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Posted by Just Askin on April 6, 2008, 12:31 am
>I recently bought a brand new Black & Decker Steam Advantage iron (model
>F2200). This is one with a "Ceramic Glide" soleplate. I've owned it less
>than a week and I am already having problems with it. The specific problem
>I am having is that on occasion it is staining my clothes. This happens
>when I am ironing over a thick seam, say, the outside corner of the pocket
>on the front of a shirt. The iron is leaving a thin, brown stain there.
>Sometimes I can brush off what seems to be some residue there, but
>sometimes not.
>
> When I examine the soleplate I see some brown stains immediately below the
> "top" steam vent, extending in a V-shape in each direction. This stained
> area feels slightly rough, as though there is residue there.
>
> Compared with my old iron, which had a non-stick (Teflon?) soleplate, I've
> noticed that the ceramic soleplate of this new iron is more "sticky," and
> I have to let the steam flow really build up before I can move the iron
> back and forth easily. This soleplate also seems to get hotter at a given
> fabric heat/steam setting.
>
> I have ironed almost exclusively dress shirts, both 100% cotton and
> poly/cotten shirts, with this iron. I am using the recommended heat/steam
> setting for the fabric. I have been filling the iron with store-bought,
> distilled water.
>
> I have two questions:
>
> (1) What is causing this problem? Is the recommended setting too hot?
> Is this residue microscopic, burned, fabric particles?
>
> (2) How can I clean this material off the soleplate?
>
> Thanks in advance. I saw from searching Google that problems with steam
> irons have been discussed in this group in the past.
I solved this problem on my own by researching various solutions on the
Internet and trying them until I found one that worked.
This problem was being caused by the fact that this new iron gets quite a
bit hotter than my old iron. In essence, the cotton heat/steam setting is
too hot for the cotten/polyester blend shirts I usually wear. This new iron
is getting so hot that it is, at the microscopic level, burning/melting the
fabric and this burned/melted material is accumulating on the bottom of the
iron. Enough of this residue had collected on the soleplate so that, after
about the fifth time I used the iron, some rubbed off on the shirt I was
ironing, creating the stains I mentioned earlier.
I tried several methods to remove this residue from the soleplate. The one
that worked was making a thick paste of water and baking soda and spooning
some of this on a Scotch Brite "Dobie" scouring pad, then gently scouring
the soleplate in a circular motion. It took about a half-hour to get all
the residue off the soleplate, but I did not scratch the ceramic surface.
I then experimented with lowering the temperature of my iron by setting it
to the next highest setting, the "Wool" setting. This was hot enough to
iron the cotten/poly shirts successfully without causing the burn/melting
problems.
I'm still trying to find a way to get the brown stains out of the shirt that
I was ironing when I discovered the problem. Today I tried a "Magic Wand"
stain remover stick. I rubbed this on the stains than laundered. It may
have removed a little bit, but the stains were still there after laundering.
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