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Removing Funk from a long sunken disc

Timeetyo

Double Eagle Member
Bronze level trusted reviewer
Joined
Jan 23, 2014
Messages
1,360
Location
Albion, NY
I recently recovered a disc that spent a long, long time submerged (star teebird). After cleaning it up (and calling the number - told to keep it) - it is just ripe with a nasty swamp smell that I can't shake. I've tried time in the sun outside, I've tried lots of soap & water. As it is now the entire room it sits in is just ripe. Any ideas?
 
Febreeze?

I'm unsure about that...perhaps it should be stored outside and used exclusively for those shots where water could be an issue!
 
baking soda concoction and lemon juice.... i dont know. Just made that up, but maybe it will work
 
You could try denture cleaner. Put the disk in a shallow pan and drop a couple of tabs in. It's a trick we used to use cleaning funky gunk off glass and plastic. Might work for you, the cheap generic brands work fine.
 
sodium or calcium hypochlorite, should not effect stamp or plastic. first thing I do when I make a big hall from the local water hole is a nice chlorine bath.
 
If you can't get rid of the smell, toss it in the trash and don't store it with other discs. The plastic is degrading from the bacteria and other microbes in the pond, releasing some nasty fumes in the process.
 
I let mine soak in the sink submerged with a lot of Dawn added in. Let soak for 10-15 minutes, then dry em.off and let the discs air dry for a day. The stank and funk will come out.
 
Stank and funk might be stuck my man. I have a buzzz that still smells like pond scum. It doesn't look nasty, just has this smell like it has been sittin in water for 2 years.

You might be able do diminish the smell, but from what you are describing, it sounds rank, it might be stuck in there. I tried a handful of things to remove the smell, but none worked. I soaked it overnight in numerous concoctions, and scrubbed it to no avail.

Good luck though, especially a teebird.....one of the best discs ever made.
 
Likely it is microbes or bacteria making the stink. If that is the case then you need to use something that will kill them off. Four options come to mind: Hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, bleach, and acetone.

Hydrogen peroxide is the least potent of the 4 and will probably bubble quite a bit if there's organics in the disc. The bubbles will kill whatever bacteria and such on the disc but this may not penetrate the disc unless left in for a long time. Very safe to breathe and touch.

Alcohol is a little more potent and is probably not going to affect the stamp. Also safe to breath and touch. Submerge for an hour or 2. Flammable.

Bleach MUST be diluted (try about 5% bleach diluted in 95% water) and a 5 - 20 min soak should make them clean enough to eat off of. Do not touch the concentrated bleach and keep the concentrated bleach away from your discs. Keep skin exposure to bleach solution to a minimum (rinse hands after you grab the disc out of the diluted solution).

Acetone is by far the most powerful solvent/liquid I mentioned. Acetone will work its way into the plastic and kill off anything living in there smelling. Acetone will FOR SURE melt the stamp on the disc if you wipe it or submerge it so pay heed! But if you carefully go around the outside and underside you will have very clean discs. Try to keep skin exposure to a minimum and you will probably want to do this in a ventilated area (unless you are weird like me and love the smell).

I saw Febreeze mentioned in a link to the archives...I highly recommend you don't use that poison anywhere you or your loved ones are going to be breathing.
 
Leave it in a shallow pool of laundry detergent with febreeze in it.

That's the technique I use for disc dyes and my discs always have a lasting febreeze smell, for like a month afterward.
 
Use some baking soda. It does a fantastic job getting the pond scum marks off the disc, and after all, you probably already use it in your fridge to get rid of odors, so it makes sense to trust it on your discs as well.
 
Vinegar? Maybe submerging it in a small bath of vinegar would do it?
 
If you can't get rid of the smell, toss it in the trash and don't store it with other discs. The plastic is degrading from the bacteria and other microbes in the pond, releasing some nasty fumes in the process.

Follow this advice and throw it away. Most TPE's are hygroscopic, meaning all that juicy goodness is soaked all the way through to the core. No short term solution is ever gonna make it smell decent, its only gonna funkify everything it gets near.
If it was ridiculously hard plastic, like the old dimple discs from Dynamic, it might be saveable, but anything else, no.
 

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