I remember reading something about a family living Off-Grid and their 'fun' with laundry. After a while they discovered that the best shirts to tub wash and put through a mangle were made of wool, cotton or linen (none of the polyester mixes survived more then a few washes) and ideally either the smock type or modified by being sewn closed to about mid chest (making them just like the smock shirts).SooBee wrote:Mel357 wrote:Ive been so excited this week, I manage to pick up an old fashioned clothes mangle and a dolly peg at a second hand shop.
mangle needs a bit of a paint job, but its all cosmetic, works perfectly, (I know, I gave it a try in the garden,) washing brilliantly wrung out, me absolutely drenched from head to foot..... never mind, theres plenty of time to work out all the kinks, all I need now is a washboard and some household block soap and im sorted.
Watch out for the fabrics you wash this way. The old way seemed to include really strong fabrics like cottons and linens that were often boiled up first. Modern fabrics would never stand for that. It might be quite a long learning curve but good luck with it. Oh...and watch out for buttons too!
Trousers are better with buttons rather then zips (Zips are harder to replace and a zip is either working or its not, missing one button is not as big a problem), but jeans are a problem as the rivets and the stalk buttons get caught between the rollers.
Mangles kill bras, underwired stand no chance and even sports ones require some care not to get tangled and ripped to shreds.
I wish I could remember where I read this stuff, I'm not even sure if it was a book or something else....... Pretty sure it was hardcopy rather then on the webz
When you say "Dolly peg" I take it you mean one of those plunger things ?
