Need help cleaning my balls

[mrpiper]

Here's part of the Aramith MSDS....make your own determination.

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Wow! suspended wax, abrasives and petroleum distillate. Basically this is a combo of McGuire's rubbing compound and McGuire's regular liquid car wax. This tells me, that based on Aramith's own recommended formula, use most any comparable car product, and if you have a tough bug stain, use a little Aramith Ball Cleaner on your car.

 

[buckshotshoey]

Wow! suspended wax, abrasives and petroleum distillate. Basically this is a combo oc McGuire's rubbing compound and McGuire's regular liquid car wax. This tells me, that based on Aramith's own recommended formula, use most any comparable car producr, and if you have a tough bug stain, use a little Aramith Ball Cleaner on your car.

The rubbing compound is an exaggeration I'm sure, but there are abrasives in it. But very very fine abrasives. Likely silicates. The PlastiX has them too. But no mention of wax. There may be a form of wax in the PlastiX also, but I cant find any info on it, so I cant confirm it. I'm betting the Aramith will work on plastic headlight lenses and plexiglas also!

Here's the PlastiX MSDS not as much info as I would have liked to see. Not much info so far on one of the ingredients.....2-AMINOISOBUTANOL.

 

[garczar]

The rubbing compound is an exaggeration I'm sure, but there are abrasives in it. But very very fine abrasives. Likely silicates. The PlastiX has them too. But no mention of wax. There may be a form of wax in the PlastiX also, but I cant find any info on it, so I cant confirm it. I'm betting the Aramith will work on plastic headlight lenses and plexiglas also!

Aramith Restorer is a bit more aggressive if the balls are filthy. The Cleaner is super fine abrasive-wise. No silicone in them. This stuff: http://www.brillianize.com/ works great also. Its 99.1% water and has a tiny bit of silicone in it. Great on anything plastic.

 

[buckshotshoey]

Aramith Restorer is a bit more aggressive if the balls are filthy. The Cleaner is super fine abrasive-wise. No silicone in them. This stuff: http://www.brillianize.com/ works great also. Its 99.1% water and has a tiny bit of silicone in it. Great on anything plastic.

I did not say silicone. I said silicates.... or silica, (probably from quartz) ....which is an abrasive.

I just went out and looked at the lable on the PlastiX. It says contains petroleum distillates, and Aluminum Oxide

 

[Bob Jewett]

... use most any comparable car product, ...

I guess "comparable" is the problem. I've used car products on scungy balls with beautiful but bad results. They ended up with two or three times normal throw.

 

[rexus31]

since its a cleaner/polisher
how is it different to maguiars quik detail?

1. It's made exclusively for use on phenolic billiard balls.

2. The Meguiar's product contains silicone (polydimethylsiloxane), the Tiger product does not. I don't think any of the purpose made pool ball cleaning solutions contain silicone. Trick shot artists use silicone to get the cue ball to react in an unnatural manner. Silicone also alters the properties of throw from one ball to another.

 

[buckshotshoey]

1. It's made exclusively for use on phenolic billiard balls.

2. The Meguiar's product contains silicone (polydimethylsiloxane), the Tiger product does not. I don't think any of the purpose made pool ball cleaning solutions contain silicone. Trick shot artists use silicone to get the cue ball to react in an unnatural manner. Silicone also alters the properties of throw from one ball to another.

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Agreed.... I stay away from anything that contains silicone.

 

[Poolshootindon]

Pro tip: put ball in sandwich baggie and then a drop of polish on it. Takes about 10 drops to do all 16 balls.

I did 2-4 at a time then wiped those 2-4 clean and repeated, giving all 16 another good wiping at the end.

Then I bought the diamond polisher.

Your Pro tip worked awesome. I was usually applying a drop of Aramith ball cleaner to each ball. I just cleaned all 3 billiard balls with one small drop and probably could clean a few more. Thanks for this great tip.

 

[3kushn]

I used to play in a room where billiards was the main focus. Had 4 billiard tables.Those guys wanted clean balls like every hour. They used to use a product called
3M Finesse it.
I know you knew the owner, he's dead now, Bill Maloney. I don't think they used it on the pool balls though. I know I didn't like it on the pool balls. I don't like them polished at all.

3M Finesse it is one of the best prods for this. The problem I found with it is the smallest amount you can buy is a liter/quart. It's considerably more expensive than other prods and before you get to the to finish the bottle the ingredients fell out of solution and I couldn't find a way to mix it back up. It does make sense in a pool room if they're into keeping everything clean.

 

[Dan White]

Your Pro tip worked awesome. I was usually applying a drop of Aramith ball cleaner to each ball. I just cleaned all 3 billiard balls with one small drop and probably could clean a few more. Thanks for this great tip.

Just remember that the less you use the more likely you won't get them as clean as they can be. Just don't overdo the conservation.

 

[Dan White]

I guess "comparable" is the problem. I've used car products on scungy balls with beautiful but bad results. They ended up with two or three times normal throw.

I don't think most people really care. As long as the balls look pretty then it is a good product!

 

[rexus31]

I don't think most people really care. As long as the balls look pretty then it is a good product!

Players care! The room where I play BCA uses Meguiar's Cleaner Wax on their balls in their dual platter Diamond Ball Polisher. Absolute shit show fresh out of the machine.

 

[Dan White]

Players care! The room where I play BCA uses Meguiar's Cleaner Wax on their balls in their dual platter Diamond Ball Polisher. Absolute shit show fresh out of the machine.

So the guy cleaning the balls doesn't know what he is doing?

 

[buckshotshoey]

I guess "comparable" is the problem. I've used car products on scungy balls with beautiful but bad results. They ended up with two or three times normal throw.

I'm guessing you used a heavy cut rubbing compound? No such problem with the PlastiX.

Remember Dr Dave got the most throw when cleaning the balls with dishsoap, Acetone, and rubbing alcohol and 600 grit sandpaper? Dont see how any automotive polish or wax can top them.

We've always been told not to use wax. Such as Turtle Wax in the Dr Dave video. But the Aramith cleaner has wax in it?

 

[rexus31]

So the guy cleaning the balls doesn't know what he is doing?

*Ladies. Nope.

 

[middleofnowhere]

Wow! suspended wax, abrasives and petroleum distillate. Basically this is a combo of McGuire's rubbing compound and McGuire's regular liquid car wax. This tells me, that based on Aramith's own recommended formula, use most any comparable car product, and if you have a tough bug stain, use a little Aramith Ball Cleaner on your car.

Speciality products like that are most often repurposed existing products. A product called "After-Bite" for bug bites is just about a pennies worth baking soda and ammonia in a magic marker. It sells for around $7.99.

The famous Magic Eraser is just malamine foam used as speaker insulation. Then someone discovered it's amazing ability to clean and a product was born.

I doubt Aramith commissioned a group of chemists to create their ball cleaner. They just buy it from chemical company and have it packeted for them. That is not to say it is not good, just not special.

It's funny sometimes what companies do. I was in home Depot looking at bug spray. I was reading labels and found a lot of deceptions. You find the exact formula by the same company touted for different purposes at significant different prices.

One spray was $3.99. The exact same formula by the same company was $7.99.
The difference was one was a general use spray with a list of bugs it worked on. The other was in a black can with an ominous looking picture of a giant flea. They know someone with a bad flea problem will be more inclined to pay more.

I once took a course in marketing. One of the lectures was a former CBS advertising guy retired. He made millions after retiring selling everyday things for different purposes.

I remember one that was just a fold up cardboard box. He had them made and printed to look like wood grain. He called them Stackables. You got like 5 in a package and could stack them for storage.

Another was some amber glasses he marketed as driving glasses. I don't know what their original use was but he got his hands on like 10,000 for pennies a pair. They sold out from a small ad in TVGuide.

 

[buckshotshoey]

Speciality products like that are most often repurposed existing products. A product called "After-Bite" for bug bites is just about a pennies worth baking soda and ammonia in a magic marker. It sells for around $7.99.

The famous Magic Eraser is just malamine foam used as speaker insulation. Then someone discovered it's amazing ability to clean and a product was born.

I doubt Aramith commissioned a group of chemists to create their ball cleaner. They just buy it from chemical company and have it packeted for them. That is not to say it is not good, just not special.

It's funny sometimes what companies do. I was in home Depot looking at bug spray. I was reading labels and found a lot of deceptions. You find the exact formula by the same company touted for different purposes at significant different prices.

One spray was $3.99. The exact same formula by the same company was $7.99.
The difference was one was a general use spray with a list of bugs it worked on. The other was in a black can with an ominous looking picture of a giant flea. They know someone with a bad flea problem will be more inclined to pay more.

I once took a course in marketing. One of the lectures was a former CBS advertising guy retired. He made millions after retiring selling everyday things for different purposes.

I remember one that was just a fold up cardboard box. He had them made and printed to look like wood grain. He called them Stackables. You got like 5 in a package and could stack them for storage.

Another was some amber glasses he marketed as driving glasses. I don't know what their original use was but he got his hands on like 10,000 for pennies a pair. They sold out from a small ad in TVGuide.

And sometimes they just change the formula slightly to avoid patenting rights. For instance in your example, use 6% ammonia instead of 5.5%. Or just have it made in China were they dont give a damn about copyrights or patents.

Not that this is the case for Saluc...but theoretically possible. They likely used base products developed for the automotive industry and used them in their own formulation. This is the more likely scenario.

 

[middleofnowhere]

And sometimes they just change the formula slightly to avoid patenting rights. For instance in your example, use 6% ammonia instead of 5.5%. Or just have it made in China were they dont give a damn about copyrights or patents.

Not that this is the case for Saluc...but theoretically possible. They likely used base products developed for the automotive industry and used them in their own formulation. This is the more likely scenario.

Yea, they start with something that is almost there and add one little tweak for an added attribute. After-Bite just took something everybody knows you put on insect bites. They though put it on a convieant container. It's been on the market for like 50 years.

 

[Bob Jewett]

.... Dont see how any automotive polish or wax can too them. ...

The products, which I seem to still have, were Turtle Wax rubbing compound and "Super Hard Shell".

The surface of the balls is super important for throw. It is where all the throw happens. That is the microscopic layer on the outside of the ball. If the cleaning process screws up that very thin surface, throw will be different. I did not expect throw to increase for those products, but it did.

As for the polydimethylsiloxane mentioned above, it is also known as "dimethicone" in skin lotions. Just the thing for dry, chapped, ....

 

[Fatboy]

I guess "comparable" is the problem. I've used car products on scungy balls with beautiful but bad results. They ended up with two or three times normal throw.

Juicing up the balls!!!

that’s a real thing for sure. All sorts of fun shots become possible. Not good for play-for trick shots can be fun

best
Fatboy