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My apartment building has a mangle in the drying room. I have been using it, but folding my bed linens has proven difficult. In particular, getting the duvet covers' seams to remain as the edge of the fold is challenging. Keeping the sheet flat when it goes in the mangle is also difficult, resulting in a few creases in the end that goes in last.

Here's the mangle in question:

A consumer-grade mangle

My current system is to hold the linen off the floor with my hands up and trying to fold it. This usually involves standing on my toes for the sheets. I fold duvet covers in three, and sheets in four, moving the top leaf around for a "Σ" shape. I'll usually end up dragging the sheet along the floor when feeding it into the mangle.

These are the results I get:

A number of hung up bed linens with wrinkles and creases

Are there any tricks to keeping the folds straight, and keeping the sheet off the floor while feeding it in?

Haem
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  • Stand on a chair when folding to keep the linen off the ground. Use the chair back to support the linen as you feed it through the mangle, or roughly concertina-fold it onto the chair from where you can feed it into the mangle. Straighten the original longitudinal folds with your fingers, on each stretch that will next go into the mangle. – Weather Vane Feb 12 '23 at 17:46
  • For example (assuming the sheet is already trapped in the mangle), tighten and straighten the folds of the next 60 cm, and let it down onto the chair. Wind 15 cm of that into the mangle. Repeat, (re)straightening more than you actually feed into the mangle. Adjust the lengths as needed: wind in more if you can do so without the folds going off line. – Weather Vane Feb 12 '23 at 18:06
  • @WeatherVane you should make that into an answer. – Haem Feb 12 '23 at 18:12
  • It isn't a hack - just "sensible advice". – Weather Vane Feb 12 '23 at 18:14
  • Maybe a picture with that mangle would help. Most of us mortals are not familiar with the tool :) Also, different brands might require different kind of use. – virolino Feb 13 '23 at 05:52
  • Is this "mangle" actually an electric ironer? The 19/20th century mangle is the equivalent of the modern washing machine spinner. After using a mangle or spinner to extract the water, linen still needs to be dried and ironed. – Weather Vane Feb 13 '23 at 20:19
  • @WeatherVane I think it's somewhere in between; The rollers are not heated and I doubt it could handle actually wet laundry. That said, I have on occasion put sheets through it after just a spin cycle, but I tend to use a half hour dry cycle on top of that. – Haem Feb 13 '23 at 21:10
  • Iron the linen while still damp to smoothe and re-crease them. – Weather Vane Feb 13 '23 at 22:04
  • If it doesn't iron, and it can't handle wet laundry, exactly what is the purpose in using it? The mangles I remember in use when I was a child was from the days before spinners were in common use: they squeezed most of the suds out of the linen, and then the rinse water, before hanging it on a line to let the sun and wind dry it. – Weather Vane Feb 14 '23 at 20:31
  • @WeatherVane It squeezes the sheet pretty hard between the rollers, and that usually flattens the sheets. – Haem Feb 15 '23 at 20:26
  • Well, they still need ironing, so I don't really 'get' the question. – Weather Vane Feb 15 '23 at 20:29
  • @WeatherVane It is entirely possible that this mangle's in dire need of replacement. I know for a fact that a cold mangle can produce results comparable to ironing if you have a second pair of hands, which is why I'm asking. – Haem Feb 15 '23 at 22:19

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