How can I remove melted plastic from a dryer compartment?

Question

I have a new dryer. Someone placed a mattress cover in the dryer, the mattress cover melted and stuck to the metal plate that hot air must pass through to dry the clothes. The heat did something to the plastic and it is hard.

I could chip and scrap but that would take several hours and likely damage the metal plate. I have tried to dissolve the plastic with denatured alcohol, acetone, naptha, and xylene. Nothing dissolves this plastic. I have tried a heat gun but that just turns the plastic to goo. I have tried soaking the removed plate in alcohol and burn the plastic off but the plastic does not want to catch fire.

I can see there is a $150 replacement available online but I would prefer to not to spend that money.

How can I remove the plastic from the dryer plate?

Answer 1

Either throw in the towel now, buy the new plate and install it, or work to remove the plastic.

To chip/scrape it off, I'd suggest a hard, stiff, plastic scraper. If you don't have anything like a narrow plastic putty knife or plastic interior trim tools (for removing trim pieces from a car without damaging the trim or the paint), an old credit card or a plastic knife might do the trick. I'd opt for the plastic knife first, but I'd grab it with 2 pair of pliers and break the knife blade ^* to give a sharp edge. The plastic should be soft enough to not damage the metal, but the sharp edge should help scrape the mattress cover off. You might even need to tap it gently with a hammer and use it as a makeshift chisel ^*.

If you get it all off but it takes two hours, well, you just paid yourself $75/hour for the labor. Not a bad rate! If you end up damaging the metal enough that you feel you must replace it, at least you gave it a try and you're no worse off than if you hadn't tried at all.

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^*For both of these operations, eye protection is highly recommended. By "highly recommended", I really mean mandatory - you don't want a little bit of flying plastic embedded in your eyeball to compound the issue.

Answer 2

This answer is pretty short, but. . .

I'd remove the plate and attack it with a pneumatic wire wheel / wire wheel attachment on a drill.

Use at your discretion, wire wheels can be pretty aggressive and change the finished look of the metal - But in my experience it does not cause any knicking or burring, which I imagine would be the main concern with your clothes spinning around in it.

Answer 3

/those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable.”/ - Hippocrates.

The metal plate will not burn. The plastic will burn. Remove the cooking grate and fire up your grill. When it is hot, set the metal plate on the coals or over the gas jets. All plastic burns if it gets hot enough. This is outside work, because there will be smoke.

You can scrub off the carbon when you are done. The metal plate will be discolored. That is ok.

Answer 4

The other suggestions here are great, but to add another option I was surprised not to see:

I'd consider sandpaper. Optionally wet the sandpaper to keep the plastic from gumming up as it warms up. You can start with a fairly rough grit and then use a finer grit to polish the metal back to looking nice.

Do it by hand or use an electric sander.

As with all tasks involving creating dust, wear appropriate eye and breathing protection.

Answer 5

One solution I'm surprised no one has mentioned: if the plastic has dried on hard, it's probably brittle. Try removing the metal plate and hitting the plastic a few times with a hammer. The metal might get a few dents, which can be banged back into shape, but it will break the plastic and make it much easier to remove, especially if you're using an ordinary claw hammer; just get the claw into one of the cracks you produce and use it to pry a piece of plastic off, then repeat.

Answer 6

Instead of using the heat gun on the plastic, use it on the grate on the opposite side as the plastic. Then you can heat up less plastic and have it concentrated on just the parts that are stuck to the grate. This will loosen the plastic and you'll have less "goo".

Also, work on a small section at a time, trying to peel the plastic off as it heats, so it pulls off the instant it loses grip, instead of turning to goo.

And to try to prevent the plastic from acting like glue-gun glue and having long stringers of plastic everywhere, get the plastic hot enough to be pliable then apply an ice cube to the spot. This may harden the plastic and cause a shearing effect due to the difference in temperatures at the plastic cools at a different rate than the metal. This shearing might be be enough to "pop" off the plastic cleanly. You likely don't want to try cooling the metal with the ice, since that could change the temper of the metal or cause it to warp.

If it doesn't shear on it's own, try using a knife, chisel, prybar, or even a hammer to give it a literal whack at the cold spot. The problem with this method is that you could lose paint or otherwise damage the grate. A rough spot or small burr might not seem significant, but it could catch or rub on clothes causing them to rip or wear significantly faster.

Answer 7

Run the dryer to heat it up for about 20 minutes then carefully scrape off the plastic with a wooden spatula or paint scraper. For tough patches, use a clean rag dipped with nail polish remover.