Smoke damage

arrival of the workshop? When my launderette was badly smoke damaged, the insurers damage control people sprayed all the machines with normal WD40
AWEM

The amount of free HCl is not likely to be too great, so I think a wipe down of bright surfaces with light oil or WD40 should be of benefit. Your bright surfaces will turn brown pretty rapidly if the HCl content of the air is significant. We used to keep a stoppered bottle of concentrated HCL in a fume cupboard which also housed a peristaltic pump - we oiled the steel rollers of the pump after each use to seal out water and other vapours - the one time somebody forgot, the rollers turned brown within 24h, primarily due to the HCl escaping from the stored "sealed" bottle.
Sussex, UK Return E-mails to snipped-for-privacy@skiprat.net

Sounds all too familiar. Take photographs, keep evidence. Get your insurers to employ a specialist firm of smoke damage mitigation experts. Some years ago our premises, packed full with very high value electronics, got smoke damaged from a plastics fire "next door". After our cleaning experts had done their work, our equipment was better than "new" and in some cases engineers reported better electrical performance than before the fire.

My thanks for the many helpful replies both on and off group.
regards