Hacked out a Pakistan 1980's Hand-knotted wool pile on cotton warps and wefts which resulted in considerable distortion of the rug pile and foundations. What happened? can it be fixed? My method was vacuum both sides, test for dye bleeds, spray with acid rinse, spray with wool safe prespray and rinse with acid rinse. Never had this happen before, any help would be great.
And this is why I feel it is so important to NOT clean rugs with your TM or a Porty. I'm gonna take a stab at the question and say no.
Sorry Rugman no photos, yes I did groom it. An independent evaluator described it as a hand-knotted wool pile on cotton warps and wefts. knot density approx 280/ sq inch, warps depressed at approx 60 degrees. I also noted that the fringe had been bleached. You make a good point Matt, but could this happen if I had cold water bathed it? My plan is to cold water bath it and try to stretch it back over time, my biggest concern is the distortion in the pile.
Don't know, every thing I get gets subbed out. I just refuse to clean it myself till I have more proper equipment.
Do some research here on the proper way to clean - you will find a ton! You may be able to re-wash it and fix it - hard to tell with no pics. Are there any rug cleaning shops near you? If so - take it there - if not - learn and you make $$$$$$!
Re wand it with you final pass to lay the pile down so it looks shiny. This should fix the prob, but you should still groom it downwards with a soft broom, NOT a groomer. When it is dry you may find that the rug is crunchy, and if it is you can rub it real hard with your hand to "soften" the pile. If it is still crunchy after this you can use either a low moisture bonnet finish or one a fixed orbit system like our Yorkster Finisher system.
IMO If you have a rug that is so crunchy you have to Re-clean it with a Bonnet type system to make it soft you haven't cleaned it properly in the first place. After we clean and find a rug with a LITTLE stiff feel we vacuum it and take care of the LITTLE stiffness.
I agree on this... stiffness often is the result of a wool rug not being thoroughly washed or rinsed and the soil/residue wicking up and creating that stiffness. A rug that is given a bath and rinsed well should never feel stiff to the touch, and should not need additional "buffing" - at least we've never had that situation ever happen at our plant for as long as I can remember. I'm also not a fan of leaving encap residue behind or scrubbing a dry face of a rug after the fact. But maybe if I was surface cleaning and it somehow helped remove more of the soil my cleaning did not - then I might have another opinion on it. There is a huge difference between surface cleaning and properly washing ... and with this rug - it could be something as simple as scrubbing too much with too little water buffering the strokes - or extracting in the wrong directions - or not grooming properly before drying. It also could be a rug quite dirty not made clean enough by the surface cleaning. It's impossible to say without having any photos to look at. So - it may be a quick fix - or it may be damage you will have to pay to replace. Posting photos would help though... Lisa
Thank you all for your great input. I gave it a good rinse and groom in a back yard bath setup, this seems to have fixed the pile. I've blocked it out and am currently slowly stretching it back into shape. Fingers crossed Sorry still no pics. You where right Lisa I had gone against the pile direction one end of the rug as I was in a very small room. On my crash course to learn more about oriental rugs I came across some great pages which described how to count knots/inch. With this information I counted the knots myself and found there to only be 120/inch. I feel this low number of knots has contributed to the rug distorting so much? I was wondering at what knots/inch would you consider it wise to block the rug out?
