Ogrork the Mighty
Explorer
Every year around this time I do some maintenance on my four Chessex Battlemats by cleaning them.
What you'll need:
- Water
- Sponge or shammy (I use a sham-wow like cloth)
- Cleaner with vinegar (I use Windex multi-surface cleaner but the key is that it needs to have vinegar in it)
Steps:
1) Using warm water and a spong/shammy, wash down your mats. The aim here is to get the bulk of the marker residue off.
2) Let mats dry (so the vinegar in the next step doesn't get diluted).
3) Apply the vinegar cleaner and let sit for about 5 minutes. You'll see a bunch of marker residue "float" to the surface. It's actually pretty amazing to see because I've had mats that look clean enough to eat off but once you apply the vinegar cleaner, all sorts of gunk floats up.
4) Using your sponge/shammy, wipe away the residue.
5) Wash your sponge/shammy and then wash down your mats again. You don't want any vinegar remaining on the mats (since it is an acid, afterall). I've never had any problems with the vinegar but I also make sure to wash it off afterwards so that's probably why.
If you have long term stains on your mat, this cleaning probably won't get those out. You'll have to tackle deeper stains with more intensive treatment.
I've been doing this cleaning process for years and my battlemats are still in tip-top shape (and my mats are probably 15+ years old at this point).
One other thing, for storage I use one of those black plastic artist tubes and they work great: Art Storage Tube Plastic Storage Drawing Tube Art-Materials-Tool-Box-00820880050
Good gaming!
What you'll need:
- Water
- Sponge or shammy (I use a sham-wow like cloth)
- Cleaner with vinegar (I use Windex multi-surface cleaner but the key is that it needs to have vinegar in it)
Steps:
1) Using warm water and a spong/shammy, wash down your mats. The aim here is to get the bulk of the marker residue off.
2) Let mats dry (so the vinegar in the next step doesn't get diluted).
3) Apply the vinegar cleaner and let sit for about 5 minutes. You'll see a bunch of marker residue "float" to the surface. It's actually pretty amazing to see because I've had mats that look clean enough to eat off but once you apply the vinegar cleaner, all sorts of gunk floats up.
4) Using your sponge/shammy, wipe away the residue.
5) Wash your sponge/shammy and then wash down your mats again. You don't want any vinegar remaining on the mats (since it is an acid, afterall). I've never had any problems with the vinegar but I also make sure to wash it off afterwards so that's probably why.
If you have long term stains on your mat, this cleaning probably won't get those out. You'll have to tackle deeper stains with more intensive treatment.
I've been doing this cleaning process for years and my battlemats are still in tip-top shape (and my mats are probably 15+ years old at this point).
One other thing, for storage I use one of those black plastic artist tubes and they work great: Art Storage Tube Plastic Storage Drawing Tube Art-Materials-Tool-Box-00820880050
Good gaming!
