Hidden surprise

After I finished washing and cleaning the inner tyre tubes yesterday, I just let them stand on the terrace to drip and dry out. They did not take a long time to dry out even in such humid conditions, I'd say about 30 minutes or so, I bet in the Dry summer heat of Delhi it would have been no more than 5.

I decided to cut one of the tubes on the terrace itself rather than my work table as I knew some of the tubes had a hole or two and all of them had a big cut where the air valve once existed, and water certainly went inside from some of these cuts. I did not want to cut them and see the water dripping inside the house.

Cutting through the inner seam

Cutting it across, to make small manageable pieces

Once I cut the tube to manageable pieces, I was in for a big surprise. The inner surface wall of the tubes was not as smooth as the outer surface and it had a white powdery thing sticking to it. I tried cleaning it with a damp cloth, but the powdery surface just repelled the water away just like an oiled surface would do.

Powdery surprise all over the inner surface

The pieces on the right in the picture above have been cleaned with a damp cloth, but they are still not totally free of the white powder. To get them perfectly clean I had to wash them again, just like I had the outer surface earlier. The smaller manageable pieces made the task a little easier than washing the whole tube as it is fairly heavy, and going forward I will first cut the tube into smaller pieces and then wash the pieces rather than the heavy tube.

Clear of everything now :)