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Over the years we have all heard advice
about removing stains from glass, and no doubt you've tried a few. I
bought a purple cloud glass vase this year that had so much brown rust
staining inside that it was sold to me as an amber piece. I tried all my
usual methods and nothing removed this stain. Paddy Blomfield was having a
similar problem in Australia with white scale deposits that he could not
remove from two vases. So we tried a whole range of options and in the end
we both succeeded. The information had to be collected from all over the
place, so Paddy thought it would be helpful if I pulled it together into
one little piece. Remember to be careful when trying any of these ideas on
your glass. If its a valuable piece, take it to a specialist. These
methods are for trying on pieces that don't justify the expense of paying
a professional. And remember to use rubber gloves to protect your hands.
Here goes:
Mild staining:
Several techniques work well with some stains, and are worth trying for
starters. They include:
- Ingrained dirt especially on flower frogs, can be removed by soaking
overnight in Steradent or Efferdent (false teeth cleaners) and then
scrubbing with a tiny bottle brush.
- lime scale and other alkali stains can be removed by soaking in dilute
hydrochloric acid (from the chemist) if the staining is not too ingrained
- I am told that some stains respond to soaking in industrial strength
toilet cleaner -but this can cause more staining, so be very careful. Test
it first..
- lime scale may respond to soaking in white vinegar and then scrubbing
(I've never tried this so can't say what the results are).
- I've also been told that Silvio, silver polish, removes stains. It
didn't work for me but I'll try it again on lighter stains.
Heavy Staining:
- heavy rust stains come off with undiluted CLR swished round for a few
minutes then a good scrub with something abrasive like a nylon matt pan
scrubber. CLR is very corrosive so protect your skin and don't leave CLR
on the glass too long. CLR contains 41.4g per litre of Sulphamic Acid,
made by Advil Ltd in Australia. It claims to remove lime scale also, but I
didn't test this.
- heavy white staining can be removed with WENOL, a German made
all-purpose metal polish, distributed by Reckitt & Colman. This was
applied by Paddy's wife with a brush on an electric drill, and took quite
a long time to work. But it did work. Be careful not to scratch the glass
with the drill.
- I have never tried it, but I have been told that the best way to remove
stains is to polish them out with cerium oxide or jewelers' rouge. This
removes the surface layer of glass, I believe. It is the method the
professionals use, and they can restore even narrow-necked decanters and
vases.
There were lots of other remedies that we
tried that failed. People often recommend protecting glass from further
staining by applying a light coat of silicon polish. If you have any more
advice on removing stains from glass, let me know. It might be worth
putting an article on the Glass Encyclopedia about it. |