Chamois

In detail

A chamois is a soft, highly absorbent leather — traditionally sheepskin, now often a synthetic equivalent — used to take water off a surface rather than to lift soil from it. Its job is the last step, and the standards guidance for architecturally finished aluminium places it exactly there: after washing and rinsing thoroughly with clean water, the surface is air dried or wiped dry with a chamois, squeegee or lint-free cloth. That instruction exists because of what happens when water is left. Dissolved minerals stay behind as spotting when it evaporates in place, and on stainless steel an evaporating film concentrates chlorides on the surface, which is a corrosion risk rather than a cosmetic one. Two cautions. A chamois carries no abrasive of its own but it carries whatever grit it has picked up, so it belongs on a rinsed surface and nowhere near an unrinsed one — the trapped-particle mechanism the glass trade names for scratching. And a chamois that has dried hard should be soaked soft before use. On a large pane a squeegee outperforms it; a chamois is better on the shaped and edged surfaces a blade cannot follow.

What works

• Chamois is effective against Water marks Supported