Blue crayon in the dryer

Posted on March 9, 2008 | Comments Off on Blue crayon in the dryer

Mr. Boy is seriously in the dog house after leaving some crayons in the pockets of his blue jeans. We caught all but one, a blue one, which went harmlessly through the wash cycle but then coated the inside of the dryer. It got on some of the clothes, mostly his, but we spent several hours trying to get it off the drum. Searched a little to find solutions when it was obvious elbow grease wasn’t enough. Finally found this advice from Crayola, to use WD-40, followed by dish soap and water. Left the dryer open all night to dissipate the WD-40 smell, so the fumes don’t catch fire when the gas dryer runs. We still have a ways to go, however. Two days before our spring break trip, naturally, when the dryer is needed. We had him do some of the scrubbing, but, of course, he isn’t strong enough to make it more than symbolic.

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0 responses to “Blue crayon in the dryer”

  1. jdallen's avatar jdallen | March 9, 2008 at 5:05 pm |

    Sorry to hear about your, and your son’s, problem.
    Crayons are essentially wax, which is a long chain hydrocarbon. Any oil will get stuff like that. WD40 is good because it will evaporate but is not TOO flammable. Hand lotion, even, will work.
    The oil trick works on most adhesives, too. That’s what’s going on in that old trick of using peanut butter on gum in your kid’s hair. The oil in the peanut butter is solvating the gum, which has a tackifier in it similar to those (in some cases the same) used in adhesives of all sorts.
    I used WD40 and oils of all sorts to clean the mixer after making hundreds of blends of various polyethylenes and tackifiers. They all worked, some better than others, depending, of course, on what was in the mixer.

  2. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | March 9, 2008 at 7:04 pm |

    Thanks, JD. Yeah, the WD-40, and the dish soap, seem to have done the trick. We ran a load of whites through it and none of them turned blue or spotty blue. I’ve used WD40 to get adhesive off fiberglass before. Had not heard the peanut butter-gum idea before. Worth remembering.