How to maintain your self sealing cutting mat

[rickstef]

Hi all,

I found this tip posted on the facebook group page of PERI, the home to our Indonesian friends and their forum.

Did you know we are meant to moisturise our cutting boards? Well I certainly didn't. To keep them 'self healing" you are supposed to wet them every 6-8 weeks. Even as a retailer I had never been told this. Tonight I have filled the bath with cold water and put all my mats in for a soak. They were quite dirty as well by the look of the water. After their soak just dry them. Never use hot water as you will warp the mat and render is unusable. After their initial bath you can keep them moist by laying a damp towel over you mat for a night once every couple of months. It makes sense actually, the mats are advertised as self healing but if we don't add water they will get brittle and dull our blades and our blades will score lines in the mats causing even more grief for our blades.The lady that gave the talk had had her mat for over 20 years and it still looked almost new. Even more astonishing was that she had not had to replace her blade in over 2 years....you saw correctly, 2 years.

There is another tip about how she was able to use the same blade for two years, mentioned a bit later in the tip, I will try to track that down, and share with the forum

Rick

[John Bowden]

News to me..............but I have soak them in the past to remove old dried on glue...........

[billinds]

thank you
this is proably why mine didnt hold up i thought it was the glue

[looker]

Does regularly spilling coffee all over them help at all?

[Richschindler]

Thank you for that tip, never knew that. I will do it right away.

[Dabeer]

On that note, never use acetone to clean up superglue or epoxy spills, as that will remove the line markings and damage the surface. Found that out the hard way.

[John Wagenseil]

I checked around and found out the advice above is correct!
Who knew cutting mats are like house plants and need to be watered?
Some manufacturers also recommend adding vinegar to the soak water and gently rubbing the mat with an eraser or soft brush to pull fibers out of the mat. I wish I had known about this a long time ago. One side of my mat is beyond repair, but now I know how to maintain the other side.

Sew Fantastic: Useful tricks and tips :: Caring for your self healing mat

[John Wagenseil]

Originally Posted by Dabeer

On that note, never use acetone to clean up superglue or epoxy spills, as that will remove the line markings and damage the surface. Found that out the hard way.

Keep your cutting board clean and do gluing on another surface.
At kitchenware stores, you can find non stick cutting boards, and flexible cutting mats that have a non stick surface (they do not work for cutting paper, only met and veg). They are great for gluing surfaces. The dense plastic cutting boards are rigid and portable and attach clamps to them, most non solvent based glues peel off easily. Some but not all of the boards are resistant to solvents, it depends on what they are made of. The flexible mats need to be put on a hard flat surface, but afterwards all you have to do is flex them and the glue blobs pop off.
Sometimes, you can find them at "Tuesday Morning" or "Big Lots, where they are discounted.

[Formerly Styrene]

Riskstef,

Thank you so very much for the info about the self healing mats, and John Wagenseil's non stick cutting board for a gluing board is a great idea too.

You know this hobby of ours is already cheaper than many other hobbies, modeling or otherwise. If we could figure out a way to get inks & cardstock cheap or free we will be the grand champion scroungers of modeling.

Of course I meant "scroungers" in the best way possible.

Thanks for the tips guys

Formerly Styrene

aka David

[Yale]

Guess I, too, belong to the ignorance brigade. So the immediate question is: Why don't manufacturers put this information on the labels? They'll sell more mats if they don't, of course. But you'd think that even one manufacturer would have the integrity to provide these operating instructions.