Ironing a PV Kilt

[Dan R Porter]

Well thanks for the extra work ROcky. I know I have a quality kilt in the mail...it is in the mail?.. ugh the jones hurts. 3 days down.

[The Wizard of BC]

I too use steam on Marton Mills Polyester/Rayon fabric.

But then again I have an industrial iron as does Rocky. I find that with the steam generated in a seperate boiler it allows me to keep the sole plate of the iron cooler in relation to home irons that rely on the heat in the sole plate to generate the steam.

I too find that the Marton Mills fabrics take steam shaping quite well. Now, these fabrics are basically plastic but I find that they will take a compound curve such as that found in in apron edge tapering. None of my Poly/Cotton or Cotton fabrics will do this at all.
The amount of shaping and molding is not a much as with Wool but amazing if you have ever worked with fibers such as Acrylic.

The Marton Mills Polyester/Rayon blend Tartan fabrics really are in a class by themselves.

I have found that a teflon sole plate will replace a press cloth in almost every instance. I have yet to get a sheen on the fabric using it.

My technique is to use the steam to heat the fabric. Because steam is always the same tempurature the contol is very exact. And becasue the sole plate of the iron is at a lower temp. it is almost impossible to melt the fabric which is what would produce the sheen.

Please note that I said "almost" impossible to melt the fabric. There was that one time when I was folding over a hem of the X Marks Tartan. I had 12 yards double width fabric draped over my ironing table. The excess was in folds on the floor on each side. Then a customer entered the shop. I set the iron up on top of the boiler where it belongs and went to greet my customer. A half hour later I return to my hemming job to find the iron had fallen to the floor on top of 7 layers of fabric. That length of fabric now has iron shaped brown burns every 4 feet of its length and there is a nice iron shaped dark spot in the Fir Flooring.