| Sure - Armetale® is easy to take care of. Just hand wash with soapy water & towel dry. What could be easier? Okay... so maybe you have a beautiful piece of Armetale® didn't age so gracefully or found a treasure that is caked in gook? What can you do?!?!
WILTON suggests making a paste with baking soda and water, rubbing it on the discolored or stained area, then towel dry. Afterwards, use the Wilton Armetale Polish (sold at the same retail places you buy Wilton items) to get any remaining stain/discoloration, and get that lovely shine back.
You say that you've done this and although it has lessened the stain, it's still there? Well? Rub more paste and try harder! Humm... After a while, your elbows and fingers are killing you. I went out and found a box of Wilton ware in desperate need of love & care, and here's what I found....
The following experiments are highly dangerous and great caution is needed should you try to duplicate the trials. I am only conveying my findings, and am not responsible (nor is Wilton) if you chose to do the same things to your Wilton Armetale products.
Scroll down for photos.
| The Idea |
The insanity behind the idea |
| 1 ~ SOS Scrubbing pads are great. I gently scrubbed back & forth, with even pressure over the surface. I found circular motions didn't look good. I then experimented with various grades of steel wool (which is what an SOS pad is made of). Think of the steel wool in terms of coarse, medium (SOS pads), and fine grades, like sandpaper. When you take a raw piece of wood, you use coarse sandpaper. It eats away most of the big splinters. Work down the grades until fine, where you do the finishing touch of making the wood feel silky smooth. It is what I did with the Wilton items. The coarse steel wool was for something heavily caked with mystery gook. As the gook disappeared, I switched to finer and finer grades of wool. |
I have no idea how Wilton makes their items (would love to tour their factory), but it seems to me that after they remove the Armetale® from the sandmold, the Armetale® would be rough... however large the particles of sand are, is how rough the initial Armetale® item turns out. How can you smooth out METAL??? You'd go through a lot of sandpaper to make these look like the highly smooth & glossy things at the store. Metal grinding machines were logical, thus the steel wool idea. |
| 2 ~ Maybe the steel wool is a bit of overkill. I've also tried rubbing the baking soda/water paste, and after a minute or so, I would pour vinegar over the entire piece, swish it around like fine wine, then rinse away with warm water. It will fizzle like an Alka-Seltzer. |
I initially got this idea from (if I remember correctly, and don't quote me) the Wilton website. They have since changed the website and no longer mention the vinegar. But, the vinegar idea makes sense. Wilton ware gets spots and discoloration mostly from acids that sit in the bowl or plate over a period of time. What does acid do? Remember those experiments in high school where they gave teenagers Hydrochloric Acid (WHAT were the schools thinking)? Acid can literally eat away just about anything, depending on their strength. So, the tomato or salad vinaigrette dressing that sat in the bowl has now eaten a bit of the bowl. Ew. Why put more acid eating vinegar? To "level" the playing field. |
| 3 ~ If you need to scrub, but don't need the strength of steel wool, use a kitchen scrubbing pad. The green pads are pretty strong - almost like the SOS scrubbing pads. They always say NOT to use with non-stick items because it can scrub away the teflon. This illistrates how strong the green pads are. You can also try the blue pads... these are recommended to scrub non-stick items because they don't scratch. The white pads didn't do anything for me. |
You use these scrubbing pads to clean your dishes... why not try it with Armetale®? It's a bit more powerful than the baking soda trick. |
| 4 ~ Easy-Off Oven Cleaner (the no-bake kind). Don't laugh. I found some pieces that had such baked on grease that it was moving. CAUTION - this stuff is powerful. It can strip your Wilton ware of it's "glow". Sure - you'd get the caked on grease off (or house fire soot), but now your Armetale® doesn't have that wonderful shine. This is for desperate measures. What's worse? Black, caked on junk or a dull piece of Wilton? Sometimes we have to take the lesser of two evils. |
I came across an item that was in a house fire, and another that was simply coated with baked on grease. Hard to just wash with soapy water & towel dry. :) One day, while I was cleaning the oven, I thought, "Wow - this stuff is great! Just spray, leave for 3 hours, then wipe off. I can't believe how well it just lifts the junk off! Hummm... I wonder how it would work on Wilton Armetale® that's been caked like the oven?" |
| 5 ~ Want a mega polish? I took some of the Wilton Polishing cotton and wrapped it around a special tool made for polishing cars (disk sander works also). Wheee! It really did great - no more tired arms and fingers. Just be careful - machinery is unpredictable. If you slip, it can gouge your item, or your fingers! |
Hey - it's a tool to polish cars... Cars are metal and look shiny when you're done... why not your Armetale® plates? Cups and some bowls are more difficult. Just remember to use the WILTON POLISH, not the car wax! Hum.... I wonder what that does.... Will have to try that next time. :) |
| 6 ~ Poured tomato sauce into a bowl, and let it sit overnight. Don't try this! All it does is cause more spotting & discoloration. |
Well? I figured if the vinegar thing worked, why not the tomatoes, themselves? Of course, I've not tried actual tomatoes, just the sauce in the cans. Okay - so this was a complete failure. |
|
7 ~ Someone mentioned "Brasso"
polish. I finally got around to giving this
a try. It seemed to work just like the
Wilton polishing cloth/cotton. Of course,
the major difference is that it is a can of
liquid. When my Wilton cotton was drying
out, I added som Brasso, and it was revived.
Otherwise, I just squeezed it onto whatever
I was going to attack the Armetale® with (soft
cloth or a scrubber sponge). The soft
cloth was more of a finishing touch, after it
had been cleaned of it's gunk.
|
Brasso was a suggestion by another Wiltonite.
:)
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Note: You used to be able to send in your Wilton items and have them refinished, like new. They stopped about the middle of 2002, and I guess decided that it wasn't cost effective anymore? They suggest looking for a local jeweler. They will have the same machines to buff Wilton items (maybe smaller? since it is for jewelry? - Never tried this.)
Here are some photos of the SOS & steel wool work:
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