What is the best way to clean wax applicators?

After soaking it in a bucket with hot water with a little cg pad cleaner, I squeeze the pad out then soak it again in hot water then rinse it out running it under the faucet. Seems to get it all out.
 
It will cost you $10-15 for the mineral spirits and $5-10 for the IPA mixture (roughly 1 gallon of each). How many pads are you really going to clean with the $20 in chemicals? 100 pads? Thats $.20 per pad. The pad only cost $1.00 to buy new. How much labor are you putting in to save $.80 per pad? If you are billing your time out at $35 per hour it costs you $.58 per minute to be working on cleaning things. You'll have to average cleaning a pad every 1.3 minutes or 78 seconds to be cost effective. If you are that good at cleaning pads you should probably be charging more than $35 an hour to clean cars. Save up a bunch of dirty ones and post an add on craigslist and give the away to some young buck that is willing to clean them just so he can have them to work on his own car. In other words, put down the dirty pads and get back to working on billable hours. :buffing:
 
gjantzer said:
It will cost you $10-15 for the mineral spirits and $5-10 for the IPA mixture (roughly 1 gallon of each). How many pads are you really going to clean with the $20 in chemicals? 100 pads? Thats $.20 per pad. The pad only cost $1.00 to buy new. How much labor are you putting in to save $.80 per pad? If you are billing your time out at $35 per hour it costs you $.58 per minute to be working on cleaning things. You'll have to average cleaning a pad every 1.3 minutes or 78 seconds to be cost effective. If you are that good at cleaning pads you should probably be charging more than $35 an hour to clean cars. Save up a bunch of dirty ones and post an add on craigslist and give the away to some young buck that is willing to clean them just so he can have them to work on his own car. In other words, put down the dirty pads and get back to working on billable hours. :buffing:
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This is assuming you are running a business. I don't and I have no problem spending the time to clean the pads like swanicyouth.
 
I've ben using a "tar and wax" remover from Autozone that seems to get rid of most sealant/waxes from applicators. The brand is Rust Oleum and it came in a quart. I like to transfer the water-like liquid to a small spray bottle and spray it on the applicator and let it sit for a while before spraying Megs APC+ on them and wash in the sink in hot water like normal.
 
I scrub them with simple green and hot water. Works well, but I'm not running a business so I don't use too many applicators to begin with, and rinsing them out doesn't take too long, so cost isn't really a big deal.

But I am talking about the nice CCS foam applicators, not the little yellow round ones that are super cheap. I might use those 3 -4 times and trash them.
 
Club soda diluted with water soaked for about an hour worked for me. I typically stay away from APC's since I do want that stuff to end on the paint.
 
I wait until they go on BOGO, buy 'em in bulk, and toss 'em. Not worth the time and expense OR RISK to clean them. Pads are cheaper than polish
 
Used Simple Green on my orange pads last weekend. set in sink, and poured full strength on pads and let sit 1/2 hr or so. rinsed out beautifully.
Dan
 
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