Ceramic molds smell like cigarette smoke

[Lezli]

We just acquired well over 300 plaster molds of a variety of sizes.  They had been from a previous shop owner who had retired, but kept all the molds in her basement.  When we came to pick them up, they had been moved outdoors.  When we got them home and loaded them in our garage, we planned the next day to move them down to our basement.  The next morning when we opened the garage door, it was filled with the smell of stale cigarettes.  All the molds have absorbed a few years of cigarette smoke.

I know you can clean plaster walls with vinegar.  Can I wipe down the outside of the molds with vinegar without damaging them.  Many of them are older.  ages range from 1975 to 1996 .  The interior of the molds are in really good shape.  Outsides are mostly in good shape, a few bumps and scratches from the years.  

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  This is but a small sampling of them.

[Mark C.]

Air them out for a week outside in sunshine.

next time do not deal with smokers.

[Lezli]

Thanks!  Yes, lesson learned!

 

[Mark C.]

I think wiping them down is way to much work and the inside will still smell maybe-they need air and sun.

[Rae Reich]

I have read that zeolite (used in pool filters and as a horse stable deodorizer) is effective. You have so many that it would take quite a while for the technique of stacking (plugged up?) with spacers into a bag or barrel and filling it with zeolite, sealing up for a few days. The zeolite can be "renewed" by one or two days in the sunlight and reused. If they are still hard to live with after MarkC's method and they can't be stored outside for long you might invest in a 40# bag. You might even try sprinkling the molds outdoors in the sunlight with the zeolite. (???)

[Rae Reich]

Just came across this in an article on removing thrift store smell from clothes that can be washed:

 A better, if offbeat, choice is Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile Liquid Soap. Dr. Bronner’s is excellent at removing strong odors of all sorts from clothes — I’ve recommended it for washing everything from hand-me-down baby clothes that smell strongly of perfume to coveralls that got soaked in gasoline, and it has worked every time.

washing and rinsing the molds and letting them dry banded and on slats or racks in the shade is worth a try if you're like me and always have Dr Bronners around. 

[Bill Kielb]

Fool proof way, rent an ozone generator, put them in a protected mildly hermetic box outside and ozone them for a couple hours. No smell left after that, no water needed

[M.hollo]

Ozone generator as stated above

 

[WoodlandPotter]

Years ago, friends of ours gave us a couch. We got it home and realized it reeked of stale cigarette smoke! We covered it up with a large blanket and used it that way. After about a year, or so, it no longer smelled. You have so many molds! If this was me, I'd probably move the molds into the basement as planned, keep them covered with old sheets, or blankets and keep the air moving with a fan. One by one, or in sets, you could put them out in the sunshine for a few hours, when you go to use them. After a year or so, they will all lose that smell anyway. I know this is inefficient in terms of removing the old cigarette smell quickly, but if you are like me, you are probably already too overwhelmed with things to spend so much time cleaning each and every mold to get them out of the garage. Just my thoughts. Best wishes everything goes well.

[hitchmss]

Im a smoker, but I hate the smell of a house/studio thats smoked in, so I can understand your hesitancy to have them in your studio/home. However, Id be worried about leaving any kind of residue from cleaning agents on the surfaces of your molds which would impact the castings you would make from them. The ozone generator idea sounds good to me, but who knows how long this would take? 300 molds, even relatively thin molds, is a lot of plaster, and would take a long time to "air" out. I think the simplest option is Mark's and use the good ol' sun and air outside, but finding a string of dry, hot days may be difficult in your area.

More than likely, the molds began to stink much more noticeably once you got home and put them in the garage where they absorbed humidity,....wet cigarette smoke is gross. I make the assumption that if they were "dry" they wouldnt stink as much, and maybe would only smell badly when you were casting in them? Maybe you could use a small vent hood/exhaust fan while casting to remove odors, or an activated charcoal filter in an air handler? It doesnt get rid of the smells, at least not quickly, but maybe its an easier option to deal with the smells rather than eliminate.

I make the assumption that you intend to use these molds, and paid something for them, thus I would be cautious about using solvents, ESPECIALLY any oil based cleaners on your absorbent/porous plaster molds. Oils will not play nice with the water in your clay. Also, any agent you use to clean them will thusly be absorbed into the molds; do you want to smell vinegar every time you get the molds wet again in the future?

[Bill Kielb]

34 minutes ago, hitchmss said:

Im a smoker, but I hate the smell of a house/studio thats smoked in, so I can understand your hesitancy to have them in your studio/home. However, Id be worried about leaving any kind of residue from cleaning agents on the surfaces of your molds which would impact the castings you would make from them. The ozone generator idea sounds good to me, but who knows how long this would take? 300 molds, even relatively thin molds, is a lot of plaster, and would take a long time to "air" out. I think the simplest option is Mark's and use the good ol' sun and air outside, but finding a string of dry, hot days may be difficult in your area.

More than likely, the molds began to stink much more noticeably once you got home and put them in the garage where they absorbed humidity,....wet cigarette smoke is gross. I make the assumption that if they were "dry" they wouldnt stink as much, and maybe would only smell badly when you were casting in them? Maybe you could use a small vent hood/exhaust fan while casting to remove odors, or an activated charcoal filter in an air handler? It doesnt get rid of the smells, at least not quickly, but maybe its an easier option to deal with the smells rather than eliminate.

I make the assumption that you intend to use these molds, and paid something for them, thus I would be cautious about using solvents, ESPECIALLY any oil based cleaners on your absorbent/porous plaster molds. Oils will not play nice with the water in your clay. Also, any agent you use to clean them will thusly be absorbed into the molds; do you want to smell vinegar every time you get the molds wet again in the future?

The ozone generator would take hours. It is frequently used to remove all traces of fire in fire restoration work. This happens without crazy chemicals and soap or masking agents so it probably is the single easiest way to make these things smell like. ...........Nothing.

place them under a tarp outside, semi hermetic and blow ozone under that tarp allowing the generator to suck in fresh air while doing so. Commercial ozone generators can only generate or convert about 3% of  O2 to O3 and it will remain converted for only about 1/2 hour. It will oxidize anything and everything it comes in contact with.

ozone is used to purify water, remove smoke smell from cars, fire restoration, you name it. It probably is the singl e easiest quickest way to get to all surfaces of the molds in a non destructive way on a molecular level.

if after 4 hours  some of the molds  still smell, leave it on for another hour, or better still put two molds in a plastic bag (outside your house) blow ozone in for 15 minutes while letting some leak out of the bag so new ozone is always being injected and after 10 minutes take out your smoke odor free molds.

All of the ideas are great, ozone is realistically the  easiest and it has worked for decades but please follow all the directions and cautions on the device.

[liambesaw]

Yah if you use ozone make sure it's in an area away from living things. Ozone is dangerous.  A potent poison, corrosive, it's not something you want to generate inside of your home. Does work great to deodorize though.  It will also destroy any rubber it comes in contact with, think years old rubber band around a board game but in hours instead of years.  

[Bill Kielb]

It’s as dangerous as many chems we commonly work with. Having said that it’s hard to produce a bunch, it has a short half life and will not eat through your picnic table in hours. Good thing about ozone is folks can smell very small amounts of it just like Mercaptan which is placed in natural gas so we can smell a leak right away.

its a good oxidizer and folks should read and heed all the warnings because it is a resperable irritant. Having said that it is very safe used responsibly. I don’t want to scare folks excessively but also want them to use reasonable caution.

[liambesaw]

Yeah hard to generate a lot of it, but you need a lot of it to deodorize.  According to the EPA, if there's enough to deodorize there's enough to cause damage to you.  

[Bill Kielb]

@liambesaw

Get me that that guys name! Seriously, definitely needs to be used  with reasonable cautioun but not half as treacherous as folks think.  Ozone warnings are probably the cause of the  misconception. Google some stuff and you will see decent work and half hazard stuff as well.  Probably see way more dangerous long term stuff in clay daily with kiln ventilation issues, dangerous respirable chems as well as spraying .... you name it.

always excercise reasonable care!

[liambesaw]

Yeah for sure, best to treat it like kiln vapors.  The good part is that it has a pretty immediate affect so when your throat burns, get away!