Washing Billiard Balls Dishwasher
8/12/2008 2:13:33 PM
Washing Billiard Balls Dishwasher
WARNING: THIS IS GONNA BE A CRAZY QUESTION.
But a practical one.
Has anyone ever put their billiard balls in a dishwasher?
I once went through the chore of washing each ball individually with dish soap, then rinsing and drying each ball. Now they need washing again. Call me lazy, but it's so tempting just to put all 15 in the rack with the dishes and turn on the switch. But that's a lot of heat. I don't want to have to replace them because they cracked or faded.
Well? Anybody done it?
Washing Billiard Balls Dishwasher
Replies & Comments
Fenwick on 8/12/2008 7:19:07 PM
I certainly not a expert but I would not advise it. If a ball got lose you could break the machine or damage the balls. Could be expensive. My search using, ( proper billiard ball cleaning methods ), resulted in a lot of hits and none mentioned a dish washer. And as you said the heat in a unknown factor.
billiardsforum on 8/12/2008 8:30:23 PMDon't feel bad. I once put the little bowl of my toilet brush through the dishwasher and my wife almost beat me to death. That was one of my moments as an idiot thats for sure!
On that note, here is another post from a good while back about cleaning billiard balls with Tiger Ball Cleaner/Polisher.
Hope this helps, and please do let us know if you actually do try the dishwasher - even with a spare set of balls. Maybe Aramith will read this and start specifying whether or not their product is "top rack dishwasher safe" - pun intended.
quickshot on 8/12/2008 10:41:44 PMI think that if you put the balls in a self contained net and lay them on the top rack it may work. Just remove them before the heat cycle and dry them by hand. I think that if they were ivory billiard balls it would work.
If you put them in loose you may have to replace some of the balls and your wife's dishes also.
As @billiardsforum said, if you try it let us know the result.
audsley on 9/1/2008 10:46:57 AM
According to a billiard equipment dealer I spoke with, washing billiard balls in a dishwasher will turn them yellow. And this doesn't mean a rich, aging ivory yellow, but a wretched toenail fungus yellow.
He recommended using a commercial billiard ball cleaner for about $6 a bottle, which of course means washing and scrubbing each of the 15 balls individually.
I thought it was an idea worth checking out. If someone else wants to gamble that this guy was just trying to move a $6 bottle of cleaner, let us know how the dishwasher works. But I'm playing it safe.
guest on 4/9/2011 1:08:46 PM
Well, I'm the foolish one for reading the 6 tips of cleaning "yellowed" billiards balls somewhere else on the net.
My husband purchased a used billiards table and the balls were yellowed. I've read that you should store billiard balls in sunlight, and these balls were kept in a box and out of the light.
Anyway, after spending an hour cleaning and scrubbing the balls with the Magic Eraser Pad, I decided to put them into the dishwasher, which was one of the tips I read somewhere else on the internet.
I left them in for about 30 minutes before I checked, and the color was all washed out of the balls! We tried the Magic Eraser pads again, which made them look better, but once they dried, they had the yellowed, washed-out color again.
The white part of the balls were yellowed to begin with, but the colored parts were perfect! They have the tye-died look going now. Any suggestions?
In hindsight, I can tell you that scrubbing the billiard balls with Magic Eraser pads works well and I should NOT have put the billiard balls in the dishwasher.
osage24 on 3/13/2012 8:41:56 AM
Cleaning your billiard balls after each use will prevent them from staining.
Check into the different types of chalk as well, as some are less staining than others on the pool balls.
This single mother has finally found a solution for cleaning snooker balls and billiard balls.
I bought a set of second hand billiard balls and separate set of snooker balls. Being an anal mother, of course, I wanted to clean them. I quickly read something about just using a sink of warm water and dish soap to clean billiard balls. I went with that and didn't read on further.
The 8 ball set of balls were fine but when I pulled out the snooker balls they were all filmy and discolored.
So I quickly Googled how to clean a set of pool balls and found that I'm not the only one feeling silly! I saw an answer that said to use car polish to clean billiard balls and thought that there had to be an easier solution.
Well, I found it. The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponge works perfectly for cleaning billiard balls. It has taken me about 3 minutes per ball to get them all gleaming like new!
user1494451737 on 5/10/2017 5:28:59 PM
A billiard hall manager told me the best way to clean your pool balls is in the dishwasher and it doesn't hurt them a bit. He installed tables for 25 years before becoming a manger selling Olhausen Tables.
I told him I had the spray and cloth for the Super Pro Aramith billiard balls and he said he still thinks the dishwasher does better.
Washing Billiard Balls Dishwasher
- Title: Washing Billiard Balls Dishwasher
- Author: audsley
- Published: 8/12/2008 2:13:33 PM
