rivergum
 
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Date: 1/3/13 3:58 PM I have two large cutting mats to use with my rotary cutter. This arrangement has taken cutting out from a hated and detested task to a simple and no longer unpleasant one. Love it!
The mats have lived happily for several years on my kitchen table, under the tablecloth. Pull back the cloth and I am ready to cut. Clean up the scraps, pull the cloth back over the table and nobody would know they are there.
BUT - in the pre Christmas cooking frenzy, a couple of large, hot pots were placed on the table, which have warped my mats underneath! They are now so wonky that accurate cutting is no longer possible.
To be precise, the mats no longer lie flat, but have developed a hilly landscape. I think they puckered where the hot saucepans were and have stayed that way. 
I have been trying to think of a way to get them to lie flat again. Logically heating them up again and then pressing them flat should do the trick. But the large size makes this logistically difficult. Also, I am not completely sure that heating would actually work.
Has anyone had any experience with straightening out warped mats, or at least any ideas? ------
Taking in is happier than letting out.
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kkkkaty
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Date: 1/3/13 4:02 PM I had a similar experience when I put a smaller cutting board in my car on a hot day. Bad combination. Possibly you could try warming those areas with a hot hair dryer and then setting something heavy and flat on them? maybe a cookie sheet with some weights of some sort on them ------
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AdaH
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Date: 1/3/13 4:03 PM I had a similar problem with my cutting mat, but the area wasn't as big as what you described. I put a few layers of fabric over the bump and then set my iron on it. When it got really warm I put a big book over the area and then some weights over that. The next day the bump was gone.
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Ada
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PattiAnnJ
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 2 members like this. Should you decide to "warm the warp", try doing this on the flip side of the mat. |
sky
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Date: 1/3/13 5:07 PM Ahh.. I warped my large cutting mat a few years ago and never got it back. I wish you luck. Is it hot where you live? If you can lay them flat in your car (very flat--like if you have a hatchback or suv) maybe you can weight them down all over--books or something--and let them get nice and hot in a sealed car.
Good luck! |
PattyE
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Date: 1/3/13 6:45 PM Oh no...I wish you luck with fixing them. |
goosegreen
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Date: 1/3/13 6:57 PM Quote: sky
--and let them get nice and hot in a sealed car.
Perfect weather for that this week, Rivergum!  ------
Alison in suburbia - Sydney Australia
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beauturbo
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Date: 1/3/13 8:06 PM I heard of once,someplace, someone sticking them in the bathtub in very hot water, letting them soak, taking them out and weighting them down with flat heavy stuff until cooled off. I don't know if that actually did any good at all though. Ditto maybe you could try that on them instead just having them sitting out side on some really hot sunny spot in the summer and in some heat. I may have heard of that to someplace.
If they would fit in your bathtub, or even maybe fit in there, if cut in half (in case you were just going to dump them anyway's and replace and if trying anything would be better than nothing, and having nothing to loose) maybe not much to loose by trying that at all. You might be able to tape them on the bottom together later?
Or bite the bullet and just get more. I don't even use mine (which was an impulse buy when on sale for 1/2 off once) but I still keep it under the bed and flat, just because I think I did have to pay 40 something dollars for it, and even then I think it was more a normally $80 something dollar item, so I feel your dismay on what happened!
If they really actually melted though in those places, it probably won't do much good. So not saying this would work at all for me, as never tried that at all, but what I might just try, before running out and having to pay for new ones maybe. |
Sherril Miller
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5 members like this. Cut the good parts off and save them for mini-mats. I think you will need to purchase new ones. ------
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and if it's worth sewing well, it's worth FITTING FIRST! - TSL |
rivergum
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Date: 1/3/13 10:54 PM Thanks for all the good advice, I am going to try heating and pressing flat. Thankfully it is the height of summer in Oz, so no problem with the heating part!
Quote:
Perfect weather for that this week, Rivergum!
That's what i thought too, goosegreen, and the suggestion of cooking them in the car is a good one. My boot is large enough to lay them flat.
However, when I tried today leaving the mats in my closed boot out in the sun, the amount of heat was disappointing. It seems cars get hot, but not hot enough.
My bathtub, oven or iron are not nearly big enough. So I thought I needed to get out the big guns. I took them to work and found 2 large thick sheets of black plastic, the kind they put on pallets to line them. They are like a thick cardboard, not like plastic bags.
I heated both sheets and the mats up in the sun on some concrete paving. Then I put one sheet underneath the mats, another on top, and weighed it all down with several sheets of masonite and three wooden pallets. That should do it weightwise!
DH doesn't think here was enough heat to do the trick, but we shall see. I can always heat it up some more, it will be hotter tomorrow than it was today.
If that doesn't work I think I will take one of the sheets of masonite and use that to cut out on. ------
Taking in is happier than letting out.
Sydney, Australia |
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