My KH leg armour has started to smell offensively bad and is in dire need of freshening up. 4 months of accumulated leg sweat is not pleasant to have around you. Does anyone know if the KH armour is machine washable? There are noe cleaning instructions on them anywhere. I remember from cleaning my fencing gear that there were certain detergents you couldn’t use, and I think the same detergent sensitive stuff may be in the leg armour too. I don’t really want to mess up my armour since you can’t get the KH armour anymore and I much prefer it to 661 armour.
I soaked my 661s in water and baking soda. Took the odor out really well. For the external dirt, I just brushed it with a nylon brush, again with the baking soda solution.
With the baking soda solution, you don’t have to get too worried about getting all the soap out of the armor.
That reminds me, my armor is starting to stink again.
Washing machine on hot. I’ve cleaned them like that about six times now. The only thing that happend bad was there was some fuzz where the adgitater was. Other then that they smell amazingly good after. I’ve even used bleech and they come out nice and smelling good.
I wash my armor by hand in the bathtub using liquid dishwashing soap. Then they get a rinse in clean water. As long as you give them a good rinse I don’t think it’s going to cause any degradation of the foam. The hard plastic splints in the armor won’t be affected by the soap or hand washing at all.
Some people have put their armor in a washing machine. I wouldn’t do it in a top loading machine that uses an agitator. The front loading machines would be better. But people have put their armor in top loading machines without harming the armor.
The trick is to wash the armor before it gets really really stinky. The stink comes from bacteria. Washing the armor does not get rid of all of the bacteria. There will be live little bacteria left behind. When the armor gets warm and moist again and full of sweat the bacteria will start dividing again and the stink will be back. Once you’ve got a happy colony of stinky bacteria in your armor you are fighting a loosing battle and it will require more frequent washings to keep them in check.
The solution there would be to kill the bacteria. I saw one proposed solution to use nitric oxide gas to fumigate smelly shoes. The nitric oxide gas will kill the bacteria. That would get rid of the source of the smell. Here’s a news article about the research into that idea: Respite for cheesy trainers. I haven’t seen that product come to market yet. The same idea would work for riding armor.
A home chemist could create their own nitric oxide fumigation chamber and see if it can get rid of the stink from old stinky armor. But do be careful because NO gas is not safe to breathe. And I also wonder if the process of creating the NO gas could create some acidic byproducts that could damage the armor. And note that it’s nitric oxide, not nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
I hate that the most wear that my beloved armor get is from the washing machine. John Child’s advice about hand washing is sound. I, too, tend to let my armor get too stinky before I wash it. My wife no longer allows me to bring it into the house. I also have taken to clipping a mesh bag, with all of my riding gear in it, atop my truck so that it dries on the way home from a ride – given dry weather. I also have discovered a product called Frabreeze that takes the stink away - but not the bacteria that John spoke of.
A wise rider told me tonight as we sat in the parking lot after our ride downtown that he puts them in the shower and just stands on them. That way they soap works its way in, and as he rinses clean, so do the armor. With the massive amount of funk that I have in mine, I will be doing that tomorrow night after my ride!
I used to take all of my skate pads and leave them in my moms freezer in a ziplock bag. Seemed that freezing them killed all of the bacteria, and got rid of the smell. Dont know if it will work with these pads, but its work a try.
Freezing does not kill bacteria. It will get them to hibernate and stop growing. Once it gets warm again and their food source is back they’ll perk back up and start growing again and stinking again.
Freezing your pads will buy you some time, but will not solve the problem.
I wash my 661 4x4 in the washing machine using a gentle (wool) program
and normal liquid detergent. They show no excessive wear and come out
fine.
I wash my Harbinger wrist guards and the foam strips from my helmet in
the same go (the latter velcro in and out). Some of the foam strips
have lost a top layer that was apparently glued on, but they are still
functional without it.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
people who unicycle are shyly exhibitionistic - GILD
To wash wristguards in a machine, you can put them inside a sock, which stops them getting worn in the washing machine. Maybe a pillow case would do for armour.
I take my wristguards into the shower when they get stinky.
You can make nitric oxide gas by combining citric acid and sodium nitrate in water. I don’t know the proportions. I’ve been too lazy to dig out my chemistry textbook and figure it out.
My plan was to make a sealed box with a hole for a tube or a large syringe. Put the citric acid and sodium nitrate in a bowl in the box and seal up the box. Pour water in the bowl using the tube or syringe. Then let everything sit for 12 hours or so. Or do it the easy way and mix everything together in a bowl in the box and then seal the box up after it starts reacting. Citric acid and sodium nitrate is easy to order from chemical supply companies off the internet or locally.
It’s been on my list of home experiments to try for over two years. I’ve just been too lazy to lazy to actually do it (and I’m too lazy to do the chemistry calculations to figure out the proportions and the amounts). A little common sense to do it in an area with adequate ventilation and it should be safe to experiment with.
Of course, the ultimate way to kill off bacteria in your armor is to ask your friend who works at a nuke plant to leave it next to a decent gamma source for a few days. No beta or alpha sources please, due to risk of contamination.
i recently came across a product called “bioTEXT” its made by a company caled Micrylium here in Toronto.
the website i ordered the stuff from says: Micrylium develops products for professionals with a great level of concern for personal safety and for those with environmental concerns of using toxic and polluting disinfectants. Hospital level disinfection can be attained in less time with less personal and environmental impact with phenol-free, ethanol-based formulations.
mostly used in dentist offices vets and tattoo studios for hard and not so hard surface dissinfection i use it to keep my armour from growing nasy smelly bacteria.
anyway it works if you have a serios bacteria smell in the armour problem you can put 60ml in the wash and that will work to kill everything living fabric. as a preventitive measure you can spray your pads after particularly sweatty rides and let them air dry.
i got mine from http://www.bodyartpro.com/Micrylium/biotext.htm they have the best price i could find on the stuff, i picked up the 500ml pouch and just pored it in my own spraybottle, very economical.
I consider trying chlorine or hydrogen peroxide. It would be possible to get 35% hydrogen peroxide. If it’s diluted to 3-5% it would probably not damage the polyester too much. I’m curious what it would do to the colour of my clothes though. Is chlorine better?
Sounds like fun. I’ll have to do a little research.