Battlemat stains :(

[Varianor Abroad]

A tiny bit of White Spirit is what I use....

That's it!

 

[Glyfair]

I'm just kinda annoyed right now because I don't see why two pens (purchased a few years apart though admittedly) from the same manufacturer, both 'water-soluble' and from the same range, act differently. My old medium-point pen is fine... my new chisel-point ones stain. Very weird :S ...oh well.

I had something similiar happen. After enough of my Vis-A-Vis Overhead Projector markers had gone dry, I asked my brother to pick up a set for our next game. I went and used the new markers, and it wouldn't come up.

It turns out that they were permanent markers. I had been using these markers for almost 20 years at this point I had never seen permanent overhead projector markers before. I'm much more careful now. That didn't stop the purple one from staining the mat, but it came up with the "draw over and erase" method.

 

[Fat Daddy]

Diluted Acetone

Mr. Clean pads are a fine abrasive. They work by taking a thin layer of the surface material off, exposing a new clean surface. NOT what you want to do to your battlemat. The only thing I ever found that worked (never tried brake cleaner) was acetone. But it also takes off the grid lines if you're too generous with the application.

I agree that acetone works really well. To try and avoid losing gridlines to overgenerous application, try using finger nail polish remover. It is basically diluted acetone. Good luck.

 

[Kris]

Once again... thanks for all the ideas... I have plenty to go at this weekend... so I'll let you know how it goes (hopefully).

It turns out that they were permanent markers. I had been using these markers for almost 20 years at this point I had never seen permanent overhead projector markers before. I'm much more careful now.

I was very careful to purchase the non-permanent water-soluble ones... the new ones are exactly the same apart from the line thickness (which is what I find weird). In truth about 75% of the lines came straight off with water... it's just left a bit of a stain (so luckily the battlemat's far from ruined).

Well you did want the lines to stand out more!

Yep I guess so

 

[Contrarian]

On a related note... how do you get the bloodstains out of the battlemat???

You know what's good for cleaning blood stains? The anticoagulant solution that's used to keep bags of donated blood from clotting. Get some of that stuff, and you can get blood out of almost anything.

I'm am not going to explain how I know that, so nobody ask.