Monday, April 7, 2014

the miracle of Oven Cleaner

If you enjoy buying vintage items from thrift stores or yard sales you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve to bring back the original beauty of those less-than-perfect, well-loved treasures that you may find.

I recently learned of the usefulness of Oven Cleaner when attempting to clean up some Pyrex. Case in point - this Pyrex Amish Butterprint dish that I found at a junk store for $1.00.


If you don't know a whole lot about Pyrex you may think that this pattern is black on white. It is that grease stained. Knowing my Pyrex patterns, I knew when I saw this item that it was originally turquoise on white. Because it was only priced at $1.00 I figured I would buy it and try to restore it.

I brought the item home and thoroughly sprayed it with a heavy coating of Oven Cleaner. If you are trying this be sure to do it outside as the fumes are very strong. If you can, let the item sit for several hours or even over night. After sitting, take a rag and rub the greasy area to remove the built on grime. The Oven Cleaner should loosen the grease so that it will wipe off.  It may take a little "elbow grease" to get it completely clean. For this particular item I had to do two separate treatments of Oven Cleaner to remove all of the black. When removing grime from painted-on-designs like this, be careful as the paint may remove from the glass if rubbed too hard.

Here it is after cleaning.


Oven Cleaner works well on Pyrex and other vintage glassware that may have a greasy film. It is great on the painted designs that may have changed color because of grease. The pan on the bottom was stained with brown streaks on the inside of the pan. The oven cleaner brought it back to a nice condition.

I hope that this tip has helped all of the Pyrex (and Fire King & GlasBake & Federal, etc.) collectors out there to restore those thrift store treasures.

KayteeJane

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12 comments:

  1. I have to say I feel like my kids and I want to say "whatchyousay?". I cannot believe that wasn't a black painted dish?

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  2. In all my years of hunting, I have never seen a piece of Pyrex so greasy that it turned the pattern black. But wouldn't black Butterprint have been cute?

    Thanks for the tips!

    Erica

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  3. Yup, me neither. Never seen a piece that greasy to turn black! I wish they had made black on white Butterprint. Would have been fabulous.

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  4. If you don't mind suggesting it, do you mind me asking what oven cleaner you used for this? I don't image all oven cleaners would be suitable, for example the heavy caustic ones.

    Thanks in advance.

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  5. OMG...and i thot it was black on white.
    thanks for the tip..you r a geniuos.

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  6. Thanks for that tip, what a find for $1.00, hapoy Easter weekend!

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  7. Wow! That one is a heck. How did you done that? lol. Thanks for sharing the tips, :)

    Industrial Cleaning

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  8. Wow I am amazed. Never saw a Pyrex that greasy that it turned colors. Thank you for the tip! Good luck on more great finds like those.

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  9. Now I realized that the saying is true; we will really learn a lot of new things every day. Though in my opinion, this is way better -- as you discovered a new use for an oven cleaner. And more so, as it worked properly afterwards. I hope you can discover more ways to make cleaning much easier to do. Cheers!

    Apple Volpe @ Maid Pro

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