melted plastic-bag on stainless-steel pot; how to clean?

[David Combs]

At Costo, I buy these large bags of spinace, broccoli, etc, and then cook (steam) a whole bag-full at a time (then put in refrig).

I get the water boiling first, then open the top and dump a whole bags-worth into the pot (to rest on the steamer-thing).

ANYWAY -- twice now (no longer!) I screwed up and let the bag touch the side of the pot, once on inside, once on the outside.

And now there's an (almost?) impossible-to-remove stuck-on maybe two-inches-square piece of fried-on plastic on inside and outside.

QUESTION: short of putting a metal-file to it (and scratching up the nice finish), HOW TO REMOVE IT?

Scrubbing doesn't work, Nor does trying to (carefully) use a sharp knife and somehow get it off that way.

Suggestions?

THANKS!

David

[Rick]

CLR + some very hot water should work fine.

[Robert Barr]

[Rudy]

If you have nail polish remover..use that..or go buy a small bottle of acetone from your local hardware store, put it on a rag and rub off the plastic

[Ken]

My wife used to do this regularly.

Steel wool is the answer.

We have a pot that formerly had a polished stainless steel finish, it now has a brushed stainless steel finish.

Ken

[Percival P. Cassidy]

IIRC from my decades-ago work in chem. labs, the solvent we used for polythene was TetrHydroFuran (THF), but I have no idea how readily available it would be, and I don't recall how toxic it might be.

But if these are the boilable bags they might be polyester.

Perce

On 05/01/05 08:17 pm David Combs tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

[Hopkins]

Yeah, I'm in the acetone camp. Hadn't thougth of nail polish remover, but that might do it.

And, not to sound like a smarta$$, but I always rinse veggies before preparing them.

[Jim Yanik]

"Hopkins" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Cheaper to buy acetone from Home Depot or Lowes,than nailpolish remover in those small bottles.

[Jim Yanik]

[e-mail] (David Combs) wrote in news:d53rjk$o78$ [e-mail]:

The more-aggressive furniture paint strippers will remove this plastic. I'd look for a gel type.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Somebody let me know if acetone actually works for that, I seriously doubt that it will.

Because....

Sometimes I need to rejuvinate a paint brush thats gotten hard because I didn't do as good a job of cleaning it as I thought before putting it away.

The technique I use is to slip the brush into a kitchen Baggie and pour a small amount of acetone in with it, then smooth the Baggie up around the brush handle, snap a rubber band tightly around it, and stand the bagged brush in a coffee can just in case a leak develops. I leave it that way for a day or two and when I remove it, the brush is fine, and ready to rinse in paint thinner and wash out properly. That approach econimizes the amount of acetone needed and also keeps it from evaporating.

I've never had a Baggie leak or disolve while doing that, which is why I'm dubious about the effectiveness of acetone for solving the OP's little problem.

Jeff

[Goedjn]

Depends on what the pot is made of. Solvents(Acetone?), fire(Propane torch), abrasion(fine sandpaper steel wool, or a wire brush), and cold (Like, dry-ice cold. freeze the spot until frost starts appearing on the rest of the pot, and then whack it with a stick.) are your choices;

[geewiz]

Nail polish remover IS acetone.

[Charles Spitzer]

a lot of them aren't.

[Frank J Warner]

I'm curious about this, too. I often use plastic containers of the Tupperware variety for washing parts in acetone, with no ill effects to the containers.

I've used acetone in the past for melting & fusing various styrene products, but most plastic food storage bags are polyethylene. I don't have any acetone nearby (I'm at work) but I do have some trichloroethylene and methyl chloroform. Neither of these will disolve a plastic shopping bag.

-Frank

[Stormin Mormon]

Don't do that! Acetone is highly explosive and flammable. Just rub tunafish on, and let the neighborhood cats lick it off. Works as well as removing duct tape.

Seriously, have at it with the acetone. Hope that helps.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Acetone will easily dissolve styrene plastic. I don't think it is going to do much with the polyethylene from a bag. The tuna oil may give better results.

[ZsaZsa]

[David Combs]

Thanks, one and all.

Will study it all and then attempt to clean it, and will report back.

THANKS!

David