left in the picture above) thinks that "gentle" means "I'm not throwing it at the moment.")

I left the camera opened up for a few days and now everything on the camera smells faintly of plastic from the 1970s. I call that a success.