Aramith balls in diswasher
- Thread starter swest
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Drill
I am not sure. I just know that my setup makes the balls look and play brand new.
I am not sure. I just know that my setup makes the balls look and play brand new.
Thanks for that. Impressive results.
The fact that your water is soft, presuming of course that your water softener is operating properly but you'd know if it wasn't, then water hardness isn't a factor
because by ionic removal, all the calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, iron and zinc will be successfully removed by the water softener.
That basically leaves silica which cannot be removed or filtered from your water since it exhibits no ionic properties and since it's in solution, is too small to be
filtered even with reverse osmosis. You'd need ultra-filtration to remove it and that's not feasible to do on domestic water supplies.
You need a pH meter and even a pool tester would work......you only rely on pH strips when testing very acidic waters, like the type used to descale heat exchange
equipment when the pH of the water is very low. I can't speculate how much vinegar to add since I haven't any idea about the initial pH of your water but it should be above
7.0 and generally less than 7.8. Keep in mind that private well water on your property, if that's the source, can have all kinds of issues since it is not municipally treated
to provide water that complies with the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Examine the label contents on your detergent and look to see if there's much phosphorus which is a common wetting agent added to detergents. The spots on your pool
balls resemble silica deposits which are a _itch to remove and I don't really think you'll be remove them without damaging the finish. You'll be able to get the balls a high
lustre, glossy appearance but the spots will always be detectable as you rotate the balls under the lights. You can friction rub, compound equivalent, and that should help a lot.
I'd try the Lime Away approach.......I've soaked component parts of equipment that get scaled and brushed the part clean afterwards of all surface water deposits. I'd attempt
using the Lime Away outdoors or in an open garage and be sure to wear gloves and protective eyewear too......Did the 4 ball come out clean? Good Luck.
Matt B.
because by ionic removal, all the calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, iron and zinc will be successfully removed by the water softener.
That basically leaves silica which cannot be removed or filtered from your water since it exhibits no ionic properties and since it's in solution, is too small to be
filtered even with reverse osmosis. You'd need ultra-filtration to remove it and that's not feasible to do on domestic water supplies.
You need a pH meter and even a pool tester would work......you only rely on pH strips when testing very acidic waters, like the type used to descale heat exchange
equipment when the pH of the water is very low. I can't speculate how much vinegar to add since I haven't any idea about the initial pH of your water but it should be above
7.0 and generally less than 7.8. Keep in mind that private well water on your property, if that's the source, can have all kinds of issues since it is not municipally treated
to provide water that complies with the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Examine the label contents on your detergent and look to see if there's much phosphorus which is a common wetting agent added to detergents. The spots on your pool
balls resemble silica deposits which are a _itch to remove and I don't really think you'll be remove them without damaging the finish. You'll be able to get the balls a high
lustre, glossy appearance but the spots will always be detectable as you rotate the balls under the lights. You can friction rub, compound equivalent, and that should help a lot.
I'd try the Lime Away approach.......I've soaked component parts of equipment that get scaled and brushed the part clean afterwards of all surface water deposits. I'd attempt
using the Lime Away outdoors or in an open garage and be sure to wear gloves and protective eyewear too......Did the 4 ball come out clean? Good Luck.
Matt B.
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I don't think that soft water goes to the kitchen since it's considered more for cooking and drinking.
Lots of good info here.
I have to wonder, though, if there was that much silica in the water, wouldn't everything come out of the dishwasher looking like these balls? In particular, I would think that Bakelite pan and knife handles would exhibit similar deposits since they have a phenolic composition.
At my old house the water was extremely hard, with no water softener installed. I never bothered to descale the toilet in my workshop, and it eventually got so bad I tried CLR on it. Most of the stuff came off with a lot of elbow grease, but there was a few spots that were so thick and hard I had to chip it off with a putty knife. I never thought about silica, but if that's what it was it was pretty tough stuff.
If it was my set that got damaged like that, I'd try a little hot distilled vinegar on a rag. It's a little weaker acid than CLR, so less risk is involved (try it on a small spot first). I got a feeling that stuff is locked into the surface of the phenolic coating, so you'll probably need to buff it off. I'd use my bench buffer with a compound formulated for polishing plastic (usually a blue bar) on an unstitched muslin buff.
You can get a drill arbor that holds a 4" buff pretty well. Use plenty of compound and a light touch. You need surface speed, not pressure. Pressure will cause heat buildup and may ruin the balls. Wipe the balls to remove compound residue and give them a light buffing with a fresh buff (no compound). They should come out looking like new.
Attachments
I don't know how long to soak in Lime Away, but I submerged the 3-ball for about an hour. I think it had an effect, but, I had already worked on the 3, so it was a bad candidate. I'm redoing the 'spearmint' with an untouched 2-ball...
Yes, that's a question I hadn't quite gotten around to.
Anything that comes out of my dishwasher (using Cascade, of course, not 'regular' dish soap), is sparkling clean... You could do a Cascade commercial at my house.
Why do these balls behave differently from everything else?
- s.west
The short answer is that color development in aged polyolefins stabilized with phenolic antioxidants can be attributed to the formation of conjugated diene compounds, arising as a consequence of sacrificial trapping of alkylperoxy radicals by phenolics. The discoloration depends on the structure and concentration of the phenol transformation products. Peroxycyclohexadienones are formed transiently in low concentrations and themselves do not discolor the polymer matrix. However, some products of their thermolysis are discoloring and accumulate slowly in the polymer matrix. The principal contribution to polymer discoloration is due to formation of quinone methides. Their discoloring effect is reduced in propionate-type phenolics, as a consequence of intramolecular rearrangement of a part of the primarily formed quinone methide, and is due to oxidative dimerization accounting for nonconjugated dimeric quinone methides. Attention was paid to transformations of octadecyl 3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoate and related quinone methides and 4-hydroxycinnamates. Therefore, we do not recommend dishwashing them.
But that's just a simplification of a phenomenon that is common knowledge among pool players everywhere.
Wikipedia or Google is at everyone's fingertips........ but the simple answer is Cascade contains chemical compounds that sequester the dissolved silica
and cause the silica to precipitate out of solution and thus transformed into suspended particulate matter that evacuates with the dish washer rinse water....
you can confirm this by speaking with a commercial dishwasher service technician about the whys of chemical softening/treatment of dishwasher water to
achieve & maintain spot-free wash & rinse applications........or just ask any Rykoff Foor Services Technician........they'll confirm what I've stated about silica.
Matt B.
and cause the silica to precipitate out of solution and thus transformed into suspended particulate matter that evacuates with the dish washer rinse water....
you can confirm this by speaking with a commercial dishwasher service technician about the whys of chemical softening/treatment of dishwasher water to
achieve & maintain spot-free wash & rinse applications........or just ask any Rykoff Foor Services Technician........they'll confirm what I've stated about silica.
Matt B.
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I was trying to google something like "phenolic resin discoloration" and ran across that abstract. The more I read, the further my jaw dropped. It's so complicated, it's actually a funny read.
Thank god I didn't become a chemist - I would just shoot myself before having to read the entire manuscript.
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but... as I said, I specifically didn't use Cascade. I used an environmentally friendly dish soap. It should have been quite benign.
Anyway, I won't do it again, with, or without, Cascade.
Also, I finally looked at the 2-ball (submerged in Lime Away for the last 8 hours). No effect, whatsoever. I took it out, and rubbed, and rubbed... no positive effect.
It's back to rubbing compound (which is what I imagine the blue-green aramith stuff is). I'm going to modify my ball cleaner, with an additional rotating platter laying on the top of the balls (like the drill gizmo from earlier), to be a little more aggressive.
More later.
p.s. I'm so disappointed to find out that TATE isn't the chemical genius I was hoping he was... ah, well. Down off that pedestal.
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