Iron Rescue
I know there have been numerous articles on how to clean your iron and I tried them all! Here is the story:
I burned some fabric onto the teflon sole plate...yep I did. After I got done saying a few choice words and feeling like an idiot, I scrapped it off and thought I had the plate clean....hah, fooled me! After ironing some fabric with Best Press, I noticed some black marks on my fabric. You guessed it...the starch had burned on the spot I had melted the fabric on. So started the "how to clean your iron" information search.
I tried the plastic scrubby with salt, I tried the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and the ironing on salted newspaper and even toothpaste as well as goof off.. Interesting enough, all they did was make a bigger burned on mess. By now I had a tennis ball size mess and the steam vents were all looking black and plugged up. Yikes!
Then I found an article that actually worked! I found a shallow pan, added enough water to cover the sole plate and a hefty dose of Dawn dish soap. I let it soak the suggested 20 minutes and saw gunk in the water...there was hope! I took a plastic spoon (no sharp edges) and scrapped the black mess and some actually came off. Back to the soak cycle....this time overnight because I forgot it. Wow! A ton of black stuff came off, more scraping, another day of soaking. I used the handle of the spoon to swizzle around the holes and they came clean! I never changed the water.
All in all, 3 days of soaking with about 10 minutes of scraping each time with a little rinse under the faucet and my iron looks and irons like new. I should say, I did let it dry out for about 5 days before I tried it out....I wanted to make sure that any migrating water had a chance to dry out.
If you have an iron you love and are a cheapskate like me, it is well worth the effort to try this method before chucking your iron. Hope this helps someone out.
Marilyn