As I reported last week, my son went swimming with his cell phone and
Ipod nano, in salt water.

I managed to get the cell phone working again for a little while by
soaking it in fresh water and then methanol and then putting it in a
vacuum system to remove the residual water. I vacuumed it repeatedly
because the vacuum causes the nethanol to freeze as someone else here
pointed out. It worked for a couple days and then died again.

A week after the dunking, I took apart the Ipod nano and can see why
the cell phone died again. A simple immersion in fresh water does not
remove the salt and water vapor in the air will recombine with residual
salt to short it out. The Nano looked awful with most of the circuits
encrusted with salt. It tool repeated immersions and then brusshing
with a very fine stiff brush and then examination under 5x, 10x and 20x
magnifiers to make sure I had removed the salt between traces.
Finally, it looks good and is in the vacuum system right now. The Li
ion battery is soldered in place and its fine leads broke.
Fortunately, I found a chinese web site with a pic of the inside of the
nano showing the orientation of the leads. I believe the battery may
still be good but will know when we try to charge it.

The cell phone will require further dissection so I can remove all the
salt.

I'd love to have my son start a small business reviving such damaged
ipods and phones but he is simply not interested. He is only 16 but
you'd think he'd jump at a chance to make easy money but he seems to
prefer bagging groceries for now. I dont think he could make enough to
support himself doing this but a few thou a year would sure help him
pay for college. Unfortunately, he doesnt have his dad's fascination
with how techie stuff works in detail. Strange, when I was his age (in
the early 70s), I was trying to build my own computer with surplus 7401
quad nand gates, he seems to have little techie aptitude and huge
social aptitude.