Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/15
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I use it on my photographic lenses and am a strong advocate of
the product. It's a bit pricey for eyeglasses, however. Even us
'carriage trade' type Leica owners might find it a bit ostentacious
to pull out the ROR bottle to clean our specs. Gather round, and
I'll disclose a little known product that is aces for cleaning all
manner of window glass AND safely cleaning those delicate plastic
eyeglass lenses. The neat thing is that Windex looks like a hack
product next to it. It is the most streak resistant window cleaner
going, bar none. Momma will love it, if she does windows!
It's a product that you make! Get a clean 1 qt/liter spritzer bottle
and fill it halfway with low mineral water. Doesn't have to be
distilled; reverse osmosis stuff works fine. If your tap water fits
the bill, use it. Fill the remaining half of the bottle with 70%
isopropanol (drug store/chemist's rubbing alcohol). Add 1 or 2
drops of dishwashing detergent, shake and use! (If you're really
pickey, get a non-ionic surfactant, but all the common liquid
diswashing products that I've tried work fine) Use it liberally and
wipe dry with lint free cloths. Well washed linen napkins work
particularly well.
Here in the U.S desert southwest, many of us add various tinted
plastic film to the inside of our windows to help reduce the radiant
heat and the high glare from the always present sun. Some
(most) of these film products are fairly easily scratched and the
manufacturers recommend not using ammoniated cleaners. The
film will fog over time with ammoniated cleaners.
I still use ROR for my lenses, where I'm not sure of the effect of
isopropanol on the adhesives and coatings, but on all else the
above formula works like a champ!
BTW, most facial tissues that are not impregnated with softeners,
are safe for your plastic eyeglasses also. See, we're getting right
back to Ted's undershorts again!
- --
Roger
mailto:roger@beamon.org
Thought for the day:
When in doubt...
manipulate the data.