Recently, my beam scale started sticking, just needing a nudge from my finger to free it. I cleaned the bearings with anhydrous Alcohol. Still stuck.
It zeroes fine, and is exactly with my check weights.
I called, and asked a tech where I bought it, and he suggested that static electricity may be causing the problem, and suggested rubbing each part with a dryer sheet. I got some cheap, store brand sheets, and used it new. it had some fine granular material on it, probably the softener. It left dust all over the scale, which I cleaned off. It works fine now.
My question is should I use the dryer sheets after they have been used,or get a better-quality sheet, which won't leave the dust, or both?
Thanx

I'm going to guess they had you do the dryer sheet thing for static electricity purposes. This article mentions static electricity but only in passing.

http://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/s.../Lyc_SM_BS.pdf

Increasing the humidity in your room will help control static electricity. Make sure the knife is clean, and wear a static strap if all else fails!!!! Ask any electronic hobbyist about static in the winter

Happy to say that this is something I haven't faced Good luck!

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Really? U saw it in Wikipedia?

Honestly, Jup, I'd suggest you get a good quality electronic scale. They aren't all that expensive anymore & will probably last your life time. I bought one from Dillon, which weighs in tenths of a grain, a good 15 years ago.

I struggled with a balance beam for years. Wasn't easy to zero out on my uneven work bench, then couldn't seem to avoid bumping the frame when using (requiring setting up all over again), was damn slow to use in comparison to touching an "ON" button, etc.

I use mine weekly.

Hank M.

I wait until the dryer sheets are used, then repurpose them for all sorts of things. I rub the outsides of powder bottles and measures for static control. I rub the outsides of powder storage bottles so the powder will all come out. And I cut strips of dryer sheets to put into the case tumbler to attract the carbon residue and make the medium more effective.
New sheets make a mess.

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Science plus Art

I wear a Browning cap with a tinfoil cover to get rid of that problem when I reload. When I turn the TV on manually something tries to suck the hair off my arm.

Helps with the NSA mind-control, too.

Air ionizers were developed to control static buildup, and work to knock down bacterial cultures as well ... not that we can't all use a little more culture in our lives!

Could you provide a pic of that please!

Thanks for all the suggestions, and the humor!
I've been considering an electronic scale for some time, and I will wait till the dryer sheets are used! I tried a tinfoil cap...just not Browning...and all I got was rebroadcasts of the past Presidential debates and Slim Whitman records!

Also, if you have any type of styrofoam in the vicinity of the scale, that will affect the scale as well. Whilst I was attending a high reliability soldering course at WRAFB, we learned that a styrofoam coffee cup could hold a 3kv static charge, IIRC. At any rate, static raises hob.

Beam scales do wear out. The bearing surfaces go very fast if the scale is subjected to the vibration of the press action. Always put the scale on a separate bench. And remove the beam when not in use.

Puzzling to envision how static electrical charge could cause a net force on the balance beam to make it stick. The beam is electrically isolated by the knife bearings, but even if it did build up a static charge and the charge exerted a net force, the beam would be deflected, not stuck. Far more likely is that the bearings are dirty. My old RCBS (Ohaus) is almost 50 years old. When leave it lying around uncovered too long it gets a little sticky and balky. A mild blast of compressed air always solves the problem. Reloading scales are not laboratory grade and have a bit of hysteresis and a dead band around the zero level. My habit is to drum my fingers on the adjacent surface to make the scale beam vibrate ever so gently and creep to its equilibrium position. It repeats every time, but it's slow. With all those drawbacks and slow use, I trust it implicitly over cheap electronic scales. Gravity never goes out of calibration.