When you say "clean up" do you mean washing the out side? Does it need new paint? Are the lenses dirty? A mild detergent should be OK for cleaning the out side. I would not soak it, put the detergent on a damp cloth and clean it using that. Painting is a little more tricky. You will need to mask off the lenses. You will need to fill in the white letters with wax or something like that after you get them cleaned out (a soft tooth brush works good for getting into corners and in depressions), that you can get off the rest of the scope so it will hold paint and you can remove the wax later in the lettering. Melt the wax into the letter depressions (as little as possible) and then remove any wax on the rest of the scope by any means possible that does not scratch the surface. Since you are going to be painting it, I would carefully scrape the excess around the lettering with wood, then polish the rest off. If the polish gets into the lettering, no harm done. It might work to polish the surface before painting and let the polish fill the lettering. remove the polish from the rest of the scope and leave the polish in the lettering to remove later. When painting cover it very lightly to avoid runs. I would look into an epoxy type paint. Do not get too close to the scope to also avoid getting thick areas, make sure it is even. You may need to give it more than one coat - remember to put it on thin and even. If it is scratched remove them by polishing them before painting. Polish the whole scope to rough up the surface a little. and then make sure every thing is removed - polish, cleaner, metal flakes, finger prints but leave it in the bottom of the lettering. wipe down with a clean soft cloth to remove most of your debris left behind on the surface and then dampen a clean soft cloth with alcohol to remove the rest. The surface needs to hold the paint. For the lenses, go to a camera shop and buy a lens cleaning kit - you do not want to scratch the lenses. Good luck and Good Shooting
Added - a low luster (non-glare) paint can help hide some minor surface blemishes; a shiny surface will show blemishes so surface prep needs to be better. The older scopes were mostly of the shiny type. I do not think the low luster (non-glare) finishes became popular until the 80's.
