Rust Stains

Ironic as it is, I got a rust stain on the upholstery in my car when I rented a steam cleaner from a local hardware store. Surprisingly, rust is not an easy substance to remove from upholstery. At first, thinking the stain wasn't a big deal, I elected to scrub my seats with a mild oxyclean solution. As I did this, and to my utter horror, the stain went from barely noticeable to multiple huge brownish-red spots all over my seat. It was horrifying, I'm not exaggerating there.

I quickly went online to google "how to get rust stains out of upholstery" and came up with a number of websites that suggested using salt and lemon juice-- though they all suggested using it in different ways. After multiple efforts, I found that first sprinkling salt on the "wound" and then saturating the spot with lemon juice did draw out a lot of rust. However, most of the websites suggested keeping the spot saturated ALL day, for 24 hours. That just wasn't feasible for my work-schedule/life. So the salt ended up caking on the seat and looking awful for... oh, weeks. At some point I tried to scrape the salt off, at least. This resulted in having crusty salt all over my car, and a large rust spot to boot. :P I tried this on a couple of occasions with very little change, or success.

Disappointed and frustrated, I left the spot for a few weeks more. However, the witching hour came, and I realized I HAD to take care of the pronto, or it would badly affect the trade-in value of my auto. E-how suggested a few different methods of graduating caustic-ness to remove the stain so I decided to try these. I skipped the 'mild soap solution' idea and their version of the 'salt and lemon juice' and went right for the big hitter: mild ammonia solution.

Some interesting things happened during the ammonia trial, which opened my mind to the properties of rust. The directions on e-how prescribe making a 2 tblspn ammonia to 4 cup warm water concotion. (I strongly suggest you refrain from taking a bit sniff of the ammonia... I made that mistake, and I think I've lost some brain cells and nose hairs). You saturate the spot with the solution and then soak it up with a rag or paper towel. It's very interesting. I didn't have any rags b/c I was visiting my brother's house and didn't want to ruin his. So I bought some white socks from the dollar store, which I used to both saturate the spots, as well as soak up the rust. As soon as you saturate the spot with the ammonia solution, the spot momentarily disappears and then re-appears bigger and nastier than ever before. At first I was blotting with the socks and having very little success. Because my seats were sort of slanty, every time I would saturate the spot, the rust would simply move locations and spread. It reminded me of what happens when you accidentally flood your garden. The soil and whatever is on top just moves to a different location in your garden, instead of just getting saturated and staying put. Additionally, the socks were doing a very poor job of soaking up the rust. Finally I found that paper towels worked a charm, but like a one-two-punch, you had to get the timing right. Saturate, blot, blot, blot. Saturate, blot, blot, blot. You can't hesitate or the rust would just spread, or do nothing but remain affixed to my seats.

In some ways it felt like giving first-aid to someone's sliced open arm. The saturating step would be like the action of slicing the arm. The blotting step would be like the applying a bandage and pressure. Like dressing a wound, you don't clean it with a bandage, take the bandage off and add a new one. You put a new bandage on top of the old bandage and apply severe pressure. This is what it was like for the rust spot. In the end, the timing and materials were what did the trick: using a crap-ton of good-quality paper towels, and a generous dose of ammonia-water. Once a majority of the rust and ammonia is absorbed out, just keep blotting the 'wound' with paper towels until dry. I was a little unsure of using such a caustic cleaning solution on my upholstery, but there is so little ammonia compared to water, that I couldn't even smell any after-smell, and the ammonia actually helped to dry the spot a lot faster. As of yet, it doesn't look like there is any damage or discoloration to the upholstery, so I give e-how ten stars for getting it right, even though the first two methods they suggested made me want to scream and cry, the third of the four suggestions worked delightfully well.

What I learned about rust, which is important to remember in removing a stain is that rust is not going to dissolve as you clean it. It remains in very, very small pieces. This is why it reacted like flooding a field, because the rust hadn't stained my upholstery, but rather adhered to the upholstery. Its the physical properties of it that made it float across the seat as I saturated it, and applying a good quality paper towel was like channeling the direction the water (and rust) flowed, sort of like irrigating the field- it just gives the particles a place to go.

Anyway, that's a lot of analogies. Rust is pretty fascinating. Perhaps I will make a hobby of learning to remove various objects from clothing. Could be cool!