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Cleaning Go equipment
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Author:  kvasir [ Sat Jan 25, 2025 2:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Cleaning Go equipment
Are there best practices when it comes to cleaning Go playing equipment?

Especially when it comes to equipment in clubs: how should it be cleaned, how often should it be cleaned and so on. Is there a difference in procedure when it comes Go boards made from varnished solid wood and particleboard(?) with veneer? What about glass and Ing stones?
Author:  bogiesan02 [ Thu Feb 06, 2025 9:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Cleaning Go equipment
kvasir wrote:
Are there best practices when it comes to cleaning Go playing equipment?


Stones are easy: mild soap (not detergent) and warm water in plastic tubs. Rinse and rinse and rinse, Spread on towels to dry. You can't hurt glass, shell, slate, or plastic stones with just mild soapand gentle agitation. Some folks like to clean their super cool or expensive sets one stone at a time. I'd let the owners of those sets clean their own damn stones.

Club bowls are usually plastic and some can even go through the dishwasher on the top rack. Wooden bowls require much more care. You don't want to damage the wax or clear coat so a damp soft rag is where you start. Difficult dirt can be removed with a wax and soft cloth but rubbing too hard can remove the base finish.

Cheap boards just use a soft damp cloth, maybe a tiny bit of the gentlest spray cleaner applied to the damp cloth, not to the board. More precious boards require more care. Baduk.club sells "monkey wax" and you can get 100% carnuba, 100% bees wax, or blends from woodworker supplies. Do not use grocery store furniture cleaners or spray waxes.

Club equipment should be cleaned maybe every 50-100 games? That's about what I do for my stuff. But club equipment is often mistreated and disrespected so maybe more often. Depends on your memebers's propensity for slobishness and your desire to maintain appearance or wishes to remain hygeinic during cold/flu season. If you notice someone who is sick and should have stayed home, you might wish to grab those stones and set them aside till they can be properly cleaned.

ow many club sets are your responsible for?
Author:  kvasir [ Sat Feb 08, 2025 12:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Cleaning Go equipment
bogiesan02 wrote:
ow many club sets are your responsible for?


There are at least six sets on site (probably more but I don't remember, I have to go there and check), then there are more in storage.

bogiesan02 wrote:
Club equipment should be cleaned maybe every 50-100 games? That's about what I do for my stuff. But club equipment is often mistreated and disrespected so maybe more often. Depends on your memebers's propensity for slobishness and your desire to maintain appearance or wishes to remain hygeinic during cold/flu season. If you notice someone who is sick and should have stayed home, you might wish to grab those stones and set them aside till they can be properly cleaned.


I'm thinking that four games, twice a week is 400 games per year but if the 6-7 sets are all used equally then you only need to do this once a year if the benchmark is to clean every 50-100 games.

In my experience it is mostly the stones that are troublesome. If you wash them then you need to have time to dry them. I wonder if one could get away with wiping them down? I remember that especially one time that I washed the glass stones and it took more than 24 hours for them to dry. The surface texture and the shape of the stones made it difficult to get the water off the stones, especially the black stones.

Maybe wiping the stones is activity that children could do more frequently to build character? Also they lick the stones.

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Author:  bogiesan02 [ Mon Feb 17, 2025 7:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Cleaning Go equipment
"
kvasir wrote:
In my experience it is mostly the stones that are troublesome. If you wash them then you need to have time to dry them. I wonder if one could get away with wiping them down? I remember that especially one time that I washed the glass stones and it took more than 24 hours for them to dry. The surface texture and the shape of the stones made it difficult to get the water off the stones, especially the black stones.


Well, I live in a desert and my stones dry quickly in the sun on a towel. A hair dryer helps or just a simple fan to move some air. In this clip, 00:50-01:10, I dumped the wet stones onto a towel, spread them out, waited five minutes, rolled them up in the towel, and spread them out again.

https://youtu.be/Y-Th0d7spew?si=wTwozY3j_y4WNw1S
Author:  kvasir [ Wed Feb 19, 2025 3:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Cleaning Go equipment
I see. I actually did something similar on Monday and washed one set of Ing stones in the kitchen sink. Drying the stones wasn't an issue. The bowls on the other hand had some drops that I couldn't easily reach.

The way I did it is that I washed them with what was hopefully mild enough soap and then after rinsing the soapy water away I rinsed them again with water from the hot water tap (which I think is 75° C) and then placed them on a kitchen towel.

Then I used a second towel to dry the stones. The way I did this was to sort of make a bag out of the towel and placing a handful of stones inside, then I shook the bag. Afterwards, I placed the stones on a third towel. This was pretty much enough to dry the Ing stones completely and using the hot water at the end of the wash made for much quicker drying.

Washing and drying one set at a time appears to be effective. Using my improvised method I'd run out of kitchen towels quickly. I could of course be mindful to stop washing before I ran out of kitchen towels. Probably it was the large pile of wet stones that was the root cause of my earlier problems. The lesson is probably that a pile up of wet stones could be avoided if the work was spread out in smaller batches. More efficiency could maybe be achieved by letting the next batch soak in the sink while the drying work is completed for the current batch.

OK, I'm getting ahead of myself with the planning. Possibly I'll simply end up taking few sets at a time home to do the washing.
Author:  bogiesan02 [ Sun Mar 09, 2025 5:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Cleaning Go equipment
You hav some ING GOE bowls? The originals with the counting frames? I got one of those damp (decades ago) and the springs rusted.Should have known better. Stained the white stones.
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