mold forms on cords, knobs, and tool handles

[Brian Berg]

Your explanation makes more semse than "mold". The OP did not say
what type of handles or tools were/were not affected, or if the tools
were in a dark airless corner or out in plain sight, etc, so we really
need more information.

Wow. The real Jeff Liebermann (two n's and i-before-e) on alt.home.repair.

I'm impressed. You're the expert in the SC mountains for wireless radio.
Glad to have you here.

I am VERY FAMILIAR with this persistent "white stuff".
I have no idea WHAT it is - but I have it too.

It's either a chemical coating or it's a mold-like growth.
It does seem to be hugely persistent, in that if you don't scrape it
away, it will last (seemingly unchanged) forever.

I remember segregating my white-coated tools a while ago, but I no
longer do that once I manually scraped them (mostly) clean.

I seem to remember that the white stuff "infected" other tools, but,
it's no longer doing that (after twenty years). But, that white stuff
you see in this photo is easily twenty years old!
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/12297573/img/12297573.jpg

It had coated that screwdriver handle with a white persistent but
powdery on the outside surface coating just like the picture the OP
posted over here:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/plastic-rot.jpg

I considered throwing the screwdrivers away, but, my sense of
tool preservation had me soak that screwdriver maybe 15 years ago
in all sorts of horrid solvents (acetone, bleach, acid, etc.) in
my attempts to clean it off.

If anyone actually KNOWS what this white stuff is, I'd be curious!

 

[Sjouke Burry]

My shop is in my basement, which has always seemed to be a very dry
floor. However, about 4% of my cords, my spare radio and tv knobs,
and the handles of my tools get a think layer of some sort of mold on
them. It's like a grey dust. (Or some other light color, I forget.)

I wasg them in the dishwasher and they come out clean, but once in the
basement again, after a few months, U notice that the same ones have
mold. And the rest never get mold.

I suppose I could just ignore this, since it doesn't spread, but I
wonder if any of you have ideas. No other part of my house is neat
or clean, but the shop is the most important place, and I'd like it to
be clean.

Thanks.

Dont touch the utils with greasy fingers.
That feeds the mould.

 

[Brian Berg]

I assure you that it's plastic, not spores.

Well, you're famous for having the right answer in the electrical
realm, so, I would have to give you the benefit of the doubt in
the mechanical.

It doesn't grow. Therefore, it's not mold.

True. It just sort of sits there. Minding its own business.

Grumble. That's my picture and I'm NOT the OP.

Ooops. Sorry about that. Your picture, as always, was perfectly apropos!
Too bad the OP didn't have the skills you have for Internet nntp work.

Come to think of it, VERY FEW people have your skills. You've helped
me quite a few times (under various nyms) on the wireless side, what
with that lousy set of WISPS in the SC mountains (yea, Brett, you know
him as I do. He's nice enough - but he's too busy and harried to give
you the technical time of day, and Dave, well, I'm glad I dropped
them).

The only things that actually directly attacked the white stuff were
mild plastic solvents. However, anything that dissolved the white
stuff, also attacked the plastic handle, so that's not a good fix.

I seem to remember I soaked mine in a variety of nasty solvents,
none of which worked - and then - about 10 years ago (or so, as I
don't really remember), I just scraped them clean. Have been that
way ever since.

Send it to a pathology lab and see what they say.

I wish I had the following 'scopes ...
a) microscope
b) oscilloscope
c) telescope

 

[Brian Berg]

Take some dilute hydrochloric acid (Muriatic Acid or pool chlorine), and
smear it on the plastic rot. If it fizzes and belches gases, it's
calcium carbonate.

I'll try that tomorrow as I have tons of pool acid (HCl).

Like you, I'll take a relevant picture, and let the world know the
results.

 

[Brian Berg]

Dont touch the utils with greasy fingers.
That feeds the mould.

If it is mold, I doubt shop grease would feed it as I
don't think anything has evolved to eat grease just yet.
Wait a few thousand years, and I'm sure they will.

Now, if you meant oily fingers (from human sebum), I'm
sure LOTS of organisms find that yummy.

 

[Brian Berg]

You're not getting my microscope:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/slides/Olympus-BHC-Microscope.html>

Heh heh. That's a nice microscope with a nice oscilloscope in the background!

 

[Brian Berg]

You can have mutant oil eating bacteria today:

I hadn't realized they were that advanced!

 

[micky]

My adult daughters say the same about me :-(

My mother eventually began, when I was over 40 she said it outloud,,
to believe that I would do whatever she told me not to do. After I
noticed this, I asked her, So if I do what you tell me not to do, why
do you keep telling me not to do these things? She didn't have an
answer, but afaict she didnt' stop either.

 

[willshak]

Brian Berg wrote the following on 2/27/2013 3:45 PM (ET):

That's exactly my experience.
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/12297573/img/12297573.jpg

The plastic on the handles was coated with a thin white layer
which I could scrape off with a sharp tool (the results in
that picture are of a screwdriver scraped years ago, but some
of the persistent white stuff is still on the handle, in spots).

I don't know WHAT it is!

I have some hard spots on my tool handles like that, but I know what it is.
It is remnants of paint that may have been on my hands when I used the
tool while painting, like removing face plates off switches and outlets,
or other uses of the tool while painting.

 

[willshak]

Brian Berg wrote the following on 2/28/2013 1:24 AM (ET):

I hadn't realized they were that advanced!

Who?

 

[micky]

Maybe a photo will help:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/plastic-rot.jpg>
This is a drawer from my steel Craftsman toolbox that I don't use very
often. The white stuff is the alleged "mold". Note that it's on two
of the handles, but not the others.

Yes, the yellow one has the most. I t hink my yellow ones are most
likely to have this and when they do, they have the most. The one
screwdriver that reminded me of this has a yellow plastic handle.
(The other two things t hat reminded me a couple days ago where jumper
wires with banana plugs, blue and green, but that's soft vinyl and not
hard plastic. ......))

The larger tools are made by
Vaco. The blue and the yellow handles are covered with the stuff.
However, the other handles, from the same manufacturer, are pitted,
but untouched. That's because they previously were cleaned and coated
with a very thin layer of Krylon clear acrylic. I'm not sure why the
blue and yellow handles are affected.

Maybe because one is yellow? I just based a whole paragraph on that!

 

[micky]

That's EXACTLY what this screwdriver USED to look like!
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/12297573/img/12297573.jpg

So, whatever it is, it's common.

Yes, I'm glad to learn about that. I thought I was so alone (boohoo).

Again, I don't know if it is a mold or a chemical.
It does NOT happen to all tools of the same type.

It just happens to select tools which were stored in a
different environment (I think my affected screwdrivers
were used when I worked at a hospital on oxygen respirators).

In my case, I'll have 20 tools in a drawer, or 15 little tools in an
inbox, and only a few get "moldy". I have to take some time later
today to see how many are yellow.

In addition, the box of knobs is two boxes actually, in the same
drawer of an old dresser. Theyr'e almost all brown or black, and
I'll have to check if the moldy ones are all on top, or the bottom or
something, but I don't recall that being the case. And only some get
moldy.

The tooks and knobs have all spent 100% of their time in the previous
year or years in the same room in my basement.

IOW, the environments are the same

 

[micky]

Wow. The real Jeff Liebermann (two n's and i-before-e) on alt.home.repair.

That's only because I crossposted to alt.home.repair and
sci.electronics.repair. If you want more of him, you have to go
to the second ng.

I've long wished there was an easy way to tell which ng someone is
posting from. I once put in my .sig, "probably posting from nnnnn",
"probably" because I also read the other group directly sometimes, but
it disappeared with a liater installation of Agent.

I'm impressed. You're the expert in the SC mountains for wireless radio.

Wow, I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't crossposted.

Glad to have you here.

I am VERY FAMILIAR with this persistent "white stuff".
I have no idea WHAT it is - but I have it too.

It's either a chemical coating or it's a mold-like growth.
It does seem to be hugely persistent, in that if you don't scrape it
away, it will last (seemingly unchanged) forever.

Interestingly, I don't have to scrape mine off. I can brush it off
with my finger, or a paper towel iirc. Of course that doesn't apply
when it's in a crevice or crack.

 

[Brian Berg]

Maybe because one is yellow?

Mine are on craftsman tools, which are not yellow.

 

[micky]

Dont touch the utils with greasy fingers.
That feeds the mould.

And it left holes in m fingers too. LOL.

 

[micky]

Well, you're famous for having the right answer in the electrical
realm, so, I would have to give you the benefit of the doubt in
the mechanical.


True. It just sort of sits there. Minding its own business.


Ooops. Sorry about that. Your picture, as always, was perfectly apropos!
Too bad the OP didn't have the skills you have for Internet nntp work.

Huh? Because I chose not to post a picture, I don't have the news
skills Jeff has? That's no wayi to draw conclusions.

You should learn to praise someone without having to run down someone
else.

 

[micky]

The white rot is plastic, not mold. So it is written, so it must be.

I scraped some of the white stuff from the plastic handle and put it
under a x100 microscope.
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/white-plastic-rot/>
Not the best photos but I'll try again after yet another Friday night
customer crisis. The photos show absolutely no structure, self
simularity, or colonies characteristic of mold.
<https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=mold>

The nutdriver is yellow!!

I also heated some of the white stuff on a microscope slide. It
melted like plastic (burning my fingers in the process). The white
stuff also disolved nicely in acetone.

And so I gather will the nut driver handle.

Drivel: Besides the Mercedes fuel pump, todays repairs were a
Bernzomatic trigger start propane torch (cold flow PTFE igniter wire),
an iPhone 4 with a non-functional standby push button (I gave up), yet
another HP LaserJet 4250 printer with sticky relays (replace felt
pad), and helped mount the landlords bicycle rack on his SUV.
Sometimes, I wonder what business I'm in.

Yes, you certainly deal with a wide range of stuff. What business ARE
you in?

-
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

For a while my home phone was broken and my cell phone was lost (in
the house) and I was using Skype to call out.

I didn't sign up for a Skype phone number yet, however. If someone
calls when I'm not there, can the caller leave a message, or at least
his phone number??

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Sometimes, I wonder what business I'm in.

That's pretty obvious to those that follow you here.

About three years ago you retired, but like a character in an M. Knight
Shamalan movie, you refuse to notice.



Geoff.

 

[The Daring Dufas]

Well, the standard answer is that I'm in business to do business. When
about 30% of my gross income is tangled up with taxes and 50% in
overhead, the business end of the repair biz is far more important
than the individual repair jobs.

Many years ago, when I was still pretending to listen to advice, I was
warned against over specialization. 40+ years later, I've noticed
that my classmates, that entered into overly specialized areas, have
either priced themselves out of the market, have had their specialty
simply disappear, or have been outsourced into oblivion. I'm not
suggesting that one should try to learn anything and everything, just
not to become overly dependent on one particular skill. Were I still
an RF engineer, designing various radios, I would either be
simultaneously doing 3 peoples jobs for a tolerable pay, or standing
in the unemployment line awaiting my government entitlement.


Not quite. I retired in 1983, but didn't know it. I had just been
laid off from an engineering position and decided that engineering
management and my abrasive personality were mutually exclusive. Since
then, I've experimented with numerous businesses and professions, with
the usual wide variations in success. Unfortunately, I'm getting
sufficient old and tired that such changes and product ideas are not
going to work well in the future.

There comes a time in a mans life where he becomes so intolerant of
being in the employ of actinic sphincters that the he fears life in
prison for stomping the asshole until he quits twitching. I've had to
hide my crowbars whenever some of them got around me so I decided the
risk was too great and abandoned the corporate world for a life of
independent contracting. ^_^

TDD

 

[The Daring Dufas]

You were only six when you did that. ;-)

That's when I was remanded to the Catholic Parochial Gulag back in the
50's and introduced to Sister Godzilla. Child care was based on sheer
terror back then. That's why I don't like folks who mistreat kids. When
I was six, I decided all adults were full of crap, the mistake I made
was letting the nuns know it.

TDD