sole plate of iron (cleaning)

[cathy]

dont buy !a new iron
just !rub the sole plate with a mixture of vinegar and salt.
;D ;D ;D

[Queenie]

My mother taught me to rub a bar of soap over the plate while it's still warm, then to clean it off with a cloth.

Works for me

[VickyA]

Thanks to both of you. I was just about to ask this question!

[cathy]

your right about the soap, I remember my gran doing it with the old flat iron!!! ;D

[16011996]

my gran also swore by rubbing a bit of petrolium jelly round the steam holes to stop rust, then giving it a good wipe before ironing

[MattieT]

what's the best way to clean an iron sole plate please???

[16011996]

whilst its just warm, rub with damp green scoury thing. (flat green ones.) works wonders.

[Eager_Elephant]

Hi,

I'm hoping someone can help, I purchased a new Hinari iron about 4 weeks ago. About a week ago I noticed what appeared to be a brown patch on the plate on the iron.

When the iron is cold and I rub my finger on it, it doesn't feel as if anything is there and I have got a scourer and tried to scrub it and nothing happens.

When the iron was hot this morning I could run my nail on it and it had gone quite soft but not sticky, I managed to scrape some off but when I got a normal wet dishcloth it didn't do any good. (I know it was a silly thing to do to touch a hot iron but I was slightly peeved this morning)

In my house we only iron jeans and shirts for work so I'm sure it hasn't come off a transfer on a top.

When I iron no marks appear on my clothes except when I do the cuffs and then it leaves a black mark which can be wiped but not all the mark disappears.

Any ideas of how to get this mark off?

Thanks

[Downsizing _for_sanity]

Hi EE,

If you have a John Lewis store or similar close to you, you can buy an iron cleaning stick. It's about the size of a lipstick and you warm the iron up, (not hot though) and rub on the waxy stick which melts off the debris on the iron. It only costs a couple of pounds and make the iron like new. I've used mine a few times and I've still got plenty left.

Good luck!

DFS

[Queenie]

A real "old fashioned" money saving manner of cleaning the iron plate is this:

take a bar of soap and while the iron is hot (but turned off!) , rub it all over the iron plate. It will stink, but let it cool a bit - not all the way to cold - and then rub it with a cloth. A scourer risks scratching the iron plate and might then snag on other clothing in the future.

[MrsMondragon]

Put some salt on a thick piece of card. Heat the iron till very hot. Now rub the iron in the salt. That should removed the mark. Cheap and easy!

[Nile]

A similar idea to the one Queenie posted is to use a small bar of beeswax polish.


Wrap the bar in a cotton handkerchief then wipe the wrapped bar all over the warm/hot iron hotplate. To remove the wax/staining and clean the iron, simply iron an old piece of cloth. The cloth will collect the wax and stains and the hotplate will be left shiny and clean.

An added bonus is that your ironing is made easier........your iron will glide over the garments instead of sticking.

I used to work in a research & development laundry care laboratory so remember lots of laundry tips.

[Lillibet]

Not sure about cleaning the iron but I wanted to say welcome to Old Style to Eager Elephant, I recognize you from another forum I breifly used to post on & you were always a voice of sanity

[toozie]

Hi

Got another problem, hope someone can help!
My steam iron is about 3 years old, its a good make-can't remember which one at the moment. It has started to drop dirty water when its steaming. Its only blobs, but it always happens when I'm ironing the kids WHITE school shirts, a white Tshirts!!
I've drained all the water out of it, and used it with the steam on to try and dry out the inside, but when I put water back in, the same thing happens. The base of the iron is perfectly clean. The brown water/dirt in inside the iron.

I'm not money saving very well, if I have to wash my whites twice!! Any ideas girls???

Thanks in advance.

[Queenie]

Sounds like it needs descaling toozie.

I descale mine in the same way as I descale my kettle - I add a solution of water and white vinegar (just a Tbsp of vin) while the iron is hot (in the usual steam water chamber) but the iron is turned off.

I leave that to 'stand' for roughly an hour, pour the solution out into a jug. If the holes are blocked on your iron plate. Repeat the above, but this time, place the iron plate side down on a wire rack (I use my grill pan rack) and then let the hot steamy solution work it's way out of the holes.

HTH

[moggins]

I agree with Queenie, definitely sounds like a descale is in order.

[Daisy]

I've got the same problem as toozie only my iron is 10 years old. I have done the white vinegar descaling thing. I had to do it about 3 times until the water/steam ran clear. However, it still has what looks like brown grainy bits in the holes and when I iron it now has a burny smell. I've also used a cotton wool bud and lemon juice to poke in the holes. Thinking of just buying a new iron but I love this iron because it's a really good one. Any suggestions?

[Eager_Elephant]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I have tried the soap idea and it hasn't worked - I've probably done something wrong, I'll list what I did and then you can all let me know where I went wrong:

I went to Tesco and bought some Magnolia soap (we don't use soap in our house), I turned the iron on and let it get hot, then I turned it off and rubbed soap over the marks. However it didn't smell at all and I waited til it went cold and rubbed the soap off with a cloth.

The brown marks have gone but what is left is some clear marks (if you can imagine sticking a sticker on a lunchbox and when you peel it off you get left with some tack) - that is what part of the plate of my iron looks like but it isn't sticky!!

Any more ideas?

Sorry about this

[blue-kat]

I've been using no sew hem stuff to make a patch, and inadvertanly got the left over bit stuck to the bottom of my iron

I've got most of it off , but it's still sticky any tips for cleaning the ironing plate?

thanks
-
Katya

[Bogof_Babe]

You could try heating the iron up until it is really hot, then running it over a damp flannel.

You need to re-melt the sticky stuff, and this might just be worth a try.