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16-Feb-2004
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#1 |
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Tree herder
 
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(Mis)adventures With Limescale
Over the last couple of weekends I have tried out 3 different limescale removal methods. The results are far from what I had hoped, but I will post them anyway. They may serve as a starting point for someone else's trials.
The first thing I tried was cream of tartar. I read in an old bonsai magazine that this method works well, so I thought I'd give it a go. I filled a bucket with warm (not hot) water and added cream of tartar. The cream of tartar can be bought in most supermarkets, usually in the bakery section. The pot I used was 140g. The water stayed cloudy. Looking back I probably didn't stir it for long enough. I will post some photos of the "before" pots. Pot 1:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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(Mis)adventures With Limescale |
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16-Feb-2004
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#2 |
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Tree herder
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"before" pot 2:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#3 |
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Tree herder
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"before" pot 3:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#4 |
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Tree herder
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I put these 3 pots in the bucket and left it out overnight and all the next day (ice had formed overnight). After 24 hours I took the pots out and was reasonably impressed with the results...
"after 24 hours" pot1:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#5 |
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Tree herder
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"after" 24 hours pot 2:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#6 |
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Tree herder
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"after 24 hours" pot 3:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#7 |
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Tree herder
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As you can see a lot of the limescale has come off but what is left has become kind of crystallised. I put these 3 pots back in for another 24 hours thinking that would clean then up but they came out no different, ie still small deposits of hardcore limescale.
So, I mixed up another batch. This time I used nearly boiling water in the bucket, which enable the cream of tartar powder to dissolve completely. The water was clear. After 24 hours soaking, to my horror all the pots had massive widespread crystalline deposits all over them! I puzzled for a while, and all I can figure out is that the near boiling water allowed me to make a saturated solution. If I remember my school chemistry right, when you cool a saturated solution the dissolved compound crystallises out as deposits. Here is a typical sample.
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#8 |
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Tree herder
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These crystalline cream of tartar deposits proved quite stubborn... very hot water and a scrubbing brush got most of it off... but not all.
I then decided to try the second method, which was vinegar. I mixed up a 20% solution of distilled white vinegar (1 bottle of vinegar, 4 bottles of hot water). Iselected 2 new pots for this test, the 3 pots from the first test also went in. "vinegar before" pot:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#9 |
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Tree herder
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The vinegar was not as immediately effective as the first batch of cream of tartar. It took 4 days to soak off the remaining deposits on the first 3 cream of tartar pots, and 7 days to shift the deposits on the blue pot.
"vinegar after" pot:
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk |
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16-Feb-2004
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#10 |
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Tree herder
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Here are the first 3 pots again, after cream of tartar for 3 days and vinegar for another 4 days and the application of my secret method 3 (see below...
 )
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"Do not be hasty, that is my motto" -JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers. ----------------------------------- christopherguise.co.uk Last edited by Treebeard : 16-Feb-2004 at 07:24 PM. |
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