@jcarr
When I was a dealer in the 80's we used Garrott Bros for cartridge servicing & upgrades.
"Gumming up cantilevers" were sometimes caused by excessive use of products like "stylast". Also received feedback from John & Brian that they often found small fragments of carbon hairs from brushes. Presumably these carbon hairs can become brittle as they age.
More recently I saw a cartridge completely gummed up with dark grey green sludge. Working backwards we found that the owners records when cleaned were generating similar effluent of grey green sludge - we think it was coming off a graphite mat shedding onto the record surface. The stylus was effectively collecting the sludge off the record, so much so it wicked up the cantilever into the guts.
When I was a dealer in the 80's we used Garrott Bros for cartridge servicing & upgrades.
"Gumming up cantilevers" were sometimes caused by excessive use of products like "stylast". Also received feedback from John & Brian that they often found small fragments of carbon hairs from brushes. Presumably these carbon hairs can become brittle as they age.
More recently I saw a cartridge completely gummed up with dark grey green sludge. Working backwards we found that the owners records when cleaned were generating similar effluent of grey green sludge - we think it was coming off a graphite mat shedding onto the record surface. The stylus was effectively collecting the sludge off the record, so much so it wicked up the cantilever into the guts.