Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: hammer on March 26, 2018, 07:14:10 PM
-
When I purchased my fretless Series I from Henry Hellig in Toronto it came with a flight case and an incredible lined leather gig bag. Has lots of mojo and protects the bass well but...
It's got mold.
Tried spraying it with Lysol and a couple of other products but it still smells enough that my spouse restricts the rooms I can park it in. What makes it more difficult is that the bag opens from the bottom just enough to slide the bass in and out so fully opening it up is impossible.
Any ideas to get rid of the mold would be appreciated.
-
Mold isn't good. You may have to find a skilled leather craftsperson who can open it up, reline it, and stitch it back up again.
Bill, tgo
-
Everything I'm coming up with would most likely ruin the leather. Chlorine would kill the mold, but it's so corrosive that I wouldn't use it on a gig bag.
Sorry Hammer, no help.
*is there any way to turn it inside-out?
-
I think it's time for a new gig bag!
-
There is a household product for removing mildew in your bathroom. I forget the name but it is fairly common. I would get it and spray some on a rag and then clean the bag. I have used it on car interiors with good results.
-
Hi, Hammer,
The short answer that I have is to ditch both cases unless they mean enough to you sentimentally to actually CLEAN them, otherwise it will likely come back. The long answer is "if they do mean enough, here are some suggestions on how to clean them...real good":
1) Have you looking into cleaning the leather with a boric acid and sprinkling some inside the flight case? It is the main ingredient in a lot of water damage remediation solutions used against propagating black mold spores following house floods. It is know to be fungicidal, it is pretty harmeless to people and most pets (ingestion can lead to illness, but it is weight dependent toxicity), and is already used in the process of deliming animal pelts to make leather. So, I don't think the leather itself would suffer much from treating it with a concentrated solution of boric acid to wash it, although perhaps the finish might get some checkering? I dunno, but that sounds straightforward to fix: shoeshine and sharpie?
2) Otherwise, benzalkonium salts, similar to the active ingredients in Windex or most contact lens cleaner solutions, and a peroxide, might work. This is what is in the spray-able mold ablation kits tend to use, and you can use generic Oxyclean (perbicarbonate) from the store or a monopersulfate salt (magnesium or potassium, etc.) from the internet to oxidize the mold spores with less fury than bleach or peroxide formulations after the initial application of alkonium detergents clean them out. I figure you might want gloves, but the Windex or contact lens cleaner won't be too rough on the leather.
3) Barring those choices, just wipe the leather thoroughly with a Lysol wipe to degrease it and dry clean the sonuvagun. Dry cleaning uses chlorinated hydrocarbons (non-polar molecules like tetrachloroethylene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, and petroleum ethers, for instance) to strip surfaces of water hating/insoluble schmutz, which would be more accessible after a wipe down. This will also help strip the life out of the fungus by ripping the lipophilic components out of different membranes of the presumed Ascomycota fungi. That means that the fungus in residence is making fruiting bodies that release spores, like mushrooms, but that they also make small molecules in the spores or the fruiting body, which can be toxic to people...which is your current problem as I understand it.
I have done a lot of fungal extractions in lab, and they can be a bit formulaic, so I do think dry cleaning would actually help: usually one isolates fungal spores/material and sonicates them in an organic solvent, using a selection of ether, acetone, ethyl acetate (nail polish remover, basically), methanol, or dichloromethane (like chloroform or dry cleaning fluid). The lab I was in did sequential sonications with methanol and methanol/dichloromethane, then we'd filter the solutions, dry the soluble material down to isolate what we were looking at (which is akin to the stuff that's bugging you and your wife), and re-extract the metabolites from water with ethyl acetate. The fungus is pretty much deader than disco after the first two extractions, although state law requires bleach to be used before dumping the fungal material. Since skipping 10% bleach is a good choice, dry cleaning, which uses chlorinated stuff like dichloromethane, should bring some severe pain to the mold and may fix the problem.
So that's three ways that you can invest a bit of time or money into trying to save the leather case, if you like it enough. And, if there is fungus in the leather case, I would bet dollars to donuts fungus is also somewhere in the flight case, meaning you may have to ultimately clean it. As to your immediate health, you can ask your doctor if there is something you can do to make this case or the flight case less onerous to own while you clean it or dispose of it; y' know OTC anti-oxidant supplements, limited exposure to the cases while you decide or clean it, daily nasal irrigation, ritual sacrifice, etc. Whatever an internist would prescribe.
Or, reconsider the short answer and just get a new pair of cases if there isn't enough sentiment to warrant becoming like Schwarzenegger in Commando to clean them while quipping one-liners.
Good luck with it, please limit your contact until you have made a decision (Maybe buy some disposable N100 surgical masks? Like, seriously.), and be well.
-Zut
-
I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: If it's worth playing, it's worth a real case; gig bags are evil.
Peter
-
I'm always amazed on how much can one learn around here
-
I'm not sure how it will be on the leather, but Spray 9, which is readily available at major hardware/ automotive stores, will kill almost anything. Maybe try it on a small area, and see how it affects the leather. You don't really have anything to lose.
Regards,
Pete
-
hammer,
If I was the one in this situation here is what would have happened.
The second that my wife found out there was mold in the case she would have thrown it out. Or insisted that I throw it out. Period.
Then again, we have a 1 year old so it simply is not an option to knowingly have a health risk in the home.
Just saying, it's not like we are talking about a stain here.
I also agree with Zut that there is probably mold in the hard case as well at this point.
Throw it away.
Get a new one.
-
Jwright9 brings up a great point: family and little ones. Because of risks posed by the mold to children, spouses, and pets, you may consider buying new cases as options, or having professional mold ablators clean the leather case and the flight case, thoroughly.
But, here's the catch: as a test, I couldn't find these contract professionals within the first three pages of a Google search who are available for this service (here's one link as a resource for an official looking remediator certifier firm/agency and their tips: http://www.iicrc.org/what-you-should-know-about-cleaning-leather-a-254.html. They say "hire professionals".).
I also want to caution the fact that mold spores can disseminate and then show up ANYWHERE you could imagine. They hitch a ride on clothers, eddies in the air, or teleport, and wait for ideal growth conditions to appear. Then you can have a new colony that might make you sick appear later regardless. That is a little hyperbolic, but cross contamination happens frequently. Be careful and be well.
-
Hammer, I would also be concerned about any chemicals that you use on that gig bag, will also be resting against the finish of your bass when you are storing it. This could very well damage the finish, especially on a humid day!
-
I would get in touch with the current owners of Cronkhite cases. They have decades of experience with leather gig bags (and Cronkhite is from SF, a notorious place for mold).
https://glenncronkhite.com
-
I have a similar situation with an original G&G case from the 70s, reeks of mold. I plan to get a new case for the bass, but is it worth keeping the original case, just in case I decide to sell the bass in the future ( although that’s not likely :) )? Is it really that desirable to have an original case?
-
Rob, An original case wouldn't mean much to me as long as the bass had a proper fitting new case.
-
Thanks for the feedback, Keith, I’ll probably get a new G&G for it.
-
I have a similar situation with an original G&G case from the 70s, reeks of mold. I plan to get a new case for the bass, but is it worth keeping the original case, just in case I decide to sell the bass in the future ( although that’s not likely :) )? Is it really that desirable to have an original case?
Not if it is moldy!!
-
The case is sitting in the garage at the moment until I decide what to do with it. At this point it's cold enough out there to to keep anything from being active. I'll probably toss the case at some point, but I'm thinking of sending this one back to Alembic for a refurbish and the leather bag and flight case (just the outer case no lining of any type) are all I have for shipping. It is a cool, old leather bag. However, to refurbish it I'd need to remove all the stitching to open it up for work given that it does not open like a regular case. There are no zippers. The bass slides in from the bottom and there are straps that hook on to buttons to hold it in. This approach is probably one of the reasons it has mold as most of the lining has never seen the light of day.
-
Please don't ship it here in a case with mold - we've had people send in biohazards before and we're delicate flowers out here in California. I probably have a suitable "duty" case I can send to you for protection during shipping, you would just have to pay the UPS charges on it. Or you can get a new hardshell case and we send it to you empty and you send it to us full when the time comes. Meanwhile, you would have something to carry it around in.