Which type of Iron for new Royal Marine recruit

suzyq

Hi My son will be joining the Royal Marines next month one of the items he needs is a good quality heavy steam iron. Any suggestions or help with choosing one would be appreciated, no doubt it will need to be quite robust and do the job properly.
Thanks

4$£&*(£$&*(!

I tried asking the same question last week but got no responses

Randomtask_3

Hi, just saw your post and thought I might be able to offer a little, perhaps slightly helpful, advice.

I was in the forces and one thing I did wrong was turn up to recruit training without an iron, and they don't sell decent ones on the unit! He'll need to properly iron everything he gets, a lot, so the better the iron, the more time he'll have for all the other nonsense. It'll need a decent length cord, ie 3m, stainless steel base, good steam action etc. Any 'decent' steam iron should be heavy enough and will do.

kyh

Having stood for hours in the shop while my husband (ex army now house husband) debates which iron to buy I would suggest you take the young man with you to choose - then he can't blame you if you get it wrong! From my experience a powerful one that gives a lot of steam - you need to be able to crease things well. As an extra suggest he akes an ironing cloth as well - a thin tea towel - clean but well used or old pillowcase to put over creases on wool items to stop them going shiny -teach him this and he'll love you forever!! His Lovats (best suit) may need a quick smarten evey now and then and he wouldn't want to make then shiny!!

mcwarre

In addition, a little bit of soap inside the crease makes it stand out nice. Also look at a sleeve ironing board (like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brabantia-Sleeve-Board-60x10cm-Metal/dp/B0002EXYUM).

Make sure it is non-stick and follow the advice above (lots of steam, heavy, use a cloth to stop shineyness). Also get a cheap plastic waterspray (like those used for watering plants) rather than use that on the iron.

Good luck to him.

suzyq

Thanks a lot for all your suggestions,I almost forgot about needing an old tea towel for pressing clothes and to stop any shine. Still would like some help though with the brand and model of iron.

nymph_2

suzyq and cityslicker
in my humble opinion...and wish to help
Tefal are brilliant because they are designed to be used with tap water! they also have self-clean and anti limescale features as standard.
That's what I picked 10 years ago as a student, ( £30 splurge for Uni) had a non-stick easy glide foot, spray and steam vertical and horizontal, idiots fabric temp guide, i figures the extra tenner would be saved through not needing superduper waters& descaling chemicals.

Loved it, still got it, its still in great shape too, despite much use and abuse, bought another one last year for home& sewing mainly because I dropped it and put a tiny scratch in the non-stick, which made it catch on satin-type material. Wouldn't have been an issue except that I like sewing. Took old faithful into work for my uniform, and keep it there; far too good to throw away, and when the blokes "borrow" ours, I've still got mine in the locker!

So, I would say they are worth a look. My newest one was approx £50, one of the aquaspeeds. Can get them almost anywhere including ASDA! worth every penny, all the features of my old one and many more including anti drip, super easy to fill, and the spray feature is quite fine, it steams vertical/horizontal at quite low temps as well, which is great in a small space.
Anyway, all the specs of all the current range are on tefal's website if you really want to look in detail

Might want to look at getting him one of those travelling ironing blankets too(decent size essential for uniform trouserlegs otherwise you're liable to get dreaded tramlines), Kleeneze eBay or the like, can be a godsend escaping the queue for communal facilities and will save him time and valuable lost sleep!
(Arrrgh, sitting in the cold kitchen at 1am waiting so as not to loose your place in the queue!)
Hope that helps

Good Luck to you and yours, both of you.

softuk

An old tea towel is a good idea for pressing, but look out for mesh type pressing cloths. I bought a couple from Lidl a while back, but maybe Lakeland or John Lewis would stock them