A few maintenance questions

[J.S. Groot]

... and I thought I might as well put them in one topic.

1. Shoes need refurbishment from time to time. But how do you know when?

2. Moths are friends of no-one. Clean clothes are of course essential in keeping them away. A good supplementary trick with knitwear is to put them in the freezer from time to time, as neither eggs nor larvae survive that. I assume that you could do this with suits as well, provided your freezer is large enough?

3. Seasonal clothing should be bagged (after cleaning etc.) before storing. What about your clothes that are in use; do you bag them between uses?

cheers,
j.

[sartorius]

1. For shoes, only when necessary (for quality footwear, it is expensive and can take several months because they have to be sent back to the factory, so no sense overdoing it). Generally, this means when the soles wear through or the stitching deteriorates to such a degree that water starts to get inside. The frequency will be a function of how often you wear them.

2. I've never heard of this before - and prevention sounds like a much better option in any case - deploy anti-moth products in your wardrobes and regularly wash or dry clean everything!

3. Yes - I keep all my suits in suit carriers in the wardrobe, and knitwear in silk bags.

[Scot]

As I was putting summer suits away at the weekend I began to wonder why I bother with lighter colours. There is no avoiding stains and dry cleaning is one of the most useless processes known to man. It would be interesting to know if members have any tips for removing stains of various kinds. This year I thought I had found the answer with Janie dry spot cleaner - it brings out greasy stains quite well but the powder seems to get deep into the fabric and then dry cleaning fixes it there! I have had good success with white wine on red wine stains. The commercial solutions, which smell like dry cleaning fluid, just seem to widen the stain! So, suggestions would, I am sure, be gratefully recieved by all who can't afford to throw away their light coloured clothing after one season

[Merc]

i have a small child who has managed to get grease stains on my light gray suit 3 times--within 2 inutes of walking in the door. in fact its my only suit hes ever dirtied

But my dry cleaner has never had a problem getting the grease stain out--even if once on the pnats the ydid 3 passes before it came out

[A.Hacking]

Here's a link to Davies & Sons hints on maintenance and cleaning, although I've not tried any of them myself.

http://daviesandsonsavilerow.com/hints.asp

[Scot]

Here's a link to Davies & Sons hints on maintenance and cleaning, although I've not tried any of them myself.

http://daviesandsonsavilerow.com/hints.asp

Thank you, I have seen this. I am not entirely sure where to obtain some of these substances in the UK.

[couch]

The spray spot cleaners that deposit a poultice of powder do indeed work very well for oil and grease stains not containing dye or pigment (I use Goddard in the U.S.), if you are careful to test first that no colored substance in the cloth other than the stain will move in the solvent and leave rings. They work by dissolving the stain in a mix of organic solvents and then drawing it into the poultice by capillary attraction; the powder grains are so small and numerous that their surface area, interstices, and thus capillary attraction are greater than those of the yarns in the cloth, and so preferentially draw the liquid to the poultice, where it evaporates and deposits the colored matter of the stain on the powder. It's important not to over-saturate the cloth with the liquid at first, since you don't want the powder to become completely 'waterlogged' and unable to draw the stain into it: this will result in liquid evaporating from the cloth through the reverse and a ring is likely. It's better to wet just the area around the stain and move the can away from the cloth slightly as you spiral outward from the center, so that the powder at the edge of the treated area is almost dry. Two repeated moderate applications may be more successful than one heavy one (removing the powder between, as described below).

As for the white powder residue, I leave the cloth untouched and in a horizontal position until thoroughly dry--maybe half an hour. Then I use the (clean) metal hose tube of a canister-style vacuum cleaner to remove the powder. To do this, I first hold the cloth down hard between the spread fingers of one hand, and then apply the vacuum tube gently and slowly straight down onto the cloth. The powder will be thoroughly removed in that area; I lift the tube carefully and then lower it again on an adjacent spot, again being careful to hold the cloth down with the other hand. The idea is to avoid driving the powder deeper into the fibers by scrubbing across the cloth with the tube, and to minimize stretching of the cloth by the force of the vacuum. Only when the entire treated area has been vacuumed well do I lift the garment and place the treated area over a convex but mostly vertical surface (for instance, draped over an upholstered chair or, at a pinch, a knee on a step) and brush thoroughly in the traditional up-DOWN stroke with a bristle clothes brush to clear any remaining powder. On heavy cloths, slapping from behind with an open hand (analogous to beating a rug with a wicker beater) can also be done. I finish with a light brushing in the direction of the nap, and the garment should then be ready for pressing if needed.

Using this protocol, my experience has been that any powder residue is so minimal as to be largely undetectable after pressing, and I would imagine that the same result would obtain after dry cleaning. I have only used this method on worsteds and tweeds; I would be hesitant to try it on highly napped cloths like flannels. There the traditional method--careful daubing with solvent spotter from the rear while the stained garment was in contact with a pad of clean white cloth on its face, with the pad moved to expose a dry area frequently--would no doubt be safer, if you were careful to use very judicious quantities of solvent to avoid rings from uncontrolled evaporation of the stain-carrying solvent. This is a technique that takes some practice to develop skill at.

And of course, these spray solvent spotters are only good for a limited class of stains. Some of the Davies tips are good, some are not best-of-breed, and some are missing. I also note that they advocate relaxing wrinkles by hanging tailored garments in a steamy bathroom--a practice that has drawn dramatic censure from Jeffrey D and other tailors in this forum and elsewhere.

[carl browne]

The Goddard's spray seems to be the best, particularly for oil based stains. I'm eager to try the vacuum trick, though I find I have very good results with a regular clothes brush. With some persistance it will even remove the ring around the former stain. The brush attached to the cap is much less helpful.

For anything water based I use a small natural sea sponge moistened with filtered or distilled water. For particularly stubborn spots I use a very small amount of detergent in the water; just enough to make it a little soapy, then go over it again with plain water.

It's also amazing how much you can accomplish sometimes just by allowing the spot to dry thoroughly and then brushing it. In fact, I dont' think there could be anything better for your clothes than giving them a good all-over brushing with an old-fashion clothes brush.

Of course for a really big problem, you've got to go to the dry cleaner. Find the best you can, and if they don't ruin your clothes, they WILL get rid of the spots.