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Last week, I walked to the mall with poorly-laced boots and ended up with massive ruptured blisters on my feet. So now that those are healing up, I'm getting blisters on my fingers from attempting to remove rubber-cement residue from each and every one of about 250 agate magatama I just got from a new supplier.
Strategies attempted so far:
1.) Peel off residue immediately after removing each magatama from its mounting. Result: goopy frustration.
2.) Soak the magatama in a fairly concentrated solution of orange-oil cleaner. Result: damp, goopy frustration and smeared residue.
3.) Scrub off the residue with steel-wool, which should be abrasive enough to remove it but not hard enough to damage the agate. Result: damp, goopy steel wool and smeared residue.
4.) Start going through the entire lot one at a time, rubbing away the residue with fingers and a paper towel. Result: gradual success, but also impending fingertip blisters.
4.1.) Dampen the paper towel with a bit of vegetable oil. Result: oily imperturbed residue.
4.2.) Dampen the paper towel with isopropyl alcohol. Result: fairly quick residue removal, but also a need to constantly re-apply isopropanol as it quickly evaporated into nice breathable fumes and dried out my already unhappy fingertips.
5.) Abrade the residue against the leg of my jeans. Result: somewhat faster success, but also visible degradation of the denim as the surface of the fabric keeps getting pulled away. Also, not much better blister-ablation.
6.) (pending) Go get an art-gum eraser and try to use it to pull the residue off. We'll see how this works.
In the meantime, I was happy and frisky about finding this new supplier, but if this is what I'll have to go through every time another shipment comes in, forget it. Sheesh.
Strategies attempted so far:
1.) Peel off residue immediately after removing each magatama from its mounting. Result: goopy frustration.
2.) Soak the magatama in a fairly concentrated solution of orange-oil cleaner. Result: damp, goopy frustration and smeared residue.
3.) Scrub off the residue with steel-wool, which should be abrasive enough to remove it but not hard enough to damage the agate. Result: damp, goopy steel wool and smeared residue.
4.) Start going through the entire lot one at a time, rubbing away the residue with fingers and a paper towel. Result: gradual success, but also impending fingertip blisters.
4.1.) Dampen the paper towel with a bit of vegetable oil. Result: oily imperturbed residue.
4.2.) Dampen the paper towel with isopropyl alcohol. Result: fairly quick residue removal, but also a need to constantly re-apply isopropanol as it quickly evaporated into nice breathable fumes and dried out my already unhappy fingertips.
5.) Abrade the residue against the leg of my jeans. Result: somewhat faster success, but also visible degradation of the denim as the surface of the fabric keeps getting pulled away. Also, not much better blister-ablation.
6.) (pending) Go get an art-gum eraser and try to use it to pull the residue off. We'll see how this works.
In the meantime, I was happy and frisky about finding this new supplier, but if this is what I'll have to go through every time another shipment comes in, forget it. Sheesh.