Cleaning packs

[Guy Sotomayor]

On Nov 24, 2009, at 10:58 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:

>> One thing that I fear is that the knowledge to *properly* clean a  
>> pack
>> is going away. There is (was?) a place near Boston that would do it,
>> and I am sure Farris can as well, but I know of no others.
>> It would be nice to document how packs are cleaned, so we can do this
>> in the future.
>
>   I was going to ask the same, how do you clean a pack?

Generally what I do is the following (note that I've only cleaned RK05  
and RL packs):
1. blow out any dust/grime with compressed air
2. do an initial cleaning of the outside of the pack with alcohol and  
lint free cloths
3. disassemble the pack
4. clean platter with alcohol and lint free cloths.  This also  
provides the opportunity to inspect the surfaces.  I toss any platter  
that shows any abnormalities (cleaning up after a head crash is too  
time consuming to waste on a marginal pack)
5. clean the remainder of the pack with alcohol and lint free cloths.
6. use lots of compressed air
7. reassemble the pack

It takes me 1/2 hour to 1 hour to clean a pack.  I do this in a bright  
well lit and well ventilated space.  I haven't had a single head crash  
since I started doing this.  I've probably done a few dozen packs this  
way.  However, I have ~300 pack backlog.  :-(

TTFN - Guy