Documented : Cleaning stain off Molly Brown house museum interpretative piece

[Leapordslair]

Hi friends , I have acquired this piece that was from a museum in Denver ? . I was told it was interpreting piece and not owned by occupant or family of Molly Brown house ? Any idea with the staining and such how to clean it ?

 

[Jonathan]

Sorry, but I can't see the stain you are talking about, the pics are too small. However, the problem you are going to encounter is that dry cleaning probably won't remove the stain, and washing will probably ruin the tunic.

 

[Avantbo]

Sorry, but I can't see the stain you are talking about, the pics are too small. However, the problem you are going to encounter is that dry cleaning probably won't remove the stain, and washing will probably ruin the tunic.

I think this one.

 

[Avantbo]

Hi friends , I have acquired this piece that was from a museum in Denver ? . I was told it was interpreting piece and not owned by occupant or family of Molly Brown house ? Any idea with the staining and such how to clean it ?

Hi,
I will try to answer your question by using an example of mine.

But two points I would like to make, the Molly Brown connection, while interesting, historically, should not blindside you or anyone else, it's the piece/costume its self of more interest.

Jonathan is correct, things could be made a whole lot worse, while attempting to make things better, many stains are what they are and better left alone, ( note to self Avantbo).

Some serious attention should be given to identifying what made the stain, from your photo I would guess coffee but who knows and the stain while attempting to lift it could so easily spread.

Some 35 years ago I got interested in traditional Chinese and Japanese costumes, some 25 years ago I acquired my first piece from all places a college campus and this piece, is the subject of by example.

When I acquired it, the sleeves had been tightly knotted and there was a large stain on it.

Over many, many hours, nights and days I gently started to release the huge knot, I did this by using, stout, lollypop shaped sticks and trimmed knitting needles ever so gently prying the knot open.

Next thing was to clean it and try to remove the stain. To do this I set up a polythene tank on a pole frame with clamps and incorporated a simple drain valve.

It wasn't a deep tank, 4" deep maybe but it was 5 by 3 as I recall so things could be laid flat.

After that, over many weeks and patience I didn't know I had, using lukest of water soft soap flakes, towels to to do the squishing and Oxy ingredients, the stain started to fade and lift. The trick was not to keep the costume saturated, but thoroughly rinse, dried but kept it damp. Silk does not take kindly to constant immersion, so allowing it to dry for fibres to recover and then another dipping, in my case 10-12 times.

Then over a month long period in a spare room, no heating, no sunlight, I let it dry flat.

The end result was good, the stain while still there is barely visible and much reduced in size, it was a cheap DIY method, just took time.

Was the effort worth it? my enthusiasm was free, would I do it now? such a costume would have to be special

Photos before and after and it's turn of the 20th century.

 

[Leapordslair]

Thank you so much for the info