Clear Stuck-On Buildup With Two Tools From the Paint Aisle

The Problem

There is a category of deposit that a non-scratch sponge will not touch: hard-water scale on a glass shower door, the grey ring that builds up around the base of a faucet and under its handles, mineral film baked onto a cooktop. More pressure on the sponge does nothing, because the sponge is softer than the deposit. Neither tool that fixes this is sold in the cleaning aisle.

The Techniques

Grade 0000 steel wool

Steel wool is graded by coarseness, and the grades run from coarse enough to strip paint down to fine enough to polish. 0000 — four zeros — is the fine end, and it is the only grade to bring near a finished surface. The brand is irrelevant; the number on the packet is the whole decision. Reach for it when a non-scratch sponge has failed on stubborn buildup, not as a first move.

Cut the pad down rather than using it whole. It opens out into a sheet, so cut it into small working pieces and take a fresh one each time. Steel wool starts rusting once it gets wet, so a whole pad used for one job is a whole pad thrown away.

A razor scraper

For deposits that have gone hard and sit proud of the surface — the crust around a faucet base is the classic — a small razor scraper gets underneath and lifts them off. Three rules make the difference between cleaning a surface and ruining it:

1. Always a fresh, clean blade. Never an old or rusted one; a nicked edge draws a scratch the length of the stroke.
2. Keep the surface wet the whole time. The water is what lets the blade slide instead of catch.
3. Almost flat, and light. You are floating the blade under the buildup, not scraping across the surface. If you are pressing, the angle is wrong.