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+--- Thread: Elastic and ball-point pens. (/showthread.php?tid=8495)
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Elastic and ball-point pens. - DTisme - 05-11-2011
I am amazed how often I throw away ball-point pens here because they've dried up to nothing. And even more amazed how often I find an elastic waistband pau. Today, the foam in one of my swimsuit "bras" disintegrated into a nasty powdered mess. Yet another surprise in the tropics. It's never happened anywhere else I've lived. What gives? Any chemist or physicist out there to explain it?
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - wino - 05-11-2011
I've had the same briefs for more than 10 years and more than 5 here. The elastic is still if fine condition. Only time I ever had a problem in the past was when I didn't know better and used too much bleach. Do you leave your cloths out on the clothes line too long? UV from the sun will do the same as what you describe too.
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - csgray - 05-11-2011
I had the same problem with several very expensive "fancy dress up" skirts that had never been washed with bleach or hung out to dry in the sun, in fact they had never been worn here in Hawaii. I pulled them out of the closet to wear and the waistbands were shot.
Carol
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - Carey - 05-11-2011
It is the double whammy of UV & Acid (VOG) creating degradation & oxidative reactions that break down the carbon-hydrogen bonds! Acid is the best if you want oxidations!
Link to UV degradation of hydrocarbon polymers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_degradation
ETA: The pens? I have noticed they stop earlier, too... but thought that they were made cheaper in the last 5 years....
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - JerryCarr - 05-11-2011
I understand all this (thanks Carey) except the pens. It sure seems like they dry out, but how do they do that in this humidity? Maybe they do make them cheaper.
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - Midnight Rambler - 05-11-2011
It seems like the ink in recent pens is thicker to begin with, and instead of sealing the end of the tube they just leave it open because it can't really leak out (it used to be you'd have to shake a ballpoint to get ink if you'd been storing it nib-up). So the ink is open to the air, and doesn't have as far to go before drying out to uselessness.
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - Radiopeg - 05-12-2011
I think everything is just made more poorly than ever. Maybe a smaller ink tube, so there is less ink? I have had the elastic go useless in swimsuits and waistbands with no bleach, no sun drying, no chlorine or, at least, rinsed after use. Before I moved here.
Life goes on, with you or without you.
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - Carey - 05-12-2011
Believe it or not, the atmospheric acid increase from things like NOx from fossil fuel burning could have an effect on those elastics... & chlorine exposure, even when rinsed, can/does start polymer chain degradation, maybe rinsing slows the rate, but those bonds are broken in the presence of Chlorine! Even the atmospheric increase of ozone in the troposhere (rather than the much more heralded decrease in the stratosphere) can cause bloomers to become unstrung!
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - DTisme - 05-12-2011
Hmmm... at least I'm not the only one. We've been here for almost 2 years. In 2 years I've thrown out like 50 pens. Those pens lasted years and years in calif., but somehow bit the dust when they got here! I do remember, growing up on the east coast of the mainland, going thru pens more - and it's pretty humid there. I don't hang my clothes to dry; I'm too accustomed to the dryer. So it can't be UV and Vog because, in the case of that bathing suit, it was at the bottom of a trunk in the dark for 2 years - like csgray's experience. And yeah, I had some fancy dress-up skirts go pau on me, too! I wore that suit twice -- it never even saw chlorine even, forgot about it, pulled it out of the trunk and found the foam padding disintegrated into dust. This may change as I'm sick of the &^$% electric bill and I know it's mostly from laundry. Still - it IS weird about being more humid and yet the ink drying out.
RE: Elastic and ball-point pens. - Chuysmom - 05-12-2011
LOL @ Wino - you need some new underwear! [
][]Carrie
http://www.sapphiresoap.etsy.com
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future..." Galadriel LOTR