Breaking in a new mask confusion

[johndiver999]

There is a huge variability between what works for one mask and not another. What I personally have been doing for the last several months is having a tiny spray bottle of very dilute baby shampoo (maybe 20:1 dilution) and then spraying before each dive AND spraying the glass inside and out with it before I store the mask in a sealed container. After a few weeks the mask is still slippery and slimy and this seems to work better than other things I have tried = of course this is maint. after I burned the mask several times and scrub with dawn detergent once every several weeks or so.

 

[Nemrod]

Regardless of what Mares says, unless your mask truly has a coating and a few do and it is usually evident or is plastic and again that should be readily apparent then otherwise the mask is tempered float glass. The tempering is a process that heats the glass to about 1200 degrees F and the quenches it at an accelerated rate that puts the glass under compression. That is what causes it to crumble instead of shatter. It is unlikely that using a BIC lighter to burn the mask could heat it to anything near 1200 degrees unless you really worked at it or used a torch. Fanning the lighter about the inside of the mask until it leaves a black smudge is all that is needed. Then rinse a few times with Dawn and hot water. Glass has a Mohs hardness of about 7, the same as steel. Feldspar and other mineral based abrasives are generally under 6 on the scale. If you insist on scrubbing with an abrasive then most products that do not contain quartz or corrundum or silica/aluminum oxides should not scratch the glass unless you use force or a steel dish pad!

Frameless masks seem particularly hard to clean, both my Artomic Frameless and my two Scubapro Frameless required bunring in addition to Dawn and hot water. I do not uses abrasives and have not found that useful. What is being removed is mostly a silicone or mold release contaminate from the manufacturing process.

Okay, I have made three posts in a row, time to bug out for another year or so. Y'all be well, dive safe or not, because well, safety is somewhat overrated.

N

 

[Rayk]

I am using Hollis masks as primary and back up, both of them went 4-5 cycles of toothpaste coating and washing off. Never had fogging issue.

Recently picked up Apeks mask, at dive store “they said” no treatment needed, ultra-clear glass etc. and mask fogged up in water almost immediately. Of course I applied tried and true cycles of toothpaste rubbing, drying and washing off, now works like a charm. Never used lighter burning method so I don’t know about that.

 

[oceancurrent]

Regardless of what Mares says, unless your mask truly has a coating and a few do and it is usually evident or is plastic and again that should be readily apparent then otherwise the mask is tempered float glass. The tempering is a process that heats the glass to about 1200 degrees F and the quenches it at an accelerated rate that puts the glass under compression. That is what causes it to crumble instead of shatter. It is unlikely that using a BIC lighter to burn the mask could heat it to anything near 1200 degrees unless you really worked at it or used a torch. Fanning the lighter about the inside of the mask until it leaves a black smudge is all that is needed. Then rinse a few times with Dawn and hot water. Glass has a Mohs hardness of about 7, the same as steel. Feldspar and other mineral based abrasives are generally under 6 on the scale. If you insist on scrubbing with an abrasive then most products that do not contain quartz or corrundum or silica/aluminum oxides should not scratch the glass unless you use force or a steel dish pad!

Thank you for the great analysis. Really informative!

In tech diving, disregarding the manufacturer instructions is the norm. From mask burning, through using nitrox regs with oxygen, to overfilling cylinders 10-20%. It sure feels like the manufacturers try to put a margin of safety around their products in the event somebody does something stupid (blowtorching a mask, not maintaining a reg clean and combusting it with O2, massively overfilling cylinders and then letting them bake in a trunk without a burst disk, etc etc).