I have non-measle duramith ball that came with the tournament set and it is quite white.
Aramith Duramith balls getting dirty quicker than others?
- Thread starter Eric M.
- Start date
I picked up one of the Amazon cleaners. Amazon and e-Bay have about 20 and they all look the same. I waited until the price dropped to aboout $130 w/ shippping. I wish I shot a video of how the cleaning went ... next time.
-Ran the balls through the first time using Aramith Cleaner and alcohol mixture at the recommended (here) ratios. Polished but did not remove all marks.
-Ran a second time with a dab of Aramith Cleaner on each ball. A little better but still had marks.
-Ran a 3rd time with a dab of Aramith Restorer on each ball. It did a bit better but not as clean as when I do by hand.
For the balls that still had marks, I spot cleaned, by hand, with Aramith Cleaner. It was only about 4 -5 balls and wasn't much work.
Next time I'm going to try with just the Cleaner / Alcohol solution and then hand clean the stuborn spots.
If that doesn't work then I'll try a dab of cleaner on each ball and then hand clean. I want to stay away from Restorer.
So, not really sure how good this machine is. For now it's preventing me from getting Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
I wish I had a better maching to compare using by balls.
-Ran the balls through the first time using Aramith Cleaner and alcohol mixture at the recommended (here) ratios. Polished but did not remove all marks.
-Ran a second time with a dab of Aramith Cleaner on each ball. A little better but still had marks.
-Ran a 3rd time with a dab of Aramith Restorer on each ball. It did a bit better but not as clean as when I do by hand.
For the balls that still had marks, I spot cleaned, by hand, with Aramith Cleaner. It was only about 4 -5 balls and wasn't much work.
Next time I'm going to try with just the Cleaner / Alcohol solution and then hand clean the stuborn spots.
If that doesn't work then I'll try a dab of cleaner on each ball and then hand clean. I want to stay away from Restorer.
So, not really sure how good this machine is. For now it's preventing me from getting Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
I wish I had a better maching to compare using by balls.
How long had the balls gone without being cleaned? What kind of pocket liners do you have? I run mine in the polisher after the 2nd or 3rd session. I don't get marks on my balls at all.
The diamond machine does the same. I’ve had it for 10 years. Still needs to hand clean any trouble spots.
Mr. Joshua
Registered
Were they brand-new in a sealed box when you picked them up?
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I'm the OP so you can read up some of the issues we determined. It's been longer than 3 sessions since last cleaning. Your home made machine looks to be a much better design, your polishing pads are always in contact with the balls, my balls are sort of loose in their pockets. maybe I need to clean more often? looking at some of the posts above, maybe this is common, trouble spots need more attention.
I pulled out 2 other sets of older balls and cleaned them multiple times. It did alright, some of the heavy marks needed hand work.
I'm going to keep this if for anything, the save my wrist when hand cleaning. I'll try cleaning more often and see how that works.
Thanks,
Eric
They bought on of those cleaners for the bar that I play out of . They get cleaned about once a week when we play sunday leagues. The one captains gf works there and he comes in early to clean the table and balls. I was thinking about buying one of the ball cleaners but honestly they don’t look any better then my trusty bucket polisher I’ve been using for the last 15 years so I’ll save my money lol I’d love to buy the diamond ball polisher to match my table but I can’t justify the expense
That's a $600 machine. Just can't swing that much in this economy.
Part of the reason why you are seeing "dead marks" om the balls after you run them through the machine is the balls spin on one axis so the entire surface of the ball isn't coming ion contact with a cleaning surface. The machine is supposed to pause and change direction which is supposed to clean all areas of the balls but I've not seen one of these machines in person to determine the outcome of a cycle.
The black marks are most certainly from your pocket liners. Diamonds had a bout with dye transfer onto the balls but they resolved it. Not sure how. To avoid the black marks you are going to have to address the pocket liners.
One last question for you. Do your hands sweat a lot? Reason I ask is I sometimes play with a buddy who's hands sweat. The balls get much dirtier and lose their shine much quicker playing with him. This could be the reason why the balls look the way they do.
I clean mine every week or two, and get get zero pocket marks on my 5 yr old Diamond professional. The same cannot be said for the two leagues that I play at different halls, that both have Diamond tables now. The one league has had Diamond tables for three years and has always had black marks. Balls are always cleaned before league night, and have a slippery feel that I don't have with my Aramith cleaner.
My other league just got new Diamonds at the start of league this year. There were no black marks at the start, but after about a month they switched from just wiping the balls off to using a cleaner that makes them glossy and slippery as heck, and surprise surprise, now the balls all get caked on black marks that you can scrape off with your fingernail. They look fantastic, but play like you are a trick shot artist. You try and do a stop shot, and the ball draws back a quarter table. It's quite an adjustment and we go early to get a few games in to try and get used to them.
My take on this is the black marks are caused by the cleaner you use or how you use it. Too much cleaner is not good. I would never use restore on a new set of balls. I you need to use that on a newest set of Duramith balls to get them clean, something else is seriously wrong.
Sounds like they are using car wax or automotive quick detailer. Bad move.
If you go to DCC today the balls still get black marks. That’s using brand new diamonds and the diamond ball cleaner. It’s nowhere near as bad as 20 years ago, but the black dye still transfers some.
Not a car wax, actually I found car wax will leave collision marks. The place with the new tables, one of our league players cleans the balls and I asked him what was up as there was a dramatic change. He told me the brand of cleaner he started using but I forgot by the time I got home. The balls we use for league there, are not shared for general play as we have our own locker for them. I thought it was Porper or something. I'll ask again. They really have that same feel as the ball at our friends house that we occasionally shoot at, she uses a Ballstar and cleans them after every use. They look incredible but you can barely hang on to them when picking them out of the pockets. Also any draw shot you do is about 3-4 times as long as normal till you get used to them.
She's using too much product. On the Ballstar, you should only dampen the sponge and not apply excess product on the balls themselves.
Most of the stuff mentoned above has been covered earlier.
-Restore is not for cleaning balls.
-The pockets of my table were redyed last year, that is most likely where the black marks are coming from.
-Apparently I go too long between cleaning. Not any more now that I have a machine.
The Amazon machine covers every bit of the balls when cleaning. It just isn't agressive enough to remove the black marks. The balls are polished even where the marks are.
Using the alcohol mixture does not leave that "slickness" on the the balls after cleaning that everyone is complaning about.
Eric
-Restore is not for cleaning balls.
-The pockets of my table were redyed last year, that is most likely where the black marks are coming from.
-Apparently I go too long between cleaning. Not any more now that I have a machine.
The Amazon machine covers every bit of the balls when cleaning. It just isn't agressive enough to remove the black marks. The balls are polished even where the marks are.
Using the alcohol mixture does not leave that "slickness" on the the balls after cleaning that everyone is complaning about.
Eric
The slickness is very likely from silicone or some kind of wax. It's a bad idea if you want to play pool but it can look amazing.
I have a Ballstar machine, but have never used the Ballstar cleaner because of the reports from people saying it leaves the balls "too slick". So, I just put a tiny drop of Aramith ball cleaner on each ball, and they come out looking, and playing great.
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The big problem with using silicone products to clean the balls with is that it not only gets on the balls but then the crap gets all over the cloth on the table too so it wont just go away by changing the balls.
I got lucky, I had a saved search at ebay for about 2 years that finally hit on an almost new one for $350. Love this thing. Can't over-do the polish, and you can completely refresh the cleaning pad in about a minute for under $10.