Mind numbingly dull question about an iron baseplate.

[EffieTheDuck]

Dh fried ds's school trousers. The sole plate on my iron is black.
I have tried toothpaste, sticky stuff remover, nylon pan scrubber then nuked it with a brillo pad. Nothing seems to be shifting it.

Mountain of ironing to do and a new iron is out of the question. Is there any way of cleaning this gunk off?

Mine's fallen victim to school trousers too. My ironing lady "cleaned" it with steel wool and sandpaper, and my howls of protest were justified. The rough patches just blacken even quicker now.

Watching this with interest.

Try baby wipes when it's cold. They usually work with everything inc gloss paint etc, so may be worth a try.

Nah, sorry Choccy - my iron and babywipes are both within 2 metres of the computer so I just had to try it, but no effect.

'Fraid you need to get down to an old-fashioned ironmongers and ask them. There are a few products designed for removing this gunk, I have a sort of wax stick that you apply when the iron is hot and then wipe off with kitchen roll. It does work but smells fairly leathful. My DDs are quite incapable of ironing without messing up the sole plate, but at least they are doing a bit of ironing so I don't yet complain.

Thank you! Tried lemon and salt, baby wipes, WD40, very fine wire wool but the gunk is still there.
Aibu to kick his arse? please say yes

Scrunched up tin foil?

here you go

On the right hand side of E-how you also get further suggestions. I clicked on one of the topics and it suggested using oven cleaner. Hmm, maybe another one to try?

That would make sense

They also recommend plain white vinegar (as well as mixing it with salt or bicarb). Didn't work. Now have a blackened iron that smells of chips

Ooh, I have some oven cleaner. Am off to attack my poor iron and will leave it overnight.

Had same problem. Went to ironmongers, bought waxy cleaning stick thing. Rubbed on when hot; trouser gunk came off.

I bought some special iron cleaning stuff from Lakeland. It worked really well on the black soleplate on mine - but it sounds like your iron might be pretty bad