from some pms that i have been getting, i thought that a thread on clean up might be useful...

first- how i clean pads... by hand!! using one of several choices depending on my mood (yes, lotsa what i do depends on what i happen to grab at the time!)
snappy clean is a good pad cleaner, and sometimes i use car shampoo, and sometimes i use the sonus wunderwashe stuff...

i have not used a tool that i see others using called a duo-spur... anyone use this???
sometimes i will rough a pad with an old kitchen knife, but the duo spur is on my list of stuff to try. i understand that the duo spur is good for roughing pads while you are using them (to reduce caking) and also for cleaning them up.

i dry my pads on the pc... low setting and just spin dry (careful, in the beginning i spun a pad apart by setting the machine too high- pretty strange site!!)

for my towels my fav cleaner is the sonus wunder wasche... and dont mix mfs with non-mf towels!!

other thoughts and tips???

 

I clean my pads by hand too, except I use regular dish soap for mine. Haven't had a problem with it thus far. Never tried drying the pads on the PC, though, I'll have to try that next time!

What exactly do you mean by "roughing" the pads? Never heard of this before so I'm curious, as I'd like to prevent my pads from caking as much as possible while I'm polishing...

 

I have pakshak towels and directions say I can throw them in the wash with regular detergent and they have been working just like new. They say to line dry them but I just tumble dry them on low.

Also, for the edge 2k pads, on the packaging it says to wash with dish soap and spin dry using PC. I've done it at the 5 setting with 0 problems.

 

As far as pad cleaning goes, I usually soak my pads for 20 minutes in a bucket with warm water, DP Polishing Pad Cleaner (I'm a sucker for specialized products I guess), and a little bit of Oxy Clean. If they're really dirty I scuff them up with one of these . . .


Then I rinse them out, squeeze them dry, and finally put them on a rack to dry.

As for MFs I usually wash them with a dedicated microfiber detergent (yeah again I'm a sucker). Occassionally, I use a regular laundry detergent but it has to be free of softeners, wrinkle releasers, and bleaches. I always wash them in warm water and occasionally I throw in 1/4 to 1/2 cup of vinegar in during the rinse cycle. Then I just throw them in the dryer, but first I make sure the lint trap is totally clean.

I also rinse out all my brushes after each use.

 

i rough the pads, especially on larger cars with the mf covers- basically it involves breaking up the caking on the pad!

----
blurnj13- yup, you can spin dry the edge pads on 5 a couple of times... but eventually they can fly apart. mine did- kinda makes you feel like you are a real newbee when it happens!! a neighbor saw me doing it and wanted to know why- had to admit that it was a mistake!

 

me too... which one are you using?

i am using sonus product at this time-

 

[QUOTE=wanabe,Jul 25 2006, 10:55 PM] i rough the pads, especially on larger cars with the mf covers-