Cleaning an old unglazed pottery jug

lostinrates

I ask some odd questions on OS, sorry!


My dad has an unglazed jusg that once was white and is now beige with darker areas, Its about thirty five years old, his sister made it for him.


I think its beautiful now as it but he wants to clean it up to take to show his sister who has Alzeimer's and he wants it to look how it looked when she meade it.

Any ideas? He wants to bleach it and i begged him to let me ask you lot first!

Rainy-Days

So from your description it sounds as though she had this item fired because the biscuit (the raw pottery) has changed colour to the beige.

I would suggest that you use nothing more stronger than washing soda crystals and a cloth. If you use bleach it will be too harsh. At the very most try not to immerse the whole jug in the water, have it on the draining board and clean it that way with the cloth/sponge then rinse it off under the tap and let it dry naturally. If it is just years of plain dust this solution will fetch it off. If it has heavy staining then it may have to stay put.

lostinrates

Rainy-Days wrote: »

So from your description it sounds as though she had this item fired because the biscuit (the raw pottery) has changed colour to the beige.

I would suggest that you use nothing more stronger than washing soda crystals and a cloth. If you use bleach it will be too harsh. At the very most try not to immerse the whole jug in the water, have it on the draining board and clean it that way with the cloth/sponge then rinse it off under the tap and let it dry naturally. If it is just years of plain dust this solution will fetch it off. If it has heavy staining then it may have to stay put.

Thank ypu so much. I just read this out to him. I felt certain bleaching was not the best move.