Why Does This Cleaning Technique Work?

[BigDon]

My dear ol' mother was a Navy wife for a long time, though my father was mustered out by the time I was born so I didn't have to live a "military brat" lifestyle.

Now one of the odd things about a military service that relies heavily on diesel and heavy oil driven machinery is the adoption of dress white uniforms.

On a ship the size of a carrier and especially a conventionally powered one, it is very difficult to walk (below decks) from the stern to the bow in your dress whites and still remain in "inspection grade" condition. Diesel boats are inherantly dirty, relative to white clothes, from the soot. Even with constant cleaning.

Whenever we had a formal formation at sea we usually changed into our inspection uniforms as close to the formation site as practical.

Now prior to me going home on leave and getting eduacated by my Mom we would lament the fact that diesel and motor oil ruined white clothes because you could never get them inspection grade clean again. There would always be a shadow of the stain, at the minimum.

Then Mom showed me something that she learned from older Navy wives from back in the day.

Crisco shortening. Pretty much 100% hydrogenated vegetable oil. A little rubbed onto the oil stain until it forms a light grey smudge and the motor oil stain then washes out completely in the laundry.

Won't even resettle on other clothes in the wash.

Does somebody have a good explanation for this?

[Ara Pacis]

Fats cling to other fats, I think, which is why fatty foods can discolor certain types of plastic food vessels. We used to use gasoline to clean paint from brushes and clothes... ah, I think it's this: lipophilicity. I wonder if may also have any relation to saponification

[BigDon]

Thanks Ara!

That lipophilicity link went a long way towards helping me grasp what was happening.

[Trebuchet]

Sounds like it's basically dry cleaning!

[captain swoop]

How were your ships full of filth?

I have served on ships powered by steam and diesel. Even the engine rooms were clean!

[BigDon]

Captain, I basically lived one deck below the hanger bay upwards. Below that level and you may encounter the denizens of the underworld. (If your lucky your friends might recover your femur heads and lumbar vertebra.)

Huge amounts of JP burning on a daily basis. My carrier had 95 full sized combat aircraft aboard and we'ed have as many as 60 turning at once, easily.

That's a hundred and twenty multikilonewton engines burning in an area of 4.5 acres.

That pumps out a lot of soot.

And then...

Different parts of the ship are cleaned by different organizations, as I'm sure you are familiar.

On a supercarrier the odds of statistics say at least one section is going to be crewed with knuckleheads and newbies.

Plus my ship had chronic water shortages. *Now* I'm hearing the water shortages may have been intentional sabotage by shipyard workers, (in foreign ports), in league with the Iranians.

As was our boiler damage.

And I did stipulate "dirty relative to white clothing."

[PetersCreek]

I'm afraid it didn't work for me. It just made a larger greasy stain. Ah well, I was gonna toss the shirt anyway.

[BigDon]

I'm afraid it didn't work for me. It just made a larger greasy stain. Ah well, I was gonna toss the shirt anyway.

Really? I've never seen it fail.

You did still use detergent and such when washing the shirt?

(Sorry, don't hit me, I had to ask.)

[captain swoop]

Captain, I basically lived one deck below the hanger bay upwards. Below that level and you may encounter the denizens of the underworld. (If your lucky your friends might recover your femur heads and lumbar vertebra.)

Huge amounts of JP burning on a daily basis. My carrier had 95 full sized combat aircraft aboard and we'ed have as many as 60 turning at once, easily.

That's a hundred and twenty multikilonewton engines burning in an area of 4.5 acres.

That pumps out a lot of soot.

And then...

Different parts of the ship are cleaned by different organizations, as I'm sure you are familiar.

On a supercarrier the odds of statistics say at least one section is going to be crewed with knuckleheads and newbies.

Plus my ship had chronic water shortages. *Now* I'm hearing the water shortages may have been intentional sabotage by shipyard workers, (in foreign ports), in league with the Iranians.

As was our boiler damage.

And I did stipulate "dirty relative to white clothing."

We were told 'If it moves salute it, if it doesn't polish it.

Every day there was a 'Hands to Clean Ship' for the whole of the crew apart from the Sea Duty Men. Most of the daytime working hours were cleaning and polishing unless you had a specific job detailed off.

Water shortages on a ship? Fresh water is made all the time for the engine plant. Water makers and desalinators are aboard just for making drinking water.
Were you letting the foreign dockyard workers wander around the ship breaking things?

[BigDon]

We were told 'If it moves salute it, if it doesn't polish it.

Every day there was a 'Hands to Clean Ship' for the whole of the crew apart from the Sea Duty Men. Most of the daytime working hours were cleaning and polishing unless you had a specific job detailed off.

Water shortages on a ship? Fresh water is made all the time for the engine plant. Water makers and desalinators are aboard just for making drinking water.
Were you letting the foreign dockyard workers wander around the ship breaking things?

As a matter of fact we did have foriegn shipyard workers on board our ship, usually from the time we hit Singapore, heading towards the gulf. In Subic Bay we sure as hell did.

And guess what has priorty when it comes down to pinch time with the clean water? I've been on "water hours" for over a month at a time. That means you only have access to water between 0700 to 0730 and again from 1900 to 1930.

With freakin' JP in it!

That included the ship's mess halls as well.

If you missed that half hour window, which would happen surprisingly often, you couldn't get another opportunity to drink or bathe for twelve hours!

They would have to let salt spray build up on the aircraft until they were too dangerous to walk on. We had people on top of Tomcats, which are wide and flat on top, parked tail-over-water slip and do a slow slide off of the aircraft and into the ocean, 85 feet below. As in the process took thirty to forty seconds while you scrambled to not let it happen. My kid brother was almost one of them. Two of the line shack guys took off their tool belts and hooked them together and threw an end to Doug while holding the other end. With one flat on his belly while the other guy hel that guy's feet.

So yeah, we had water shortages.

[captain swoop]

Sounds like a crummy ship. Was there just not enough plsnt to supply the water or were the engineers not able to keep it working?.

[whimsyfree]

Thanks Ara!

That lipophilicity link went a long way towards helping me grasp what was happening.

Yes but why does it then go away intead of leaving a crisco plus dirty heavy oil stain? My thought is that the dirty heavy oil dissolves (for want of a better word) in the shortening and the laundry detergent can move the oily solution.

[Ara Pacis]

Yes but why does it then go away intead of leaving a crisco plus dirty heavy oil stain? My thought is that the dirty heavy oil dissolves (for want of a better word) in the shortening and the laundry detergent can move the oily solution.

I'm not sure if dissolve is the right word, or if dilutes is better. Depending on the nature of the stain, if the staining material (carbon/pigment particles? as opposed to an actual dye) is suspended in the original oil, then the vegetable shortening may be able to mix in with the other oil and the lipophilic stain particles and help lift them out of the fibers whereas detergent alone might not loosen them.

[BigDon]

Sounds like a crummy ship. Was there just not enough plsnt to supply the water or were the engineers not able to keep it working?.

And my BAUT friends who never served in the service, this is how the *good* bar fights start. Well, dirty as she could get, the Connie could still send any top five surface combatants your nation ever floated to the bottom. From seven horizons away.

But all that aside.

The main water boilers had issues with their mounts that was never explained to me fully. They suffered some sort of damage that was unexpected and novel. With the failing of the mounts, stresses were being put on the steam system that caused periodic failures in remote locations.

Men had to crawl into the fire boxes while the were lit to attempt repairs. There is space under the burners a man can crawl on his back through. Wow, I'll take the dangers of the flightdeck.

Have you ever seen a steam line failure in an occupied space? Twice I had to abandon my berthing space after things got out of hand in another portion of the ship. When I had to bunk on the deck below the hanger bay, close to the engineering spaces. Then I finally made E-4 and got the berthing under the flightdeck. (Which isn't as bad as it sounds. Most people assigned to that berthing worked day check, when the majority of flight ops occur.)

[Ara Pacis]

And my BAUT friends who never served in the service, this is how the *good* bar fights start. Well, dirty as she could get, the Connie could still send any top five surface combatants your nation ever floated to the bottom. From seven horizons away.

As long as they don't call her a garbage scow!

The Connie sounds interesting. Wish I had joined the Navy. Well, I guess I kinda did, but... doesn't count.

[BigDon]

As long as they don't call her a garbage scow!

The Connie sounds interesting. Wish I had joined the Navy. Well, I guess I kinda did, but... doesn't count.

I was thinking of that as I was typing Ara.

[kzb]

"Like Dissolves Like". This is similar to using margarine or cooking oil to clean your hands of dirty grease or paint. Maybe the 100% hydrogenation made the fat molecules slightly less polar and more like the stuff you are trying to dissolve, but I can't imagine it makes a lot of difference.

Actually stop press: here is another idea. Typical edible fats and oils have a low melting point. This (lethal for your arteries) 100% hydrogenated stuff will have a high melting point. It is therefore possible that it does not penetrate into the fibres very far (like a softer fat would). Afterwards, it flakes off as solid particles, carrying the dirt with it, but without leaving an oil mark like a lower melting point fat would.

How about that?