How do you clean the metal plate on an iron?

[sweetpeamom25]

Anyone know how to clean the metal plate (sole plate, I think it's called) on an iron? Our iron gets 'gunk' in the same place all the time, then it makes it difficult to iron things. I've cleaned with the speical iron cleaning stuff and the gunk comes off, but always comes back, usually in the same spot. I haven't tired any other methods, but I'm thinking in cleaning it maybe I took off some of the 'non-stick' coating or something. Just thinking that because the gunk comes back around the same area. Our iron works fine other than that, so I think it's dumb to buy a new one.

Any suggestions?

[onlyoneboy]

I have the same problem. I've tried goo gone, magic eraser and neither worked. I hope someone know's

[bumblebee23]

I have some on mine to but it actually transfers on to the clothes that I am ironing. It's pissing me off cause I can't figure out how to fix it. I was going to go out and buy a new one.

[momof3anddog]

Buy a sole plate cleaning kit at Target or a Fabric Store like Jo-Ann's; It comes with a tube of stuff on in it that is like liquidy wax; Put in in a spot about the size of a quarter or larger on the white terry cloth washcloth (included in the kit) and repeatedly iron (while iron is hot) the gunked up part of the iron over the wax spot; It somehow gets it off; Keep doing that, using more of the wax stuff until it is all off of the bottom of the sole plate; As for that it always comes back in the same spot on iron, you may need to clean your iron as you probably have calcification from putting tap water with high mineral content/iron in your iron; This is why a lot of irons recommend using only distilled water; But that is a pain; So clean your iron and see if it helps; It may not depending on how badly you've got calcification inside your iron and you just may need to go get a new iron; Make sure that you are not ironing too hot in general, as a lot of times, the sludge on your iron is from ironing fabrics too hot and you slightly melt off the surface of the fabric on to your iron sole plate; Hence the sludge or drag whatever it is called; It will transfer to other clothing often if it is on your sole plate of iron and you warm up iron and iron something else as you now are slightly melting the sludge as you iron and getting the very surface of the sludge on your fabric that your are ironing; So getting it off is a must if you want to not wreck clothes.

As far as how to clean your iron; Every iron is a little different, but it goes something like this: putting the iron on the clean setting and holding it to with steam button down and holding the iron in air until all of the water in tank is steamed out into air through the holes in the sole plate, etc.; You should see water and white stuff coming out; It takes a while; I am too lazy to do this and don't do it like I should, and just end up getting a new iron when I can't get the sole plate clean using the cleaning kit and and doing a steam clean like I described above once or twice to get it to work again.

But my mother-in-law who can sew at a master tailor level and is very particular about how her cloth is pressed before sewing or her clothing she wears is ironed before wearing -- religiously cleans her professional clothing steam irons prior to them getting like this and her expensive Rowenta Irons last for decades. She tells me her irons last like that just because she does the pre-emptive strike half-hour, 45 minute steam cleaning process monthly before problems start.

The cleaning kit I get is about $10 - $12 the last time I got it a couple of years ago. It is made by Rowenta. I bet there are other kinds but I haven't found them yet. I wish they had a bigger tube of the waxy stuff in them. Maybe you can just buy that waxy stuff cleaning tube at a fabric store??? Anybody know???