What you could do to stop aluminum powder from staining the canvas is doing
this...

Sand the hinges really well with fine steel wool, clean them with paint
cleaner and let them dry, cover as much as you can the surrounding area
with paper then shoot the hinges with one coat of clear coat paint, wait
for the 1st coat to dry and shoot a 2nd coat.

On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 2:26 PM Thomas Casal <thomas.casal@gmail.com> wrote:

> That’s what I thought it was but it looks so black. Anyway to stop creating
> the aluminum powder?
>
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 1:25 PM <stuartmacm@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That's mostly aluminum powder from the hinge wearing, and likely can't be
> > cleaned off, since it's so fine and embedded in the fibers.  No way for
> > much "dirt" to get up there.
> >
> > Stuart
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com> On Behalf Of
> > Thomas Casal
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 7:23 AM
> > To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> > Subject: Pop top canvas hinge dirt
> >
> > Hey volks,
> > What do you guys do to prevent the hinge dust from soiling your pop top
> > canvas? I have a few year old canvas and it looks terrible with that
> hinge
> > dirt on it. I don’t even know if an upholstery cleaner will clean it.
> Peace
> > Tom
> >
> >
>