Polishing Pad Cleaners - which one

Thanks for all the input, guys. Really helpful.

Joe: thanks for reminding me of that post. Great review.
 
I looked at the article on McKee's cleaner. Perhaps I'm trying to clean the whole pad, perhaps unnecessary. Looks like the article is showing cleaning mainly a thin layer that touches the paint.

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Yes Dawn and LATA will work but Dawn is such PITA to get out of the pads. It just wants to suds forever, and is even worse trying to clean pads like Buff and Shine white flat pads that have semi closed cells.

I was also somewhat concerned that LATA was probably not very good for the pads.
 
I use LA's Totally Awesome from Dollar Tree and a DIY pad washer. It's so much faster and the pads come out perfect every time.
 
Am I correct about the articles focus on pad surface cleaning only?

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3D Towel Clean and never look back. Works amazingly well.

In follow up to my PM to you, here's an example. The pad here was used on the single stage 911 I did last week using HD Speed which IMO is more difficult to remove than say just a typical polish. The pad came perfectly clean in about 5 minutes after soaking in hot water and Towel Clean for about 30 minutes. Scrubbed it a bit with my brush then blasted it with a fan tip on my garden hose. The pads look as good as the clean one here.

 
pdqgp said:
3D Towel Clean and never look back. Works amazingly well.

In follow up to my PM to you, here's an example. The pad here was used on the single stage 911 I did last week using HD Speed which IMO is more difficult to remove than say just a typical polish. The pad came perfectly clean in about 5 minutes after soaking in hot water and Towel Clean for about 30 minutes. Scrubbed it a bit with my brush then blasted it with a fan tip on my garden hose. The pads look as good as the clean one here.
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At what dilution do you mix the 3D Towel Kleen??
 
ski2 said:
At what dilution do you mix the 3D Towel Kleen??
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For the above pad, I put a Dixie cup sized amount in a 5 gal bucket. I do the same when I put my towels in the washer.
 
pdqgp said:
For the above pad, I put a Dixie cup sized amount in a 5 gal bucket. I do the same when I put my towels in the washer.
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A Dixie cup amount? The Dixie cups I'm used to are blue and at least 12oz... There's no way I've ever washed with that much Towel Kleen in the washer. Please be more specific? I'm also interested in how much Towel Kleen to use per your method.
 
Eldorado2k said:
A Dixie cup amount? The Dixie cups I'm used to are blue and at least 12oz... There's no way I've ever washed with that much Towel Kleen in the washer. Please be more specific? I'm also interested in how much Towel Kleen to use per your method.
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small dixie cup from your bathroom. in my house they are like 2-3 oz or so. keep the larger Solo Cups for the parties on the patio :)

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mikejames said:
I use LA's Totally Awesome from Dollar Tree and a DIY pad washer. It's so much faster and the pads come out perfect every time.
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Does anyone else use LATA? If so can you recommend a good dilution ratio for this purpose? Thx.
 
I use power clean from optimum. Going to get their pad washer too because it filters


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Eldorado2k said:
Does anyone else use LATA? If so can you recommend a good dilution ratio for this purpose? Thx.
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I tried buying LATA and I immediately poured it down the toilet. It was the harshest smell of any cleaner I've ever used. IMO it was as bad as blackfire's pad cleaner if not worse. I used to use Optimum Power Clean 3:1 on all of my pads used for sealants and AIO's. But now I soak all of my pads in a 3 gallon bucket with only 1oz. of 3D Towel Kleen. Most of my polishing/compounding pads come perfectly clean just from being lightly massaged and rinsed out with warm water. But for any of my AIO pads I keep a bottle of 3D Orange Degreaser at 10:1 which really works great and in my experience and is least aggressive method for cleaning HD Speed out of pads. Although I still keep a bottle of 3D Towel Kleen diluted 5:1 for removing FK1000p or WGDGPS
 
mwoywod said:
I tried buying LATA and I immediately poured it down the toilet. It was the harshest smell of any cleaner I've ever used. IMO it was as bad as blackfire's pad cleaner if not worse. I used to use Optimum Power Clean 3:1 on all of my pads used for sealants and AIO's. But now I soak all of my pads in a 3 gallon bucket with only 1oz. of 3D Towel Kleen. Most of my polishing/compounding pads come perfectly clean just from being lightly massaged and rinsed out with warm water. But for any of my AIO pads I keep a bottle of 3D Orange Degreaser at 10:1 which really works great and in my experience and is least aggressive method for cleaning HD Speed out of pads. Although I still keep a bottle of 3D Towel Kleen diluted 5:1 for removing FK1000p or WGDGPS
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Just a heads up to all regarding the importance of PPE and strong cleaners... I washed and scrubbed some plastic parts with straight LATA in the kitchen sink a couple weeks ago. I didn't wear gloves. The next day a rash showed up on my hands and by day three the skin started cracking on my knuckles and I had cracking scabs all over my hands for a week. Painful, itchy, all around awful experience. I attribute it to the length of time my hands were saturated. It's not gonna burn you quickly or anything. But I clearly lingered over those greasy parts longer than I should have without gloves.

I'm pretty mindful of "prevention" most of the time but the LATA caught me off-guard. Keep on your toes, fellas.
 
DScherer14 said:
Jeez straight LATA!


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Yep Dollar Tree sells it RTU in a spray bottle, or a refill bottle. I use it outside! You need something strong enough to get the pad clean but not damage them. It does an excellent job cleaning the pads with the pad washer and you can't beat the price.
 
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