Ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret.

Yes, yes I know..... I should finish the other thing off first... BUT I need to let the 'participants' know what it was all about first so you will just have to wait... that takes time all that writing thing...

SO.. in the mean time the first of 2 or 3!! NEW SHINY EXCITING.. Ok exaggeration, more lil looks at things to contemplate as part of the big picture..

This one is actually ALL down to a guy called Jon a fellow poster/reader on Pitchcare and a damned good mate of mine called Mike at King William College, Isle of Man who both had some very interesting thoughts on the ol Hydrophobicity thing.
Jon asked if I had tried to get rid of the hydrophobic coatings, I hadn't thought that far ahead in terms of actually seeing what gets rid of it and he mentioned using some form of Solvent so last weekend I broke out the Brake Cleaner..
Mike is one of those canny Groundsman who will research and look into all sorts see if it can help him produce better surfaces, even knows how much Marmite to put on a hectare! Well his suggestion was Chlorine so not wanting to leave that out I dug out the Pool Shock treatment and wetted a little up.

For this one then I took 5 further samples from one of the most hydrophobic Green Cores I had, all from the top 'zone', sorted these to 30ml batches and the first one was just left as is, air dried.
Next I took one, added some distilled water, stirred it round a little and then just nuked it in the microwave until it was totally dry..
Third one had the ol Brake Cleaner treatment, blasted until all was soaked, excess poured off and allowed to evaporate.
Fourth had the Chlorine soak added, a very strong mix like always poured on and stirred, this was then flushed out using a simple cut plastic bottle and filter to hold the soil whilst water was flushed through, the picture shows what was shifted off..... interesting that..

Now it may look like I have 'provided a sample' but this is what was the washed off 'residue' I did three lots as the mix I used was VERY strong and I wanted to remove as much Chlorine as possible, 

YES I KNOW not very soil healthy BUT seeing as I have NONE of the proprietory 'cleaners' available to compare this is a needs must thing, will be looking into using an easier to manage source next time, considering Baby Sterilising Fluid, again, easy to get hold of, simple to adjust strength, just have to work out what point to treat up to, when to 'flush', how much Gypsum to use to push out etc etc.. I feel another little 'play' coming along there..... Another post maybe?

Some Science there to get right, Maybe I should just go for the ol Barry Scott Method

Maybe even a new potential Sponsor for this madness....

Oh yes and lastly I just did a water flush, took the soil and wetted it up best as it would go then using same method above washed the grime right out... 

So as you can see the water flush DID get a bit of stuff out (some implications there i can tell you!) but not to the degree that Chlorine stripped soil goo as can be seen with the left jar..

So now it is the usual waiting game.. let it all dry properly then compare...

Next on this 'tack' I will be trying to get a 'Curative Wetting Agent Gladiators' underway BUT I am not having much luck sourcing any at the moment..

Scrub that last comment, since starting writing this post I have had one kind Northern based Gentleman offer me some of his wares.. I told him to piss right off but could I pinch a bit of his 'Curative' product.. .. SO, 1 down lots more to ask/borrow/steal to compare.

Will do as an equal protocol test, same source sample, soak sample with product at FULL recommended rate and equally flush to compare the wash out and then dry and test.... 

BUT thats another day and one to set up, the matter in hand.. have I made any difference to this soil.

Notes to remember:

Same sample

Nasty stuff like Solvents and Chlorine

Nuked in Microwave

Original Sample has been dry for over 6 weeks 

Protocol is the air dried soil will be placed side by side and a 5 Drop Droplet timed until absorbed, staggered start, 10 secs apart, replicated 5 times to get an average.

So here they are all ready to soak up

One Droplet is made of 5 drops

 And 5 runs are done to get an average 

This one!, no soak up going on there I can tell you... 

Not a drop went into the soil

In fact I got bored but it didn't matter how much I put on was like some freaky sand thing

So.....

RESULTS:

	COATING TESTS
No	#Uks FINEST	5 Droplet 1	5 Droplet 2	5 Droplet 3	5 Droplet 4	5 Droplet 5	Average
1	CONTROL	Start 0.00	Start 0.00	Start 5.00	Start 10.00	Start 15.00
	AIR DRIED SAMPLE	10.20	11.00	16.00	21.20	26.55
		10.20	11.00	11.00	11.20	11.55	10.99
2	SOAK & NUKE	0.20	0.10	5.10	10.10	15.10
	WATER SOAK &	3.30	2.30	9.30	13.50	19.05
	MICROWAVED DRY
		3.10	2.20	4.20	3.40	3.55	3.29
3	SOAK & FLUSH	0.40	0.20	5.20	10.20	15.20
	WATER SOAK &	2.25	2.00	7.00	12.30	17.10
	FLUSH OUT
		1.45	1.40	1.40	2.10	1.50	1.57
4	CHLORINE & FLUSH	1.00	0.30	5.30	10.30	15.30
	CHLORINE SOAK &	4.40	3.30	8.30	14.10	19.40
	WATER FLUSH
		3.40	3.00	3.00	3.30	4.10	3.36
5	BRAKE CLEANER	1.20	0.40	5.40	10.40	15.40
	BRAKE CLEANER	Gave up	Gave up	Gave up	Gave up	Gave up
	SOAK & EVAPORATE	30 mins +	25 mins +	20 mins +	15 mins +	10 mins +
							Loads

CONCLUSION

I will run this again, some minor adjustments just to make it a cleaner comparison, but I am surprised.

From the Air Dried Original what you would expect to be the most supposedly obvious improvement actually made things worse so I will flush this sample next time to see if that chamges anything.

Just a water flush made things better!??! How? This I expected to come out mid at best.

The Brake Cleaner may have freed stuff off but if it did it glued it back even stronger and smoother making it worse...

Hmmm, a couple of things there are making me think BUT replication is all in this game so run again to get similar and go with that....

Ok peoples thats one down for now.....