Dirty Little Monkey

Post by **Peetee** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 5:36 pm

The canvas hood on Doris is looking pretty grimy and probably due for replacement. All the same, it's now separate from the car and I'm going to have a go at cleaning it. Can anyone recommend a strong cleaning agent for canvas?
TIA

Post by **Willie** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 9:04 pm

You could try a camping shop,they may sell cleaners for
the old style canvas tents? If not, try any of the car
upholstery cleaners,they seem to be pretty efficient.
I have just scrubbed my 10 year old plastic hood with
a nail brush and washing up liquid and it came up a
treat.

Post by **Peetee** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 10:04 pm

Since my first post I have had the hood in the bath and cleaned and scrubbed it with washing powder and then carpet cleaner. A heck of a lot of muck came out and continued to do so even when it had been rinsed, rinsed and rinsed again (did I mention it had been rinsed as well?

).
Now it's soaked it's difficult to tell if it's still the wrong side of presentable but what I can't get rid of is the mildew spots.

Post by **Kevin** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 10:01 am

Having camped for a long time I have not come across a product that works on getting stains/mildew marks out of a tent without affecting the canvas, there is however a product called Fabsil that helps with the waterproofing of canvas and is clear in colour as does not affect the canvas colour, there may be other products that work as most tent canvas is quite thin.
I have also heard that the household cleaner "Vanish" works on materials although I have not tried it.

Post by **Gareth** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 12:25 pm

You could try using Flash Mould and Mildew Remover. It says on the bottle "do not allow to come into contact with fabric", but if you rinse it really well after each application, you might be ok. There is a risk with this, however, so try all other alternatives first.

That said, it did a brilliant job of clearing the mildew from our bathroom blind...

Proceed with caution!!

Post by **Peetee** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 3:56 pm

I am trying to stay away from bleaches because I believe they have a clouding effect on the rear plastic window

Post by **Peetee** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 9:56 pm

Right then. The thing has been cleaned and dried as much as I'm prepared to do and frankly, I might as well had not bothered

.
That 'dirt' that was coming out even after thorough rinsing probably wasn't dirt at all. I have just discovered that there seems to be a sort of rubber sheet inside the two layers of canvas - I reckon this has been decaying over the years and I was washing out tiny particles of rubber

Anyhow, I will offer it up to the car on the off-chance it hasn't shrunk a couple of dress sizes

Post by **Kevin** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 2:48 am

Thats a real pain Pete I assume no one else on this board has tried to clean a canvas hood otherwise someone would have said, this rubber layer does it only apply to the double duck canvas (I assume this is the type of hood you have) type I wonder, and not the type Willie has.

Post by **Peetee** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 7:45 pm

I'm not too worried Kevin.
The thing was a bit tatty anyway so cleaning it was only a last ditch attempt to save me the expense of buying a new one. I figured it looked more original with a canvas hood but as it is a chop-head that seems a bit irrelevant.
I figured that a clean hood would make all the diference to the look of the old girl. I am probably going to sell her and this was one of the jobs I needed to do beforehand. the other was tidying up the door bottoms and the adjacent skirts. With that all done she'd be absolutely spanking