Cleaning pads

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tone357

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How do you guy's clean your pads? How many times can they be re-used?
 
Depends... Do you mean on the fly (aka as your polishing a car) or after you're completely done with the car?

You can use a pressure washer: http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/auto-detailing-tools-accessories/93286-my-ghetto-pad-washer.html

Then used compressed air to blow all the water out. Or leave them to dry for a day or so. Or put the pad on a buffer and use a towel to dry it off as it spins (you'll still need to let it dry for a while)

Or you can buy a pad washer, although a bit pricey
 
I massage in some diluted Megs degreaser and let each pad sit till the vehicle is done then I rinse that out and soak in hot water with DP pad rejuvenate. I'll let them soak 30mins to one hour then rinse well. Even my white pads come out looking nearly new.
 
I toss mine in the washing machine, I pre-treat them with a pad cleaner. They last a long time for me.
 
Hi,

I use a Citrus de-greaser, liberal spray, knead twist, squeeze & turn, until water coming off the pad is clean, then mix a batch of CG Pad Cleaner, or DP Pad Rejuvenator, & soak for 15 min. rinse rinse rinse, squeeze & rinse somemore. Then I use a dedicated, oven rack elevated, blocks of wood & allow the pad to dry, velcro side UP. Note: placed on rack to finish drying after, spin on DA & towel drying.

I like the DP Pad rejuvenator as measure makes 3 - 4 gallons, which is sufficient to do 8 pads, it takes me to do my car. CG's pad cleaner is 1oz/16oz of water, using that I use a small 1 gal bucket, so a few pads are submerged, normally around 3 oz = 48 oz, in a 1 gal bucket.

I take a break at pad change, (8 total), & start with the Citrus de greaser, currently "HDX Citrus" from Home Depot, many citrus de greasers are available, including AGO's store.

Waxing pad will always, be more difficult to remove then polishing pad, it's way cool that only one wax pad is required.

Using too much wax/polish makes cleaning very difficult. In the past when I used too much wax, I would just throw the pad in the trash, now I can clean & reuse.
 
I massage them in degreaser then spin them on the rotary and let them air dry. Rupes pads last 10-15 uses, LC HD Orbital seem to have very minimal wear after 10 uses. Haven't had to discard a LC Hybrid on the 3401 yet, they seem like they'll last forever.
 
During polishing I "clean on the fly" after every section with a towel and/or a denture cleaning brush from the $ Store. Then when a pad is spent throw it in a bucket of mixed Snappy Clean pad cleaner.

After polishing is complete if I only have 3-4 pads I'll rinse out the Snappy, spray with 3D Orange Degreaser, kneed and squeeze and then rinse, rinse, rinse.

If I have allot of pads I'll use my Ghetto Pad Washer mentioned above.

After either method I squeeze (not wring) as much water out of each pad as possible then lay them flat on a double folded thick old terry towel on the floor, fold it over the top and step on each pad. They are amazingly dry at this point, but put the Velcro side up to dry overnight on a wire rack.

The Ghetto Pad Washer has made pad cleaning almost painless for a total investment of $15--Grit Guard and Lowes blue bucket.
 
Massage them under a strong stream of warm water in the kitchen sink. I've never had a problem with pads coming completely clean of fresh polish or compound with this method.
 
FinishingTouchA said:
I massage them in degreaser then spin them on the rotary and let them air dry. .
Click to expand...

THIS!!!!

tone357 said:
Any problems using Dawn Dishwashing Liquid?
Click to expand...

Nooooooo.... do NOT put dishwashing detergent in them, you'll NEVER get all that out. :eek:

If you have some APC (all purpose cleaner) you can spritz them with that and massage it in. BTW, you REALLY want to find an APC that you like, and use it... use it a LOT. My all time favorite (was) Meguiar's APC+, yet for SOME STUPID REASON they discontinued it. :rolleyes: I still have about 3 quarts of it, but REALLY ration it.

Duragloss APC (that AG sells) is pretty darned good. And affordable too!

You'll want to keep two spray bottles with your favorite APC. One at max strength, another at general purpose strength. Depending on the APC that might be one at 10:1 and the other at 20:1.

What REALLY works well for pad cleaning though, especially when you're doing small amounts of pads by hand, is Meguiar's DynaCone cleaner. Autogeek also has some, several of which I've used. They're mostly the same thing, just different colors, different prices. I mentioned to ya' yesterday here at the house that CarMomma found the DynaCone locally at Ollies for only 99¢!!!!! :dblthumb2: I have to give the credit for finding it at that price to the discount thread here on AGO. ;)

*Just did a *G* search and it's as high as $18.74!!!!! She said, "OMG if it's selling for that much we're selling ours, I can get more, lots more."

What I do is spray cleaner on them, (maybe some APC and pad cleaner) and massage it in, then brush a bit with a medium soft brush. Then go back to the first one and start rinsing with HOT water. It helps if you have a mud sink, and also a short length of hose connected to the faucet. With the hose you can squeeze it (like when you're spraying a car or the lawn) and get a high pressure spray.

With the hot water, a good stiff spraying, and a bit of massaging you'll get them totally clean in short order. Once clean, rinse, rinse, and rinse again. Then put them Velcro side to a folded towel and roll the towel over to the foam side, the roll the pad up inside the towel... and give a good squeeze. That'll generally make them dry enough to where they'll dry sitting on a shelf, Velcro side up. Remember I mentioned yesterday that you want to sit them on something so they get air underneath. That can be a gallon milk jug cap, a spray can cap, fabric softener, or pretty much any type of cap.

What makes AWESOME drying spacers are the little things that come in pizza boxes!
They also make great cooling spacers for electronic equipment like routers. :D
 
I have a gallon of Wolfgang Pad Werks Pad WG-7502 ordered. Have any poster to this thread used this to clean and condition pads?

I am curious has anyone used APC or dedicated pad cleaner with a Tornador Car Cleaning Gun to clean pads? This tool appears amazing if I had a better air compressor I would have already bought one with all the great discounts AGO has offered.

When I get time I am going to try to rig up a Okie engineered pad washer. I have an idea I would like to try.
 
I have no issue getting pads clean that are used with compound or polish. It's my finishing pads with LSP or anything else that has water repellant product that are the difficult ones for me to clean.

I'm seeing a lot of people using degreaser. I've generally stayed away from that because it seems to aggressive, but if you guys are using them without any issues, I'm willing to try them. Any kind of degreaser will work? Specifically a citrus degreaser? Would you guys recommend degreaser over actual pad cleaners and rejuvenators?
 
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