How to remove an old water stain??

[Mike Bollow]

I have a nice WW2 flag with a brown water stain on the white part. Any ideas on how to GENTLY clean it?

Thanks - Mike

[Paul R.]

The best advice is to leave it alone. Old staining is almost impossible to remove. The stain itself locks it's color in the fabric threads. The stain may not be a water stain. It could be something else. If you wash the item you can run into a host of new problems. Washing can cause colors to bleed. New washing liquids and powders will make this item glow. Washing could even make the old stain more pronounced than before. Paul

[jacquesf]

Good advice.

The best advice is to leave it alone. Old staining is almost impossible to remove. The stain itself locks it's color in the fabric threads. The stain may not be a water stain. It could be something else. If you wash the item you can run into a host of new problems. Washing can cause colors to bleed. New washing liquids and powders will make this item glow. Washing could even make the old stain more pronounced than before. Paul

[Lenny W]

agree its best left alone

[Mike Bollow]

I talked to a person that restores antique clothing, and she gave me this advice (it worked too!)

Add OXYCLEAN powder to a tub of warm water and let it dillute. Then put your item in the bath and let it sit. No rubbing, wringing, or scrubbing. In an hour rinse it with clean warm water. This removes most stains. Stubborn water stains need an extra step: wet the cloth with warm water and create a paste of OXYCLEAN that you add directly to the stain. Let this sit for a few hours. To even out the level of clean, repeat the firts step (soaking in a bath of dilluted OXYCLEAN). Lay out flat on a towel and AIR DRY.

This is a very gentle way to clean your item, and it has no detergent so it will not glow.

Worked for me!!

Mike

[Stahlhelm]

Of course, as others have stated, the advice is always to not clean such things. However, if you have already cleaned it, it has worked, and you are satisfied with the result, then you have apparently beat the odds of doing damage.

Congratulations!

Chris

P.S. I'm just curious about the OXYCLEAN. What ingredients does it contain, and where did you find it? I've never even heard of it.

[Siegfried]

I've had pretty good luck at removing tidelines (is what they are called) with a plain distilled water soak. I would NOT use OXYCLEAN on a flag, or a multi-colored anything. It is a bleaching agent used mostly on pure white things--and even then it is pretty harsh on antique cotton so use cautiously.
I would however recommend trying a plain water soak at least, because the longer the stain remains the harder it will be to remove. Test on a small corner to make sure the color will not migrate though. On flags they usually don't as flags are meant to withstand rain water etc. so you should be pretty safe.

SW~

[Dick Pumphrey]

Rkf

Gentlemen,
I picked up a beautiful large RKF with a terrible stain in the white behind the swastika. It was so ugly that I decided to bite the bullet and clean it regardless of the outcome. We soaked the stained areas with Oxyclean for about an hour and then washed it in cold water on the gentle cycle of our washing machine with a drop of Woolite. This removed about 95 percent of the stain. A lady at our drycleaners looked it over and told me to use the juice of a real lemon and soak the remaining stained area with that and hang it out in bright sunlight. Then we ran it through a cold water rinse and hung it to dry in the garage. This worked very well and now there is only a very faint "line" of the stain left. The color is still very bright and vivid and all and all the flag looks as new. Hope that this helps. I know it's not for everyone but it made me much happier with my flag. Good luck!
Regards,
Dick

[Richard]

Did the cloth develop the dreaded blacklight glow after these types of procedures?
Richard V

[Dick Pumphrey]

Rkf

Hi Richard,
No sign of the "glow". I used very little of the Woolite ( maybe 1/4 of the cap) which is very mild and cold water. There was no loss of color or stamps on the rope area and believe you me I watched it very closely. It just got rid of the horrible mess which looked like it had been dipped in an outhouse. Very gross!!!
Regards,
Dick