Batboard

The white mobile palm mics tend to get pretty dingy and dirty over time. Does anyone know how to restore them to their pearly brightness without having to replace the plastic? I've tried Simple Green, Windex, regular soap and water, etc. with no results.

Thanks!

Jim

Try using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Those things work on almost anything. They work great for cleaning up palm mics.

I have always used 409 and found it to work fairly well. You might have to rinse it off
before your done. This would be the same with what ever product you choose.

Jim

4n6inv wrote:The white mobile palm mics tend to get pretty dingy and dirty over time. Does anyone know how to restore them to their pearly brightness without having to replace the plastic? I've tried Simple Green, Windex, regular soap and water, etc. with no results.

Thanks!

Jim

I use simple green..If you can find it .. and a old soft toothbrush..If its yellowed from sitting in a smokers car it gets into the plastic..then its realllyy tough to get clean.

I didn't have much luck with Simple Green, except to get off the really nasty exterior grime. When they've gotten yellow and dingy; I haven't found anything that will work. I haven't tried the Mr. Clean option; but I will, and report back. I have over 100 mics that were taken out of service and are in excellent condition except for being discolored.

I've used Krud Kutter from Home Depot / Lowes many times. All i would do is take it apart, soak it for a while, and reassemble after scrubbing it. Another thing we have kicking around is "Bulldog". This stuff takes the edge off broken glass, which i also recommend gloves for...it's a nasty base solution and does a number on hands and raw skin, but it makes your whites whiter.

Take them apart, remove the electronics, mic element, etc, and run them through the dishwasher. Problem solved.

I've tried all except running them through the dishwasher with no appreciable success, other than removing surface grime. Hell; pretty much anything will do that. What I was wanting to do was to restore them to the original glossy, white luster, but nothing seems to do that without oxidizing the finish, removing the blue "M" or the lettering on the mic and making them look like counterfeits. Thanks for the ideas, though.

Once the plastic itself is discolored I don't think there's much you can do about it. You could try bleaching them, not sure what effect that would have on the plastic. You could also try a fine abrasive to take off the surface layer down to the white part, then clear coat it. Hopefully you've got a couple of broken ones you can experiment on, I wouldn't try these things on a good one.

Alternatively you could paint them, call them designer mics and charge a premium. Red for firemen, blue for police, maybe some camoflage patterns or stone textures... think of the possibilities! If you make them bright flourescent yellow I'm sure there are a few batlabbers that would love to buy one

There used to be a Red with a white grill motrac for Illinois State police and a yellow with black for Illinois MERCI medical radios. Ive seen a Blue/green color too..

jackhackett wrote:Aternatively you could paint them, call them designer mics and charge a premium. Red for firemen, blue for police, maybe some camoflage patterns or stone textures... think of the possibilities! If you make them bright flourescent yellow I'm sure there are a few batlabbers that would love to buy one

Yeah, some of the BatKids around here would eat those up!