Cleaning a game mat

[secher_nbiw]

Hey

One of our game mats sat for a while (close to a year) with some red drawings on it, and the red elf wizard my buddy drew on in is now a faded pink. Has anyone found a good way to remove these kinds of stains from a vinyl game mat?

[Ice Titan]

secher_nbiw wrote:

Hey

One of our game mats sat for a while (close to a year) with some red drawings on it, and the red elf wizard my buddy drew on in is now a faded pink. Has anyone found a good way to remove these kinds of stains from a vinyl game mat?

A friend of mine once drew on his mat in sharpie but I can't remember what we used to clean it-- I just remember being able to clean it, but it took the lines off the map.

You could try coca-cola. That s!&% is deadly.

Other than that, I've had the same experience and it just ended up coming off of the mat after about four months of twice-a-week usage. So, wash it 24 times.

[another_mage]

secher_nbiw wrote:

One of our game mats sat for a while (close to a year) with some red drawings on it, and the red elf wizard my buddy drew on in is now a faded pink. Has anyone found a good way to remove these kinds of stains from a vinyl game mat?

You need a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit you.

Draw heavily over the old line with a brand new red marker; you're trying to soak up the old ink in the new solvent. Let it sit for a minute, then wipe away.

If this doesn't work, you can try whiteboard cleaner or Quick N Brite.

Good luck!

[Raymond Lambert]

not sure it is true but heard nail polish remover takes out both sharpie and the grid lines at the same time. i suggest trying it on a corner 1st.

once left orange on mine for a month or 2. it did not come out after sevral applications(with time to soak no less) of my best cleaning solution. i resigned myself to it being stuck there. not so bad cause light orange is easy to ignor when writing with dark colors like brown, black and purple. your pink should not be a real problem. best yet, after about another one or two months of regular game washing(made sure to wash after every game after this orange incident) the old stain just came out. not even special cleaners or long soak times.

so do not throw it out. it may still come out in time. if u have to have a perfect one, at leasr give the stained 1 away to some1 without 1 at all or to the most common host as a back up.

[Lurk3r]

Windex didn't work?

In my experience, it's usually a matter of how much friction you apply to the scrubbing. That is, as long as you didn't use permanent marker.

[secher_nbiw]

Thanks for all of your suggestions- we never would have thought of these. We will give them a go and see what happens, and let you know what worked.

We've tried water/just plain scrubbing, and one type of cleaner so far, to no avail.

[Studpuffin]

Try baby shampoo. That usually works for all of my long term stains. It won't get it all out, but it will get quite a bit of it. It's mild too, so you don't have to worry about it screwing up you mat.

Just a paper towel and lather it up nice, then rinse. Bam!

[Studpuffin]

Also, try going back over the mat lines with a marker you know will wash off. That sometimes rewets the ink, making it more likely to come off when you soap it.

[Joana]

I haven't tried it on a vinyl mat, but Mr. Clean Magic Eraser does some amazing things. I used it when I accidentally wrote on a dry-erase board with a Sharpie, and it came right off.

[Sphen]

One thing our group found our by accident, a spilled beer removes even old stains.

[Hama]

Of course it would. It has alcohol and carbonic acid in it...

[Doug Greer]

My group has also had a few issues like this with our mat, only it didn't sit quite that long. We found though that the hard to remove marks eventually just fade away. So if you can get the marks to be light enough to ignore for now, then eventually they may go away.

We as well also had an incident with a Sharpie and that eventually faded as well.

[UltimaGabe]

Personally, on some level, I like when images get permanently stuck on the game mat- they always bring back memories.

My first game mat (which mysteriously went missing several years ago) had a small drawing of a little ring-shaped demon that showed up in a game my friend was running. (We were in the middle of a battle, and he described the BBEG's ring slipping off, sprouting legs and wings and running off through a crack in the floor- and he drew a picture of it, in red marker, for emphasis.) It never showed back up, but we forgot to clean off the drawing for long enough that the little ring-demon became that group's mascot.

My current mat has only one permanent image still on it- a tiny red (it's always the red that refuses to come off) axe from a 4e game when the two fighters threw down their weapons mid-combat to negotiate a cease-fire. We didn't clean it off immediately, so it stuck.

[Scipion del Ferro]

We use rubbing alcohol.

[Sissyl]

There are few things in this world that do not get better with 70% alcohol... =)

[gran rey de los mono]

My brother's mat was accidentally written on with a permanent marker, and then let sit for about 3 months. I was able to get most of it off using a generic form of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. It is still there, but is quite faint and easy to ignore. It didn't affect the grid lines or usability at all.

One of our friends had a similar issue and on the advice of another player tried using some kind of whiteboard cleaner and it took off the stain, the grid lines, and made that part of the mat unusable--the markers wouldn't write on it anymore.

So, just be careful and test on a corner first.

[KaeYoss]

Red ink is vicious. Best to clean that stuff up right away.

[Hama]

I bought a piece of glass with the exact length and width of the D&D game mat, and then unfold the mat on the table and put the glass on it. Then i use whiteboard markers to write on the glass...it always comes off with a simple glass cleaner with alcohol.