Has anybody out there tried eyeglass cleaner? I understand it works very well.
The truth about Cleaning/waxing/polishing balls and Aramith cleaner
- Thread starter Pool Shark420
- Start date
It's simply extremely fine grit silicon carbide abrasive specifically made to polish acrylic plastics. You need to talk to your local Industrial Tool Distributor to get the stuff. I don't really know the grit size but it's so fine it looks and feels like baby powder.
The guy that used toothpaste used a similar grit size. You can't feel it but it's there. Toothpaste is sometimes recommended to polish out minor scratches in plastic.
What I do is make my own cleaner which is similar to a mixture of a Simple Green type cleaner and a the abrasive.
The best way I've found to clean balls is with a bench grinder fitted with 4 or 5 cotton wheels and rouge formulated for plastic. Yes this does wear the balls down over time but even when cleaned a couple of times a day it takes well over a year before it's measurable, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/4 mm. I've seen this difference in brand new balls.
I'm glad that you posted this information. I had a friend ask me about putting his set of Centennials in his dish washer and I told him it didn't sound like a good idea and now after reading your post i'm sure it wasn't a good idea.
James
A stupid story with a good outcome.
At one point I decided to remove the wax from my ten year old Centennials. I used a commercial floor wax remover in a bucket with all 16 balls. Much to my chagrin all of the balls had a bad yellowish cast after their hot bath. For the next week I tried everything I cold think of to restore the original color. Nothing worked. I set the balls aside and bought a new set of Super Aramith balls. I few months later I learned about Aramith ball cleaner and thought I would try to clean the Cenntenials with my new home made high speed bucket polisher (the one I burned out) using Aramith Ball cleaner. After about five passes (I noticed a little change each time). I found that Aramih Ball cleaner restored the balls to the original color and now I have my Cenntenials back again.
I have found that because the Aramith cleaner is like toothpaste it leaves a residue on my mechanical ball cleaner that has to be removed with a brush on a periodic basis. So I have shifted to Pledge Furniture Polish for normal day to day use. The Aramith is kept in reserve for really dirty balls. The results obtained from Pledge and from Aramith are very similar. However, Aramith is a much better product for “deep” cleaning. It seems to work better than any of many other methods I used to get those yellow stains out.
When using the mechanical polisher the Pledge is the inital cleaner / polisher. It quickly rubs off in the machine and the balls are highly polished with very little, if any, wax. BTW I suspect, but have not tried it, that Aramith could be thinned out and used with good results. Perhaps this is better as it contains the abrasives.
At one point I decided to remove the wax from my ten year old Centennials. I used a commercial floor wax remover in a bucket with all 16 balls. Much to my chagrin all of the balls had a bad yellowish cast after their hot bath. For the next week I tried everything I cold think of to restore the original color. Nothing worked. I set the balls aside and bought a new set of Super Aramith balls. I few months later I learned about Aramith ball cleaner and thought I would try to clean the Cenntenials with my new home made high speed bucket polisher (the one I burned out) using Aramith Ball cleaner. After about five passes (I noticed a little change each time). I found that Aramih Ball cleaner restored the balls to the original color and now I have my Cenntenials back again.
I have found that because the Aramith cleaner is like toothpaste it leaves a residue on my mechanical ball cleaner that has to be removed with a brush on a periodic basis. So I have shifted to Pledge Furniture Polish for normal day to day use. The Aramith is kept in reserve for really dirty balls. The results obtained from Pledge and from Aramith are very similar. However, Aramith is a much better product for “deep” cleaning. It seems to work better than any of many other methods I used to get those yellow stains out.
When using the mechanical polisher the Pledge is the inital cleaner / polisher. It quickly rubs off in the machine and the balls are highly polished with very little, if any, wax. BTW I suspect, but have not tried it, that Aramith could be thinned out and used with good results. Perhaps this is better as it contains the abrasives.
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hi
good post royce ,exactly use the aramith ball polish once a day and they play perfect.
thats what should be used at every tourney and gambling match.
the world would be a better place aramith ball cleaner could stop world hunger,violence ,war etc its such good stuff.
p.s. the obcues rock, love mine .keep up the good work big pimp
good post royce ,exactly use the aramith ball polish once a day and they play perfect.
thats what should be used at every tourney and gambling match.
the world would be a better place aramith ball cleaner could stop world hunger,violence ,war etc its such good stuff.
p.s. the obcues rock, love mine .keep up the good work big pimp
All well and good but I sure would like to see a scientific comparison of Aramith and Pledge.
Dave Nelson
Dave Nelson
I use the Aramith ball cleaner by hand every 40 hours of play or so. That's about once a month for me on the home table. It gets all the marks off of them and is what the manufacturer recommends. Expensive stuff, but if you use it once a month a bottle will last for years. You could do the cue ball more often since it takes 15 times the beating the other balls take (unless you insist on playing nine ball with the first nine balls - why bother at home?).
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Neither mention it in their MSDS but it's obvious that there's at least some D-Lemonene in both products. That's the cleaner component and citrus smell. Pledge doesn't have abrasives.
hi
again royce good point, balls brand new out of box will not need polishing.
but after a week they need it.the wpa i think knows that but are talking tourney play with brand new balls.
the thing i dont understand is how many different ways people are trying to clean the balls.
forget everthing else and use aramith polish,it has the micro abrasive to get the scratches out and probably a tiny bit of wax which makes them play great just long enough for a couple tourney matches anyway.
i wouldnt be worried about wearing the balls out either by polishing them.
i mean hell people will go through 12 golf balls in a round that cost 50 dollars
but want to find a way to have pool balls last 10 years .
you have to give a little if you want to polish them which makes them play great.they might only last 3-5 years but so what.
so if we have to buy a new set of ball every 2 years to have great playing conditions so be it.
in closing take it from someone whos tried everything to make the balls play right ,just use aramith polish it is perfect.
again royce good point, balls brand new out of box will not need polishing.
but after a week they need it.the wpa i think knows that but are talking tourney play with brand new balls.
the thing i dont understand is how many different ways people are trying to clean the balls.
forget everthing else and use aramith polish,it has the micro abrasive to get the scratches out and probably a tiny bit of wax which makes them play great just long enough for a couple tourney matches anyway.
i wouldnt be worried about wearing the balls out either by polishing them.
i mean hell people will go through 12 golf balls in a round that cost 50 dollars
but want to find a way to have pool balls last 10 years .
you have to give a little if you want to polish them which makes them play great.they might only last 3-5 years but so what.
so if we have to buy a new set of ball every 2 years to have great playing conditions so be it.
in closing take it from someone whos tried everything to make the balls play right ,just use aramith polish it is perfect.
soap and water then finish 2001
At first I just washed with soap and water. Then I noticed a lot of tiny scratches on the surface. Which I think collected chalk dust faster and started to effect throw contact. Then I found this old bottle of car wax called finish 2001. It is a urethane based product. Wow what a difference. Someday I will make one of those 5 gal. paint bucket polishers.
At first I just washed with soap and water. Then I noticed a lot of tiny scratches on the surface. Which I think collected chalk dust faster and started to effect throw contact. Then I found this old bottle of car wax called finish 2001. It is a urethane based product. Wow what a difference. Someday I will make one of those 5 gal. paint bucket polishers.
Wow!
OK,
You guys got me thinking about polish and I remembered that I had successfully used Brasso on my wife's car to buff out the scratches and dullness on the plastic headlight covers, so...
I pulled out an old cue ball and tried Brasso on it, and...
It worked great!
Nice thing is that Brasso can be found at any grocery store and it must be safe on plastic because it says right on the can that you can use it on plastic watch faces.
OK,
You guys got me thinking about polish and I remembered that I had successfully used Brasso on my wife's car to buff out the scratches and dullness on the plastic headlight covers, so...
I pulled out an old cue ball and tried Brasso on it, and...
It worked great!
Nice thing is that Brasso can be found at any grocery store and it must be safe on plastic because it says right on the can that you can use it on plastic watch faces.
Vinnie, you must be a Marine and polished one too many belt buckles, drinking fountains, etc. :grin-square:
Brassso is great stuff for deep cleaning. Probably takes out scratches too.
I switched to Pledge because it does not leave a residue in my cleaner and I am definitely lazy. Geese I sound like an ad. Next post will contain a photo with the bottle held up next to my face. Oh, wait a minute, I am ugly so I will need to find a good looking woman to work with me. I can rationalize as well as the next guy.
Brassso is great stuff for deep cleaning. Probably takes out scratches too.
I switched to Pledge because it does not leave a residue in my cleaner and I am definitely lazy. Geese I sound like an ad. Next post will contain a photo with the bottle held up next to my face. Oh, wait a minute, I am ugly so I will need to find a good looking woman to work with me. I can rationalize as well as the next guy.
Can someone post up some images of their home made ball polisher and tell how you made it?
Can someone post up some images of their home made ball polisher and tell how you made it?
You'll want to use the search function here, as this topic has had good threads.
Here is a link to my store where I sell my home made polisher. http://www.sunburstselect.com/PBReview/PaStore.htm. Send me a PM with your email address and I'll send the plans (no charge for anyone on AZB). The file is 2.3 MB (lots of pictures) so you need an address that can accept a big file. Mreightball (here on AZB) has revised and I think his is probably better.
Link to long thread with many ball polishers http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=71033 You need to wade through the whole thread as there have been several excellent revisions by many different people.
Link to mreightball's machinehttp://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=137734
Link to long thread with many ball polishers http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=71033 You need to wade through the whole thread as there have been several excellent revisions by many different people.
Link to mreightball's machinehttp://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=137734
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heres mine dude!....I still think I made the first one!
check the post date.http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=26463&highlight=ball+cleaner
I still use it today.....
G.