What Do These Four Things Have to Do With Stainless Steel Appliances

Inetia
by Inetia
1 Material
30 Minutes
Easy
This is a tutorial on frugally keeping them looking good all the time.
Keeping stainless steel appliances looking good can be a challenge. My dishwasher always had streaks running downward from the handle. I didn’t get a before photo because I‘ve done this so many times that I didn’t think of it as a project until I was done cleaning. That said, here enters Stainless Steel Wipes.
These little white woven pads with oily stuff on them that get dirty and dry really fast. If you use them don’t throw them away. Put dish soap on them Instead. NOTE: If you don't use/have these you can use microfiber or a soft cloth and move past the next three photos.
Then rub them between your fingers under a trickle of hot-ish water
Using both hands of course (I needed one to take photos) keep rubbing them, adding dish soap as needed till they look clean, then clip them somewhere to dry.
Once they‘re dry, spray on WD-40 sparingly and start cleaning your stainless Steel appliance. Add more WD-as needed. I think this works as well or better than the original wipes. Now for those really dried and stuck-on what-ever-they-bees. This is where the steel wool enters.
This is not your soapy SOS kitchen pads. This is very fine 00 grade and has no soap. For an even finer grade you can get 0000 grade. It comes out of the bag looking like the following:
Because of the fine grade it‘s very fragile and once it gets wet it quickly rusts and disinsentagrades to, none other than, a pile of rust. It wants to stick together for big jobs, but it‘s wasteful to have a whole pad become a pile of rust for a tiny job. Born and raised a Frugalista, I’m compelled to unroll and cut off a little piece as follows:
Wet the snipped steel wool and with your fingertips, gently buff the stuck on stuff. You can feel it through the thin piece of steel wool and you will feel as it comes off and the surface becomes smooth. Keep it damp during the cleaning process. Discard when the job is done. Sorry I have no pictures of this step. Now to address the streaks running down from the handle, I attached a micro-fiber towel to the handle As follows:
The towel is folded three times then folded over the handle. The edges are held by metal clips
With the two clips securely holding the towel in place, I folded the handles of the clips flat against the towel.
Then I turned the towel till the clips are at the bottom of the handle.
They towel now stops most of the drips making It much easier to keep it looking good. A big part of keeping stainless steel appliances is to immediately clean spills; even plain water because water leaves streaks.
Suggested materials:
  • Recycled Stainless Steel Wipes   (All of it was already in the house, likely in yours too.)
  • WD-40
  • Scissors
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 3 comments
  • Wendy Wendy on Nov 01, 2017

    Great ideas!!

  • Marneta L Gabriel Marneta L Gabriel on May 29, 2019

    Side note: Using scissors to cut steel wool? The steel wool does a great job sharpening your scissors. Cutting aluminum foil when they need sharpening works great as well.

    • Inetia Inetia on May 30, 2019

      I kind of thought that might be the case but it’s not something I do routinely. I have a husband who likes to keep every knife and scissors in the house sharpened.

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