Study: Oxi soak “The Chip Spa” (2 Viewers)

How long do you soak chips in Oxi clean?


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fishsaybloop

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First time cleaning chips so thought I would do a proper study on what works for me, starting with used white $1 Jack Cinci thanks to The Chip Room.

I decided to test out the method by @abby99 which involves soaking chips in Oxi clean up to an hour each time. Original post: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/chip-cleaning-first-time.4571/page-2#post-111354

Here’s what we started with - beat up THC 1s with red stains, marks, etc. This was the worse condition of two racks I received from Jim, since we were going with the heavy duty cleaning.

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Approach:
- 1 scoop of Oxi Clean (or Vanish in this part of the world - same active ingredient) in 4 cups of warm water for 1-2 barrels of chips
- Soak chips for XXmins and stir once in a while
- After soak, hand scrub chips is required to remove the stains, washed them like plates. Very light magic eraser here and there but hardly.
- Rinse in clean water
- Pat dry and leave to dry

Timing: I ran three different barrels to check on effectiveness with two soaks for each.
1) 1hr + 1hr
2) 30min + 1hr
3) 15min + 30min

Results:

After bath 1: Chips are much improved compared to when they came, most red stains are removed but still not like new (added a mint 1a for reference)
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After bath 2: Chips are starting to get close to Mint like, with batch 1 (2x1hr) the best by a slim margin, but batch 2 not far behind. Batch 3 is noticeably darker and was the best condition when it went in.

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Findings:
1) Two soaks are better than 1
2) Longer soaks are better (1hr if you want to hit that mintier white but 30mins seems to work well) - edge spots are fine ◡̈
3) Wash your chips like plates after each soak

Not sure if I would do this for non-white chips, but hope this helps others make a choice ◡̈

PS: Anyone oil white chips?
 
Thanks!
I have several racks of those Jack Cinci $1's with that dingy red tone to them too. I'll be working on those too...
 
I’ve never oiled white chips.
I would guess you’re fading the crap out of those edge spots - I’d like to see a side by side comparison with dirty chips, to judge that.
I’ve done similar concentration soaks and found that a couple of 10-15 minute soaks were pretty effective. But I was trying not to fade the edge spots.
 
I’ve never oiled white chips.
I would guess you’re fading the crap out of those edge spots - I’d like to see a side by side comparison with dirty chips, to judge that.
I’ve done similar concentration soaks and found that a couple of 10-15 minute soaks were pretty effective. But I was trying not to fade the edge spots.
I was trying to watch out for fading, if you see barrel 1 vs barrel 4 (reddish barrel) after the first soak the edgespots they aren't significantly faded vs the 15min (barrel 4). It could be that Jacks are hardy buggers or the fading isn't obvious on the muted edgespots. I think a safer bet would be 2-3 soaks at 15-30mins. Got a new rack of white 1s but they're PCAs so I might skip the soak and just scrub it so there's no risk of inlay leakage.

I'm very puzzled still why multiple soaks make a difference. Maybe its just scrubbing the chips multiple times to agitate the dirt off.
 
I’ve done similar concentration soaks and found that a couple of 10-15 minute soaks were pretty effective. But I was trying not to fade the edge spots.
No noticeable fading with the 10-15 soaks?
 
After rereading the thread, I’ll probably go with the 2 30 min soak method. I’ll oil the chips after (oil/water) so I’m not as worried about fading edge spots.
 
So it doesnt matter how long u let the chips soak upto an hour I was hearing if u soak them too long water can get under the inlays ?
 
It matters. Especially for older chips with paper shaped inlays. Would be very careful with those. New chips with plastic inlay I’ve not run into issues.

I did another test with Jacks and 2x 20-30min soaks seemed to do the trick.
 
We usually run 1 soak, varying the time dependent on the color of the chip. Typically darker colored chips I try not to leave in too long. White chips, yeah 30mins to an hour. The longer they soak the more time the oxi has to break down dirt and stains which is why they come cleaner. We've never had an issue with color fading. Ashy/dry chips, sure. But a quick oiling fixes them right up. We also use a nail brush to get all the grime out of the hats and the outer ring, followed by the magic eraser.

Edit: yep definitely oil white chips the same as any others
Edit #2: keep in mind for folks reading this that are newer to the community, these chips have the newer style inlays, which means they are mostly not susceptible to inlay leaking. Older style chips (as noted above) can get water under the inlays if they soak too long, sometimes even within a few minutes
 
I’ve been meaning to post in this thread! I did a test of this recently on some dirty white solids I had.

Before:

69359785-13FD-49A3-848F-7812D1BB5CFF.jpeg


Did first oxi soak for 15 min in relatively warm water with a heaping tbsp of oxi then scrubbed at each chip with the sonic scrub we recommended by @Eloe2000 and finally rinsed in fresh water.
F9F8B490-8BE1-44DC-81A8-49FFD405453F.jpeg

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This did something but I wasn’t happy with the results so I added a bit more crystals and left them for an hour and then scrubbed again. They came out much much better after the second soak (@fishsaybloop IIRC you mentioned someone two soaks was better).
D0E50198-BF6C-4360-B0D2-32219B8F1E1A.jpeg

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Only thing is some yellowed inlays which this process can’t fix (is there anything to do about this?) and the chips are now very dry and thirsty for oil.

Obviously this isn’t a big enough sample size or a well enough organized test to say if two soaks did the trick or if it was the longer soak or the addition of more crystals but nevertheless, as a whole quite successful.
 
I’ve been meaning to post in this thread! I did a test of this recently on some dirty white solids I had.

Before:

View attachment 779065

Did first oxi soak for 15 min in relatively warm water with a heaping tbsp of oxi then scrubbed at each chip with the sonic scrub we recommended by @Eloe2000 and finally rinsed in fresh water.
View attachment 779066
View attachment 779067

This did something but I wasn’t happy with the results so I added a bit more crystals and left them for an hour and then scrubbed again. They came out much much better after the second soak (@fishsaybloop IIRC you mentioned someone two soaks was better).
View attachment 779069
View attachment 779070
View attachment 779071

Only thing is some yellowed inlays which this process can’t fix (is there anything to do about this?) and the chips are now very dry and thirsty for oil.

Obviously this isn’t a big enough sample size or a well enough organized test to say if two soaks did the trick or if it was the longer soak or the addition of more crystals but nevertheless, as a whole quite successful.
Thanks for sharing your results! One more data point helps ◡̈ the chips look like they’re starting to come back as well. Afraid I’m not sure I’ve found anything to help the labels either.
 
Discovered one chip in the lot was practically cracked in half so I finished the break. First time for me seeing a broken spotted chip in person. So interesting to see how the clay pressed in for the spots actually merges into the base color. If I didn’t have a sufficiently lucrative and engaging career right now it’d be hard to resist dropping everything to try competing with CPC and GPI.
86BBA7C3-EEE7-4129-B4E7-83D74DDBC617.jpeg


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E408973E-EE84-41BC-9F4E-89E93D263750.jpeg
 
Discovered one chip in the lot was practically cracked in half so I finished the break. First time for me seeing a broken spotted chip in person. So interesting to see how the clay pressed in for the spots actually merges into the base color. If I didn’t have a sufficiently lucrative and engaging career right now it’d be hard to resist dropping everything to try competing with CPC and GPI.
I’ll try and take better pics with daylight lighting tomorrow. I’ve seen a graphic on here before that makes the inserts look like neat rectangular pieces and you can tell that’s not the case from the jagged edges/points of spots visible on the edges but it’s interesting that it’s not really neat/flush extending into the chip (you can kinda see in pic one)
 

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