Things happen. Candle wax gets spilled on the carpet. The
youngest child falls asleep with gum in her mouth and wakes up with
it in her hair. You park under a tree and end up with sap all over
your brand new, shiny car. There are plenty of South Valley
professionals that can help fix these problems, of course, but for
those times when you want the satisfaction of doing it yourself,
many of these professionals have kindly offered their advice on how
to fix common problems that are enough to irritate almost
anyone.
Q: How do you get tree sap off your car?
A: “That’s probably the worst thing to get on your car because it’s one of the hardest things to get off. If it’s not dry, you can use mechanic’s hand cleaner, such as Natural Orange Hand Cleaner, with a rag to take it off. You have to be careful with things like Goo Gone, because it has a chemical that will damage the paint. If you can’t get it off with the hand cleaner, take it to a professional to have it rubbed out.”
– John DeCarlo, general manager of Morgan Hill Car Wash & Gift Shop
“We have solvents we use, and some of the products aren’t available over the counter. I’ve seen people use Brillo pads on things like sap, and they totally take off the paint on the car. If you want to do it yourself, you can try some of the solvents at automotive stores.”
– Mike Bonfante, owner of Mike’s Spectrum Paint Works Incorporated in Gilroy
An excellent way to remove tree sap from your car is to use mayonnaise or salad dressing. Using a dry, soft cloth, apply the mayonnaise or salad dressing to the sap that is stuck to your car. Rub until the sap is gone. Wash the area, and buff to a shine with a soft clean cloth.
-www.ehow.com
Q: How do you get oil stains off your driveway?
A: “(The product) Simple Green can work with a steel brush. Moradic acid will get it off, but it will also leave a big white spot on the driveway that’s just as noticeable. It’s like when you clean one spot on your carpet, and the clean spot is even more obvious than the stain sometimes. Don’t wait for two years to get rid of the oil. If you clean it as soon as you see it, it will be easier to get off. Otherwise it’ll soak into all the pores of the concrete. Even then, you may only get 50 to 70 percent of it out.”
– Mike Bonfante, owner of Mike’s Spectrum Paint Works Incorporated in Gilroy
Q: How do you get gum out of hair?
A: “Get the gum cold, and then use a product – like a conditioner and a wide-tooth comb – and try and comb it out. If it’s a tiny enough spot, you may just want to nip it out with some scissors, but if it’s a big chunk, you obviously won’t want to do that. The most important thing is not to get it warm. Don’t put warm or hot water on it, or it will just get more gooey.”
– June O’Brien, owner of A Cut Above hair salon in Hollister
“Ice to get (the gum) to harden and fall off. Or try olive oil or peanut butter.”
– Marlene Gaucin, employee at Beauty Secrets in Gilroy
Q: How do you get gum out of cloth?
A: “A stiff-bristled brush and Resolve (cleaner) should get it out of carpet.”
– John DeCarlo, general manager of Morgan Hill Car Wash & Gift Shop
“(Gum) can be removed by dabbing the sticky region with a rag soaked in rubber cement thinner, available at most art supply stores. Use a pen knife or putty scraper to work the gum out. Then launder as usual.
Or try dipping a cotton ball into some rubbing acohol, then wipe or dab it onto the gum. Let it soak in for a few seconds, and use a tweazer to pick up the gum.”
– www.ehow.com
Q: How do you refinish a table?
A: “If you’re going to restain the table, you have to get all the polyurethane on the table off. So, put a paint or varnish stripper on and leave it on there for a while, and it will start to bubble up. Scrape off all the goop that bubbled up with a plastic scrapper. If it was originally a dark stain, you may not get all the stain off on the first try.
“Then, go over the whole table with a project wash that will get the stripper off, and sand it down to the bare wood. Once you’ve sanded it really good, pick a stain, apply it, and with most stains you let it sit for a while and then wipe off the excess for a uniform color. Then you pick polyurethane to seal it and protect it. You’ll want to do multiple coats. If you didn’t put (the polyurethane) on, any water would soak right into the wood. This way, you can just wipe off water.
“To paint a table is much easier. You do all the same things, but you don’t have to sand it. Strip it, put primer on it and paint it. Then you can seal it. We have pamphlets that show you how to do all this stuff step by step.”
– Kelly Rothert, an employee in the paint department at Lowe’s Home Improvement Center in Gilroy
Q:How do you make defrosting the freezer easier?
A: “After emptying the freezer and turning the fridge off, spray the frost and ice with rubbing alcohol, and let it sit for a few minutes. Then it will be much easier to chip the ice away, and the process won’t take all day.”
– www.weeno.com
Q: How do you get candle wax off cloth?
A: “Put a piece of paper towel, a paper bag or butcher paper (waxy side up) over the wax, and run a warm iron over the top. The wax should melt onto the paper bag. Pick up the bag as the wax cools, and it should stick.”
– www.ehow.com
