Sunday 8 January 2017

HOW TO CLEAN YOUR IRON WITH A PANADOL

Now I don't know who was the first sewer to ever do this, but that woman deserves the Nobel Peace prize. Yes the PEACE prize.  Have you ever been in close contact with a woman, busy ironing, and her freshly washed and 3/4s ironed white shirt gets a dirty smear from the very dirty iron?  Yeah, that's why the peace prize....  

I first posted this on a foody group. And true to form, the first few comments was people telling me I should use THEIR method.  If that worked we would not be here, now would we?  And one smart ass telling me it is time for a new iron.  Sweetie, I grew up poor.  We fixed things, not chuck it and spend more money.  This iron is 8 years old, have a still intact teflon layer under all that aanbrandsel, and works like a charm when not leaving brown briekmerk streaks on my whites.  It has fancy features like self clean steam bursts, no leak tank, teflon (as stated), extra steam burst and does not deserve to be divorced thrown away because of a few age spots.  We have a committed relationship, even if I only use it for crafting and not general ironing (who irons anyway).  Unless I am in too much of a hurry to wait for the steam station to heat up, then I grab this one...

So I watched some youtubes did research on the hows... and now I am going to show you all how to do it... 

HOW TO CLEAN YOUR IRON WITH A PANADOL.

My theory on how it happened that first time, is that wifey lamented the fact that she has to re-wash the shirts because the dirty iron is giving her headaches (clearly a hint, dear husband, she wanted a new one) and being told to take two Panadol.  So she took it literally and used the panadol to solve her problem.  Here's how:

See that metal thingy resting on the pill box with a tablet in its jaws?  That is a shifting spanner.
 Get your supplies ready.  A packet of generic brand paracetamol (not the one pictured with a covered layer, just the plain, grocery store brand, cheap paracetamol, the white one.)  Two pliers, one preferably a small shifting spanner as pictured.  You need one that can hold the tablet without crushing it when you get too motivated and press too hard. Then a few pieces of kitchen paper towel, a clip to hold a roll of it so that you can pick it up with the other (red) pliers to wipe off the gunk, a piece of sacrificial fabric and (not pictured) some water and cotton buds.  

And some burn cream and plasters you will need if you don't LISTEN to me and try your own way.  Do NOT rub with the towel held in your hand.


Empty the tank of water and let it steam a bit to clear all the water in the tank. The temperature setting should be cotton or just below the hottest setting.

Roll up one sheet of paper towel and secure with the little red clip or sommer 'n paper clip or pin.  Roll it better than I did, so that you can use the inside too when the outside gets too dirty.  It will become hard and stiff with the melted tablet and gemors that comes off your iron.

Now grab the tablet (as small as you can manage between the teeth) and secure.  You can put a tiny piece of towel top and bottom so that it won't slip.  See how the teeth grabs it in line, and do not crush it?  That is what you want.  I tried with the red pliers first and after crushing 2, went to get the spanner.  Lesson learned.

Now you are going to press this tablet against the metal foot (the hot, dirty bit) until it melts.  Yes, it is going to melt like sugar does.  And the degree of pain you will be in if that melted stuff lands on your hand, is equal to that of melted sugar on said hand.  Ask me how I know.  PJ  get Ma the Allergex burn ointment please!

Just hold it till it melts
You don't have to rub the foot plate, like YouTube the research showed me.  Just hold it till it becomes liquid, and if it runs down too quickly, tilt the iron on its back and guide the syrupy liquid to where you want it to go.  It will start to bubble as it dissolves the gunk.  

If I ever have to do this again, I will build a jig (shoptalk, explained in next week's blog entry) to hold the iron on its back and give me 2 hands to work with.  

See that liquid?  That was one panadol moments ago
You want this liquid to be on the sole plate as long as possible, and only rub it off before it burns on again.  

Now grab the rolled up towel with the other pliers (NOT your hand) and wipe up as much gunk as you can.  You can also use a bigger sacrificial (another shop talk word often used in woodworking) piece of fabric and just wipe it clean(er).  You do not want to do this on your ironing board cover, because you will throw this away. And those covers are expensive. Think what melted sugar will do to fabric.  The same.


Jeghhh sies.

I will advise you to do the iron in sections, so that you can see the difference it makes.  Don't worry too much if the liquid runs into the steam holes.  Try to prevent it but it is not a major issue, explained at the end.  

Now your paper towel will soon start to look like this: 

Time for a new one (paper, not iron).  Hard to think all that was stuck on the iron you used on your whites, right?

Left half done, right bottom not done, clean spot
on right top was aspirin
 Now most of you who know me personally, will realise that the kapoernjaffie in my head will start to question things and then proceed to do dom things.  

So when I ran out of panadols, of course I thought if paracetamol tablets work that well, what would aspirin/antacid/nurofen do.  Well you don't have to do it because I did.  Here is the results:  

Antacid: Nothing.  Made a mess.  Don't bother. Smelled minty fresh though. 

Nurofen: Not much, don't bother (and NO not the gel caps -  luckily I had enough common sense for that.

Now we get to Aspirin:  USE CAUTION.  Yes it works. but.  Big BUT... See that nice clean spot in the right middle?  That is what aspirin do.  But the fumes will kill you.  Phillip thought I was cooking acid.  Still wondering how he knows what that smells like.   PJ asked "What smells like vinegar?"  So do not, DO NOT use aspirin.  Stick with panadol.  Just get enough, the dirtier your iron, the more you will use.

I used up my supply and waited until morning to get more and finish the job.

When you are happy with your iron, do the holes.  Press a piece of panadol against the larger indent surrounding the hole (see my iron and you will understand) so that just a bead forms.  Then do the other side of the indent.  Now let this sit and bubble and do the next one.  I used up a tablet, then went back to the first hole (about 5 per tablet) with a cotton ear bud dipped in a glass of water, and cleaned the hole.  You will be surprised at what comes out of it.  Once you have all of the 5 cleaned, take a new tablet to the next 4-5 holes, rinse and repeat.
Well that was fun!

Now comes the overall clean.  Spray the sacrificial piece of fabric until well damp, and rub the hot iron on it.  Keep repeating until you do this and no more brown comes off.  Once you are happy, fill the iron with water, hottest setting and most steam possible (in my case the self clean function).  Find a clean spot on the cleaning fabric and let it steam.  If it has steam burst like mine, do that as well.  You want to get everything that ran into the holes, to come out.



Check the iron sole plate, and repeat the earbud thing if needed.  Now you will have a big mess to throw away but a clean iron.  And no more brown streaks on clean shirts.  And instead of forking out $50-$100 for a new iron, I spend about $0.90 on department store- branded panadol.  Took me 19 tablets to get it this clean.  And one aspirin, but we are not talking about that one... to anybody... 😉