How to clean the Reflector of a Simplex High

[Kyle Mikolajczyk]

Hello,

I need to clean the reflector of our Simplex High. The manual says sort of how to clean it but I don't think the cleaning products are still around (I am forgetting the name currently) Here is a photo of how it currently looks, please let me know as I have never cleaned a reflector before!

Reflector.jpg

[Dave Macaulay]

Just wash it with dish soap and water, then dry and polish lightly with a microfiber cloth. Be careful, the reflective surface is on the front side and is very thin and fairly delicate. I'm not sure the mirror should be that see-through? It's been a lot of years since I saw a carbon lamphouse but I don't recall the mirrors being like that.
The old timers used BonAmi blocks, discontinued about 20 years ago. You would wipe on a film of the stuff (damp cloth rubbed on the white block), let it dry completely, then polish it off gently with a soft cloth. That stuff really cleaned glass well with no streaks.

[Kyle Mikolajczyk]

Yes, BonAmi was what the Simplex High manual suggested. I will try your method and report back, thank you.

[Steve Guttag]

If it is front-surface, you can't use Bon-Ami...if it is rear surface (glass in front of the reflective surface, Bon-Ami works like a charm. It comes in powder form. You would need to sprinkle some out into a bowl and then add just enough water to make it into a paste. Wipe it on with a towel/rag to cover the surface...let dry. Then wipe it off (sort of like applying car wax). The reflector will look new again. BonAmi is an abrasive, which is why you can't use it on a front-surface mirror...it will scratch up and take the coating off too.

[Randy Stankey]

That's how I was taught. Bon Ami cleanser, a cup of water and a cotton baby diaper.
There was a wooden tool box on the shelf that had everything in one place.
There was a can of cleanser, a bottle of clean water, a plastic cup and a stack of diapers.

Instructions were to check mirrors every night and clean them only when needed. Cleaning too much can be a bad thing.

I was told that you need to get the ORIGINAL formula Bon Ami. They call it the "1886 Formula." It comes in the red can, not the gold can.

https://www.bonami.com/product/

I was also told that you need to use very light pressure when cleaning the mirror.

The exact phrasing was: Use no more pressure than you would use to brush your teeth.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Uncertain if this is a dichroic coated glass mirror. The coating on the "cool mirrors" was on the surface facing the arc. You can tell by looking through the mirror from the back and everything is a pretty red. The First step use a soft varnish brush to remove the soot.. Then a mild detergent like Kodak Foto-Flow with a clean cotton ball to gently remove the remaining soot. The drying was sped up by applying alcohol with another clean cotton ball. Any abrasive would erode the coating leaving only the glass base of the reflector.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Yep! Bon Ami works great. And it also cleans the blood off the organ keys in Don Knotts haunted house!

[Randy Stankey]

No, no, that was “Bone-Ami.”

[Kenneth Wuepper]

French for "Good Friend"

[Jack Ondracek]

You can see through the reflector... meaning (I'm pretty sure), it's a front-coated dichroic. NO BON AMI. It will polish the coating off, leaving you with a very nice piece of clear glass.

I only worked a couple of booths with these things, and the process of cleaning them was a big deal to the owners, enough that they made a point of providing instructions, not to mention dire warnings if we broke the reflectors or managed to sand the coating off.

We used a liquid product we got from Strong to take the soot off. It worked well, but we were cautioned to do the procedure sparingly. The cleaner was applied with a cotton ball. I don't know exactly what the stuff was, whether its still available or if there's a substitute. If you can't source the real stuff, Ken's method would be the only one I would risk trying.

Bon Ami does do an excellent job on back-coated (silvered) reflectors. You can use it as often as you want on those things.

This would only be for arc lamps. Xenons don't soot anything, which is why you don't hear much about Bon Ami any more. If it needs to be said, you wouldn't want to use in on a xenon reflector, either. The ORC lamphouses used a front-coated metal reflector that was supposed to reflect less heat. They were bad enough new, but Bon Ami would really screw up what good there actually was in those things.

[Steve Guttag]

The easy way to tell if a reflector is front or rear coated is to use your fingernail. If you lay your fingernail against the reflector and its reflection touches...it is front surface. If there is a gap between the reflection and your fingernail, it is rear coated and safe for Bon-Ami.