Originally Posted by
Onebyone
One reviewer gave the best answer. She said the Panosonic rechargeable stayed hot for 60 -90 seconds before having to be put back on the charger and took about that to reheat. This would drive me nuts as I can barely tolerate the auto off after 15 minutes.
I'm not sure if I believe that. I think mine stays hot for a lot longer than that. But usually it's in my hands about as long as it's in the cradle. I press a seam or block, drop it in the cradle as I'm moving my fabric around, pick it up for the next pressing, back into the cradle for the next fabric adjustment... For that kind of work, it's just not an issue, it's always hot. I can see maybe if you were pressing a lot of very large pieces of fabric it'd get cool too fast, but for the length of time it takes to press a block or a seam, it's not an issue at all. And some of those seams are full length of the quilt, not just the little guys. Even pressing completed quilts it's been fine - anytime I have to move the quilt I have to set the iron down anyway - just get into the habit of dropping it into the cradle instead of propping it up on the board.
The nice thing with this iron is that it does have an auto shut-off, but that timer resets every time you pick up the iron. So it really ONLY shuts itself off when you haven't been using it for awhile, never right in the middle of what you're doing.
I also like that, rather than unplugging it for safety, I can just take the iron off of the cradle. The circuit isn't complete without the iron on the cradle, so it's really safe. I have a silicone heatproof pad that I can drop my hot iron on when I'm done for the day, and never have to worry about it shorting out when I'm not home.