Ironing charts

[gandy]

Hoping for a serious reply or two. Recently someone mentioned ironing charts, and I wondered what the best method was. Do you iron the front or back? I have visions of burning the cartography off, or finding I've welded newsprint onto the chart .

Thanks in advance, Tony S

 

[StugeronSteve]

I have never tried, although I would have thought that the back was safe, possibly ironing through a covering fabric. Try an old chart maybe? Top hotels used to iron the morning papers and a chart is made from better paper/ink than a news sheet.

Be very careful not to work the iron in one direction though, there is a danger of altering the magnetic variation!

 

[bob_tyler]

If ironed, paper stretches! Not very good when you want to take off a distance?

 

[StugeronSteve]

Maybe not such a good idea then.

 

[boatmike]

In the old days when one had servants (I don't think!) it was customary for the butler to iron the morning copy of The Times before laying out in the morning room...... I am told the trick was to lay a barely damp tea towel over each page before ironing. Use a cool iron to avoid removing print. If it was good for The Times it should be good for charts that are much thicker I would have thought...

 

[Cornishman]

Why do you feel a need to iron your charts? If it is to smooth out a few wrinkles it is better to put them in a folder one at a time and leave them under a few books to weigh it down. Above all, keep them DRY.

Ironing is not to be recommended for the stretch reason given by Bob Tyler. Particularly if you use a steam iron!! Similarly, encapsulating them has a stretching effect and correcting charts later becomes almost impossible.

 

[bob_tyler]

I've tried to get SWMBO to iron my Telegraph each morning and open it to show the obituaries page to see if I'm in it but no success so far.

 

[gandy]

Re: Ironing charts - why??

These are charts that have been folded, and its a pain trying to measure or plot where the folds want to crease up or down.

Tony S

 

[walker]

But assuming the chart and scale both stretch would it matter? Or am I just being thick (again)?

 

[toad]

Stanfords charts melt,guess how i know.

 

[bob_tyler]

Unfortunately I think that paper probably stretches unevenly depending on the direction of the ironing strokes but I do see your point - nothing thick about it, quite sharp in fact..

 

[duncan]

When we were preparing for car rallies (a few years ago) I, as nav, used to iron the OS maps and re fold to a panel size that suited my map table.
Don't see any reason why you couldn't do the same with charts (and many reasons to do the same).
I will however admit that we didn't get a paper chart out at any point in the last 2 years (Almanac pages excluded).......although they were of course on board.