How to Clean a Badly Scorched Iron

I had one of those moments! I had just finished ironing cotton fabric on high heat when I thought I'd just press out a wrinkle in my piece of felt. Um ~ not my best moment. Just as the iron was touching the felt, my brain fog cleared, and I tried to pull back. But the damage was done!

I left the iron unplugged to cool off, and the next morning I googled for help!

There were several ideas, but I went with vinegar and salt (because I had it on hand). I mixed about 1 or 2 tablespoons of salt into about 1/4 cup of very hot water. Stirred to dissolve the salt. Then added about 3/4 cup of white vinegar. I did eventually warm it up in the microwave for almost 1 minute.

I had already started cleaning it before I thought to take pictures. But if you compare the right side of the iron in the picture above with the one below, you can tell how the lighter stuff came off just by rubbing the vinegar / salt mixture on with a soft cloth.

What I thought was really neat, was the way it began to peel off in large potato chip like sheets. I soaked the pink stuff with the cloth sopping with the vinegar mixture. It seemed to soak it up, so I did it again. All of a sudden the felt began to come off in strips. Nice!