Cleaning Stainless Steel

LESLIE: Mike in New York needs some help with a steel door. Tell us about your project.

MIKE: Well, my project is I got a brand new, stainless steel door; the only reason because it was for the tax credit and everything. But we’ve got some cats and dogs. They’re little ankle-biters (Leslie chuckles) and they keep scratching the door, so what I installed is a kick plate but the kick plate I wanted – they only sell the ones that go at the bottom but I wanted one to go off the side all one piece. So what I had, I had a steelworks factory make me an L-shaped kind of kick plate.

TOM: OK.

MIKE: But when I (AUDIO GAP) it had like a whole bunch of oil and whatever they used – you know, cuts; you know, like burn marks and everything. But there’s some oil on it and I just want to clean it up so it looks nice and shiny like it was made on the door and I was wondering what special cleaning solution can I use to clean that stainless steel plate up with.

LESLIE: You know, I have stainless appliances and I have a stainless steel sink and I’ve used – I mean you don’t want to use anything harsh on it and you also want to make sure that when you clean the stainless – you’ll notice that there’s like a grain on the stainless steel similar to a wood grain might be.

MIKE: OK.

LESLIE: And when you clean the stainless, you want to make sure that you do your cleaning – or your rubbing, I should say – in the direction of those polish lines. That’s what that grain is. When they polish up that steel, you end up with these very linear markings on it; so you want to make sure that you polish or clean in the same direction of those marks. And then I’ve used either store-bought stainless cleaner or you can just use like a mild dishwashing detergent, water and a clean, dry cloth.