>> I notice the spools and line are slimey to touch. Mike Cyr on 1-4-05 7:35 PM wrote:
> Most likely it's the plasticizer exuding to the surface. Plasticizer is > added to many plastics to make them flexible. There's nothing you did wrong, > it would have happened whether it was stored in water or not. Water just > made this entropic process more readily apparent by becoming slimy. > > Mike > Yuck! I'll bet Mike's right though. > >> Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:05:52 -0800 >> From: "D Hauch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> What's the best way to store your mono? >> >> I took off all the paper labels and marked them with a silver Sharpie, >> then put them in water, thought I heard this was best. In the mid 90's I looked into how fishing records are set and recorded. One of the details had to do with whether the mono leader, the line from the hook to the main line, was saturated with water or not. If I remember correctly, a fisherman submitting a record had to always submit the leader for tensile strength testing. A known to be saturated line was allowed to be submitted in a plastic bag with a little water in with it to keep it wet. It seems that wet mono is a little weaker in tension than dry. This matters for such bragging rights such as 'I landed a 6 pound fish on 2 pound line.' But, will keeping mono under water slow the loss of the plasticizer, I sure don't know. But I do know that once the plasticizer is gone the remaining stuff sure gets brittle. When I was a fly fishing nut I learned far too much about nylon monofilament, which was what was used for building leaders then. Oddly enough, I learned from some place I can't remember now, that most of the strength in mono is carried in the surface of the filament. For fishing that meant checking the leader for scratches or other damage frequently to avoid loosing fish to a broken leader. But I imagine you guys know this and replace your launch lines fairly frequently anyway. The big problem for fishing and launching is UV and ozone damage. After the sun one source of UV is, surprisingly, florescent lights. The major source of ozone in home storage is electric motors, like those running your fridg, heat and vent fan, freezer... Ozone is produced by the brushes sparking. Another is auto exhaust, that is, are your storing your mono in the garage without keeping it in a sealed container? >> I notice the spools and line are slimey to touch. >> >> Is there something coming off the mono, or the rubberband thats wrapped >> around the spool ? I have had far too many rubber bands goo up the works with all kinds of things. Don't trust the common bands, especially the green type usually used in the US for banding the newspaper, replace them with a Velcro band for example. I have some of the green bands stuck to my car's plastic boot around the shift lever that ain't going anywhere. And I thought it was such a handy place to put a few when the car was new. :( -- Jim Holliman -- Tulsa, Oklahoma AMA & TULSOAR RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
