How to clean a heat press platen

What’s the best way to clean a heat press platen?

I received this comment on a previous post about heat presses and thought other people might have the same problem, so I thought I would repost the comment here.

Hi Ted!

I didn’t know where to leave this comment, but here goes:

We have a heatpress, and the platens will eventually need a good clean-up (even if we were very careful during 6 years of use!)

Do you have something we could use – I can’t seem to find anything that really does the job… we’re screen printers so we did try the poly thinner and varsol – to no avail… Oh – and the stuff would need to be available to Canada since we are in Quebec!

Thanks Ted!

Sylvie

Here’s my response:

I’m guilty of not using a cover sheet or doing some kind of heat press application that left a goopy mess on the upper heat platen.

Sylvie, you didn’t mention if your press had a non-stick coating or not. If it does, usually you can clean it by letting the platen heat up and then rubbing vigorously with a rag, but you have to rub pretty hard, but it should come off.

Please wear heat proof hand protection when attempting this. If it’s a press without a non-stick coating, you might have to use some light sandpaper or  maybe a cleaner called GoJo. This has a light pumice sand in it, used in industrial situations or by car mechanics for removing nasty stuff from hands.

Alternatively you can use any other heavy degreaser with hot soapy water (of course when the machine is unplugged.)

However, if you use something with grit, such as Comet cleanser or Ajax on a Teflon-coated platen, you can scratch the heater.

If you don’t want to go to all this cleaning trouble, maybe you can try using a reusable cover sheet to protect your garments during application.  Stahls’ offers a QuickSlip Pad protector to protect the bottom platen from stains and also make it easier to get garments on and off the lower platen.

You can also try using an upper platen cover. Stahls’ offers heat press platen covers for both upper and lower platens.