# Annual Chessex Battlemat Clean Up Reminder



## Ogrork the Mighty (Dec 17, 2010)

Every year around this time I do some maintenance on my four Chessex Battlemats by cleaning them.

What you'll need:

- Water
- Sponge or shammy (I use a sham-wow like cloth)
- Cleaner with vinegar (I use Windex multi-surface cleaner but the key is that it needs to have vinegar in it)

Steps:

1) Using warm water and a spong/shammy, wash down your mats. The aim here is to get the bulk of the marker residue off.

2) Let mats dry (so the vinegar in the next step doesn't get diluted).

3) Apply the vinegar cleaner and let sit for about 5 minutes. You'll see a bunch of marker residue "float" to the surface. It's actually pretty amazing to see because I've had mats that look clean enough to eat off but once you apply the vinegar cleaner, all sorts of gunk floats up.

4) Using your sponge/shammy, wipe away the residue.

5) Wash your sponge/shammy and then wash down your mats again. You don't want any vinegar remaining on the mats (since it is an acid, afterall). I've never had any problems with the vinegar but I also make sure to wash it off afterwards so that's probably why.

If you have long term stains on your mat, this cleaning probably won't get those out. You'll have to tackle deeper stains with more intensive treatment.

I've been doing this cleaning process for years and my battlemats are still in tip-top shape (and my mats are probably 15+ years old at this point).

One other thing, for storage I use one of those black plastic artist tubes and they work great: Art Storage Tube Plastic Storage Drawing Tube Art-Materials-Tool-Box-00820880050

Good gaming!


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## kitsune9 (Dec 17, 2010)

Thanks for the tips! Any tips on Tac-tiles?


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## Ogrork the Mighty (Dec 18, 2010)

Aren't they the same material as the Chessex battlemats? If so, I'd just use the same method.


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## thalmin (Dec 18, 2010)

If you have ever mistakenly used dry erase markers on your Chessex Battlemat, try using a_Mr. Clean Magic Eraser._ Just don't scrub too hard or you will erase the grid itself.


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## MarkB (Dec 19, 2010)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> Aren't they the same material as the Chessex battlemats? If so, I'd just use the same method.




Tac-tiles are dry-erase rather than wet-erase, so they wouldn't necessarily take the same treatment. A dedicated white-board cleaner would probably be the best solution.


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## FATDRAGONGAMES (Dec 19, 2010)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> Every year around this time I do some maintenance on my four Chessex Battlemats by cleaning them.
> 
> What you'll need:
> 
> ...




Thanks for posting this!


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## masshysteria (Dec 20, 2010)

I always spray down my mat with window cleaner and give it a good wipe down after gaming. This seems to prevent any marker from sticking around and leaves it nice and clean.


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## kitsune9 (Dec 20, 2010)

Does anyone know if tac-tiles are dishwasher safe?


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## thalmin (Dec 22, 2010)

kitsune9 said:


> Does anyone know if tac-tiles are dishwasher safe?



I would think the dishwasher detergent would harm the finish. The heat wouldn't do them any good, either.


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## NewJeffCT (Dec 22, 2010)

thalmin said:


> If you have ever mistakenly used dry erase markers on your Chessex Battlemat, try using a_Mr. Clean Magic Eraser._ Just don't scrub too hard or you will erase the grid itself.




I've done that before and I use dry erase cleaner to clean it up and that has worked for me.  I just make sure to not scrub too hard or I'm afraid the gridlines might come off.

We use the chessex battlemat, and we also have a dry erase board & markers to track initiative & other combat related stuff.  So, it can be easy to confuse a dry erase marker with a wet erase one.


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## falcarrion (Dec 23, 2010)

I use hand sanitizer to get out stubborn stains. It also works well on white boards.


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## NewJeffCT (Jul 19, 2012)

resurrecting this thread from almost 2 years ago since it has great advice.  I'm moving soon, so I did this big clean-off last night.  My Chessex mondo mat looks great.

Thanks [MENTION=19042]Ogrork the Mighty[/MENTION]


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## frankthedm (Jul 19, 2012)

MarkB said:


> Tac-tiles are dry-erase rather than wet-erase



I thought the real ones could handle both types of marker.


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## MarkB (Jul 19, 2012)

frankthedm said:


> I thought the real ones could handle both types of marker.




Possibly. I only had them second-hand, and only ever used dry-erase markers on them. Never considered using wet-erase ones.


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## IronWolf (Jul 19, 2012)

frankthedm said:


> I thought the real ones could handle both types of marker.




No Tac-Tiles are dry erase only. Just last week our GM accidentally used a wet erase marker on them. We were able to get them cleaned up pretty good, but it took a bit to get the marker off of there.


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## MonkeyDragon (Jul 20, 2012)

1) Much love for the vinegar on the battlemats technique.  I use windex with vinegar on my vinyl mats and it works great.

2) General note on markers.  Red seems to stain more than other colors, so avoiding red and purple helps.  Also, if you accidentally use a regular marker on a dry erase board, you can get it off (mostly) by scribbling it over completely with a dry erase marker, letting that dry, and wiping it off.  Also works if you have dry erase that's been on the surface too long and isn't wiping off.


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## IronWolf (Jul 20, 2012)

MonkeyDragon said:


> ]Also, if you accidentally use a regular marker on a dry erase board, you can get it off (mostly) by scribbling it over completely with a dry erase marker, letting that dry, and wiping it off.  Also works if you have dry erase that's been on the surface too long and isn't wiping off.




Yep! When the wet erase was used in error last week, I was the one that remembered reading this tip before and had everyone coloring over the wet erase lines with a dry erase marker and then wiping it off. Worked pretty well!


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## Ogrork the Mighty (Dec 31, 2012)

Just did my annual clean up so I thought I'd bump this post as a reminder. My mats are now 15-20 years old and aside from some minor ghosting stains they look good as new.


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## NewJeffCT (Jan 1, 2013)

Thanks for the reminder


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jan 1, 2013)

thalmin said:


> If you have ever mistakenly used dry erase markers on your Chessex Battlemat, try using a_Mr. Clean Magic Eraser._ Just don't scrub too hard or you will erase the grid itself.




Tried that...

We are becoming somewhat content with the river that runs through...well...everywhere.


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## Chimera (Aug 4, 2018)

Bump for a new solution.

I had left a very large and complex map done in Dry Erase on mine for 2.5 months and was just spending a lot of time getting it off, since I didn't have any special cleaning products.

I desperation, I tried the Shout Advanced Stain Remover (spray) that I had.  Took the fresh stuff right off.  Didn't do anything for the 5-20 year old stains, but it also didn't discolor the map or remove the lines.


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