SOLD Snapper Sunday Sale (5 Viewers)

[Forty4]

I was talking to my neighbor this morning about devising a method that involves a cutting compound, drill attachment and plywood holes to hold the chips in place with something to keep them from spinning. Thinking about using an appropriate sized hole saw to cut the holes across the entire piece of plywood, get the compound on the pad with the drill and go to town. I don’t see why it wouldn’t get the job done if the speed on the drill is controlled. Just dip it into a bucket of water when the pad has too much film on it, and go to town with the compound again.

Anybody see any flaws in this process? Gonna have to try it later today.

Want some sort of neoprene pad or foam under the chip to prevent the chip from just spinning with the drill.

 

[Forty4]

Has anyone ever tried baking soda in an ultrasonic?

 

[Jake14mw]

Any suggestions on which one to try?

 

[Tienou59]

question when you're all talking about "dawn cleaning solution" is this a detergent or degreaser ?
ty

 

[staggs]

question when you're all talking about "dawn cleaning solution" is this a detergent or degreaser ?
ty

I was talking about Dawn dish soap. I am still learning as I go. Right now I am using simple green concentrate. 1 chip at a time. 1 minute on each side. The chip is directly over the ultrasonic emitter. This gets all of the stuff off. The only issue I’m having is the chips are not as vibrant as that one I did yesterday. The simple green ones and some dawn ones look great. But for some reason, that one chip i did yesterday is more vibrant. I have a theory as to why. I will do more testing and figure it out.

 

[BigChief]

Just finished my first round of cleaning on rack #1. I am using an ultrasonic with distilled water at 30 Celsius and Dawn detergent for 8 minutes. The first batch of 20 came out great! Two chips needed a little extra time. Without changing the water, I did 40 more. The results were not nearly as good. Out of 40, 30 needed extra time. I am using the salad spinner with zip ties and moving the chips frequently.

So, it looks like smaller batches with fresh water/Dawn is the trick.

 

[PokerDots]

Just finished my first round of cleaning on rack #1. I am using an ultrasonic with distilled water at 30 Celsius and Dawn detergent for 8 minutes. The first batch of 20 came out great! Two chips needed a little extra time. Without changing the water, I did 40 more. The results were not nearly as good. Out of 40, 30 needed extra time. I am using the salad spinner with zip ties and moving the chips frequently.

So, it looks like smaller batches with fresh water/Dawn is the trick.

Any pics?

 

[Colquhoun]

Since you guys have mentioned a mild abrasive like a cutting compound, I’ve been wondering if Bar Keeper’s Friend would do anything. It’s a fine abrasive, with an acid...incredible on stainless steel.

 

[TeamNapoli]

@Jake14mw this is only an opinion but i would go with the polishing compound that scratch X is mostly a filler wax polish

 

[Jake14mw]

Okay, I am going to stop cleaning these for a while and see how others do and see what the consensus best method is. I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner and won't be getting one. I hope people keep posting what works for them so we can all save some time. My experience so far:

• Cleaning with just dawn and a rag does almost nothing
• Cleaning with magic eraser works reasonably well. I would say working on each chip for about a minute or so gets about 70% of the gunk off
• I tried using polishing compound and a microfiber cloth. I would say this works, but was less effective for me than the magic eraser.
• The edges are surprising tough to get clean

Uncleaned group on the left, cleaned with magic eraser on the right

Uncleaned left, magic eraser cleaned on the right

Messy workstation

2 barrels on the left uncleaned, 3 on the right cleaned. Still much work to do.

Uncleaned left, cleaned with polishing compound middle, magic eraser right. Doesn't show the differences very well.

 

[ekricket]

Since you guys have mentioned a mild abrasive like a cutting compound, I’ve been wondering if Bar Keeper’s Friend would do anything. It’s a fine abrasive, with an acid...incredible on stainless steel.

This is what I clean my chips with. It eats the goo right off.

 

[boltonguy]

Cleaning chips

 

[Barberp]

Cleaning chipsView attachment 630964

Those the used towels on the right

 

[davislane]

I was talking about Dawn dish soap. I am still learning as I go. Right now I am using simple green concentrate. 1 chip at a time. 1 minute on each side. The chip is directly over the ultrasonic emitter. This gets all of the stuff off. The only issue I’m having is the chips are not as vibrant as that one I did yesterday. The simple green ones and some dawn ones look great. But for some reason, that one chip i did yesterday is more vibrant. I have a theory as to why. I will do more testing and figure it out.
View attachment 630648
View attachment 630649

Any updates?

 

[davislane]

Has anyone tried purpose-made ultrasonic cleaning solutions? Was looking at some made by Elma Tec. They come in a variety of PH's.
https://www.elma-ultrasonic.com/en/products/cleaning-chemistry/elma-tec-clean/

Anyone had any experience using an Acidic or Alkaline purpose-made ultrasonic cleaning solution to clean chips before?

For reference, Dawn dish soap is slightly alkaline, and having a look at the MSDS of some of the cutting compounds mentioned they are also slightly Alkaline. TSP is also Alkaline.

Just curious to know if anyone has used something slightly acidic before and what results people got.

#chipcleaningscience

 

[Colquhoun]

Just curious to know if anyone has used something slightly acidic before and what results people got.

#chipcleaningscience

@ekricket mentioned above he uses Barkeeper’s Friend which contains acid. Enough so that you can smell it (kinda like citrus).

 

[boltonguy]

Just soaking them in very hot water for 5 minutes releases the warpage quite a bit. Only one barrel here was flattened in the oven using ceramic spacers:

 

[Pinkdan]

Just soaking them in very hot water for 5 minutes releases the warpage quite a bit. Only one barrel here was flattened in the oven using ceramic spacers:

View attachment 631565

Did that help get the gunk off too?

 

[boltonguy]

Did that help get the gunk off too?

Not that I noticed. I had already scrubbed them with the cutting compound and wanted to rinse them to get any residue off.
Four of those barrels wouldnt fit in the rack before the hot water. Only 19 would fit in a row. After a few minutes in the very hot to rinse I can fit 20 to a row in a rack. They will still benefit from additional flattening though.

 

[davislane]

Just soaking them in very hot water for 5 minutes releases the warpage quite a bit. Only one barrel here was flattened in the oven using ceramic spacers:

View attachment 631565

interesting. I was wondering to myself if could flatten them in a water bath while clamped to keep a consistent and constant temp. sous vide flattening.

do you know how hot the water was?

 

[Barberp]

interesting. I was wondering to myself if could flatten them in a water bath while clamped to keep a consistent and constant temp. sous vide flattening.

do you know how hot the water was?

i can say with confidence that this will work. i did this with my entire lot and they are all about 99 percent flat.

 

[upNdown]

The edges are surprising tough to get clean

That's the one that surprises me. And it's apparent from all the "cleaned" pictures I've seen in stacks.
The edges are the smoothest surface on the chip apparently - you'd think the magic eraser would work best on the edges

 

[davislane]

i can say with confidence that this will work. i did this with my entire lot and they are all about 99 percent flat.

what do you use exactly? got any pics of your setup?

 

[Colquhoun]

That's the one that surprises me. And it's apparent from all the "cleaned" pictures I've seen in stacks.
The edges are the smoothest surface on the chip apparently - you'd think the magic eraser would work best on the edges

Actually, it does make sense. I did some of those microscope photos a while back and noticed all the fibers embedded throughout a Paulson chip. On the face of the chip, the fibers get compressed down, just a very few emerge from the surface.

But the edges are quite different. Since the chips are trimmed on a lathe, all those fibers are cut on their edges, leaving an almost “furry” appearance under magnification. Those fibers can hold dirt and even stain a different color, so I’m not surprised that the edges are tougher to clean.

i don’t have a photo of the rolling edge, but here are a couple closeups I took of a flea bite on a Bellagio $1 chip. Notice all the fibers:

 

[staggs]

Finally done cleaning. Ended up using dawn platinum in the ultrasonic at around 32-37C. Three chips at a time. Flipping and turning them like steaks. Like others have mentioned, The warm water flattens the chips. But I will still clamp them later to finish them.

The chips are still slightly different shades of pink. I think I’m just going to accept that and move on.

Pre-flattened chips, one barrel

 

[PokerDots]

Finally done cleaning. Ended up using dawn platinum in the ultrasonic at around 32-37C. Three chips at a time. Flipping and turning them like steaks. Like others have mentioned, The warm water flattens the chips. But I will still clamp them later to finish them.

The chips are still slightly different shades of pink. I think I’m just going to accept that and move on.

Pre-flattened chips, one barrel
View attachment 631672

Damnnn these look so good! Congrats!

 

[BigChief]

I’ve had mixed results with the same ultrasonic method as @staggs. Some of the chips are super bright pink and others are still a salmon color. If I rub one of the salmon colored ones with a wet paper towel, yellow color transfers to the paper towel.

Some of the chips have sections that are pink and sections that are salmon! Even though they were laying flat and turned halfway through.

Here is a picture of the three types of chips that have resulted. I have cleaned about 100 chips so far:

 

[davislane]

Finally done cleaning. Ended up using dawn platinum in the ultrasonic at around 32-37C. Three chips at a time. Flipping and turning them like steaks. Like others have mentioned, The warm water flattens the chips. But I will still clamp them later to finish them.

The chips are still slightly different shades of pink. I think I’m just going to accept that and move on.

Pre-flattened chips, one barrel
View attachment 631672
View attachment 631673

how long did you leave them for? are you planning to relabel?

 

[boltonguy]

Finally done cleaning. Ended up using dawn platinum in the ultrasonic at around 32-37C. Three chips at a time. Flipping and turning them like steaks. Like others have mentioned, The warm water flattens the chips. But I will still clamp them later to finish them.

The chips are still slightly different shades of pink. I think I’m just going to accept that and move on.

Pre-flattened chips, one barrel
View attachment 631672
View attachment 631673

How long in the ultrasonic pls? And how much Dawn Platinum / water?

 

[staggs]

I’ve had mixed results with the same ultrasonic method as @staggs. Some of the chips are super bright pink and others are still a salmon color. If I rub one of the salmon colored ones with a wet paper towel, yellow color transfers to the paper towel.

Some of the chips have sections that are pink and sections that are salmon! Even though they were laying flat and turned halfway through.

Here is a picture of the three types of chips that have resulted. I have cleaned about 100 chips so far:

View attachment 631683

Yeah I had to baby mine until I figured out what worked for my ultrasonic cleaner. I ended up doing 2 minutes on each side and rotating them every 40 seconds. Some people on here suggest using a salad tosser.

I also tried a 1:1 ratio of simple green and water. It cleaned faster than dawn but I didn’t like the smell

how long did you leave them for? are you planning to relabel?

4 minutes total for each chip. I did 3 chips at a time. So every 4 minutes 3 chips would be clean.
I plan on doing 25 cent fracs