How does everyone clean their pads?

[milabfocker]

I was just wondering how everyone cleans their cutting (wool) and polishing (foam) pads. I've simply been using a spur or stiff bristled brush to remove dried polish from the pad after use. However, I want to eliminate the possibility for damage caused via pad contamination. I've heard so many different opinions surrounding the proper cleaning of pads. Some say to wash them in water with a detergent specifically formulated for this purpose, others use detergents ranging from mild car wash shampoos to dish soap, some (like myself) simply use a spur or stiff bristled brush to remove polish after its dried onto the pad. Any input surrounding the ideal way to properly clean wool and foam pads would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Brandon Mila

[Andy M.]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

Hi Brandon,

Seeing that this is your first post, Welcome to MOL

Although, Meguiars does not recommend this I use some dawn dishwashing liquid in a 5 gallon bucket with warm water and work the product out of the pads. Then I use a different bucket and thoroughly rinse them out and let them air dry. Not sure about the wool pads though.

Hope this helps
Andy
101impala

[BlueZero]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I just started using Dawn Power Dissolver on my foam pads and have been impressed. Spray it on let is sit 5-10 mins, then squeeze them out, repeat as needed then rinse. Nothing beats clean pads, makes the job go much smoother.

[alfa_164s]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I use water in the bucket pad cleaner. I also clean the wholl pad every panels i do. It is from the competition but i think Meg should maybe devellop their own. It is so practicle
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgur...n%26safe%3Doff

[G Force]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I use water in the bucket pad cleaner. I also clean the wholl pad every panels i do. It is from the competition but i think Meg should maybe devellop their own. It is so practicle
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgur...n%26safe%3Doff

That would scare me a little electrical fault in the polisher or a accidental spillage .....
Perhaps I'm the only one.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

That would scare me a little electrical fault in the polisher or a accidental spillage .....
Perhaps I'm the only one.

The pad washing bucket is a standard in the industry, as long as your careful and use common sense there's no danger as the lid prevents water splatter form escaping the bucket.

We have two out in the Meguiar's Garage.

At this time Meguiar's doesn't recommend washing our foam pads as in,

Don't put them in a washing machine
Don't wash them by hand

That said, we know our customer's are struggling with an effective way to clean our foam pads and are looking into a solution, (no pun intended).

While we don't recommend washing our foam pads, we know a lot of people do wash them by hand and here's how they do it. They take their pads to a kitchen sink or a utility sink and under warm running water they work some soap solution into the pad, squishing the pad to work the soap into the inside of the pad to emulsify whatever chemical is in the pad, and then they continue to squish the pad with their hands under the running water to rinse out the chemicals and the soap.

It's not fun as your hands get kind of slimy with the gunk coming out but it does work.

Then after the person feels they've rinsed out the foam as well as they can they wring-out the excess water from the foam and then place the foam pads face down on some kind of surface that will let water continue to drain/drip out and for air to flow by so that they will dry.

Some people will hang their pads like you would laundry on a clothes line to let them dry like cloths on a clothes line.

You have to be careful that whatever plan you device to enable the pads to dry that at the same time they don't get dirty from dirt and dust in the air.

It all gets kind of complicated for such a simple process but at the cost of a single pad, most people want to find a way to clean their pads so they can use them over and over again and get the most use out of their investment.

Pad Saturation
The root cause of the problem is that when you place your product on the face of the foam pad and then place the face of the foam pad on the surface of the paint, before you even turn on the polisher the chemical on the pad is saturating into the foam because when you placed the foam pad with the chemical against the paint, the chemical only has one place to go and that's into the foam pad.

As you continue to work around the car, each time placing fresh product onto the face of the pad and then placing the face of the pad against the surface of the paint, you continue to force product into the pad.

The oscillating action of the pad further forces the liquid chemical into the pad and these two factors, repeatedly applying product to the face of the pad and the oscillating action act to saturate the pad.

We call this, Pad Saturation

We've come to a point in time that because of the popularity of DA Polisher over the last 10 years or so, (longer for Meguiar's because we introduced the Porter Cable to the world years before any of these other online vendors, and we introduced the Professional side of the industry to polishing with a DA sander as far back as the 1970's), we've reached a critical mass of people with dirty pads that are frustrated with a way to quickly and easily clean them.


So to recap, at this time Meguiar's does not recommend washing our pads and instead use the "Cleaning your pads on the fly" method. Give us a few seconds and we'll try to find the thread on that so we don't have to re-type everything.

[Lydia]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

Mike said it well (of course). I clean them just the way he said, and I have yet to have any problem with the velcro coming off. The way I look at it is, after using the pad for a while, it's not any good any more because it's so saturated with product. Even if the velcro were to come off when I'm cleaning it, I wouldn't really be much worse off, because I couldn't use it as it was anyway! And that's with cleaning the pad "on the fly" every time before I put more product on it.

[Heatgain]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I was just wondering how everyone cleans their cutting (wool) and polishing (foam) pads. I've simply been using a spur or stiff bristled brush to remove dried polish from the pad after use. Any input surrounding the ideal way to properly clean wool and foam pads would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Brandon Mila

New discovery for cleaning foam pads at Wally World!
I was searching for Dawn Power Dissolver at Walmart but in vain. All different types of Dawn, but no Power Dissolver. My wife picked up a bottle of De-Solv-it, and said, "How about this?" So I bought it and tried it tonight. Great stuff! First I used a nylon brush ($1.87, Walmart) on the pads while spinning them on the DA. Then I sprayed some De-Solv-it on my foam applicator pads and my 8006 yellow Meg's 6.5" pads, let it dwell about 20 seconds, and rinsed them under running water while I squished the wax (NXT 2.0 liquid), polish (Meg's #80), and rubber protectorant from each respective pad.
They literally look new. Bright yellow, I'm thrilled.
I then hand squeezed excess water from them, threw them in the washer on "Spin Only," and they're perfect.
The bottle says "De-Solv-it, Removes Sticky, Oily, Waxy, Gooey Messes Every Time!" A little expensive at $5.99 for 12.6 ozs, but I think that's what Dawn Power Dissolver costs.

[AeroCleanse]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I think this is the bucket. System 2000 Padwasher

[Jeepster04]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I also clean my pads by hand with dawn and Ive never had any trouble.

Ive got one pad with the velcro coming off but I think its just where its so old and I used an old backing plate that didnt fit right for awhile. The velcro on the old megs backing plate is also really rough, Ive been wanting to try that new backing plate that isnt so deep.

[Andy M.]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

So to recap, at this time Meguiar's does not recommend washing our pads and instead use the "Cleaning your pads on the fly" method. Give us a few seconds and we'll try to find the thread on that so we don't have to re-type everything

I think this is the thread Mike was talking about. I found it over at the old CS Forum: http://forumarchive.meguiars.com/for...ead/38354.aspx

Andy
101impala

[onawrxhigh]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I also use dawn as a cleaning agent for my pads but I also will use some APS on the pad to help break up the product that is on the pad. As for drying the pads I wring then out as best as I can then I put them on the rotary at speed setting 6 (3000 rpm) and let it spin for a minute. This use of the rotary get 99% of the water out of the pad and if I need to I could use the pad again without any problem of product saturation.

Andrew

[Mike Phillips]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

I think this is the thread Mike was talking about. I found it over at the old CS Forum: http://forumarchive.meguiars.com/for...ead/38354.aspx

Andy
101impala

That was the one... couldn't get out of e-mail today to hunt it down. We fixed the code for the images and here it is, we'll also place this in "How To Articles"

Cleaning Your Pad On The Fly

The question often comes up,
How do I clean my buffing pads?

Or more specifically,

How do I clean my buffing pads after they become wet or saturated with the product I'm working with?


One way is to do what we call, Cleaning your pad on the fly. This means to take and hold a clean, soft, dry terry cloth towel, hopefully a towel with a thick nap, (the little cotton loops), against the face of the pad while it's still on your polisher and then with your hand that's holding the polisher, use your finger to turn the polisher on and then move the towel around and against the face of the foam pad. This will act to cause the excess product built-up in the foam pad to move out of the pad and saturate into the terry cloth towel. Then you can place the towel down and get back to working on your car.

This is called cleaning your pad on the fly because it's quick and simple and fairly effective for what you're trying to do.


Here's Cisco from one of our recent Saturday Detailing Classes learning how to clean a pad on the fly




One way is to do what we call, Cleaning your pad on the fly. This means to take and hold a clean, soft, dry terry cloth towel, hopefully a towel with a thick nap, (the little cotton loops), against the face of the pad while it's still on your polisher and then with your hand that's holding the polisher, use your finger to turn the polisher on and then move the towel around and against the face of the foam pad. This will act to cause the excess product built-up in the foam pad to move out of the pad and saturate into the terry cloth towel. Then you can place the towel down and get back to working on your car.

This is called cleaning your pad on the fly because it's quick and simple and fairly effective for what you're trying to do.


Here's Cisco from one of our recent Saturday Detailing Classes learning how to clean a pad on the fly



After cleaning his pad he's ready to start working on the paint again.




Clean your pad often
Besides knowing how to clean your pad on the fly you also need to remember to clean your pad often, usually after every other application of product to the pad. That is, apply some product to your pad and work it to a section. Wipe off the spent residue and either re-clean the area or move onto a new area. After a second application of product to the pad and after you've worked it to a section, now clean your pad. This is cleaning your pad every other application of product to the pad. You can clean your pad after every application if you like too. Most people don't clean their pads often enough, so err on the side of caution. Cleaning your pad often maximizes your effectiveness and thus your speed and quality of end result.

[milabfocker]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

Great information. I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to respond to this post. I hand washed my pads with Dawn using the techniques described and they came out great. Thanks to this thread, I'm going to start cleaning my pads more often while working. Thanks again.

[G Force]

Re: How does everyone clean their pads?

The pad washing bucket is a standard in the industry, as long as your careful and use common sense there's no danger as the lid prevents water splatter form escaping the bucket.

We have two out in the Meguiar's Garage.

At this time Meguiar's doesn't recommend washing our foam pads as in,

Don't put them in a washing machine
Don't wash them by hand

That said, we know our customer's are struggling with an effective way to clean our foam pads and are looking into a solution, (no pun intended).

While we don't recommend washing our foam pads, we know a lot of people do wash them by hand and here's how they do it. They take their pads to a kitchen sink or a utility sink and under warm running water they work some soap solution into the pad, squishing the pad to work the soap into the inside of the pad to emulsify whatever chemical is in the pad, and then they continue to squish the pad with their hands under the running water to rinse out the chemicals and the soap.

It's not fun as your hands get kind of slimy with the gunk coming out but it does work.

Then after the person feels they've rinsed out the foam as well as they can they wring-out the excess water from the foam and then place the foam pads face down on some kind of surface that will let water continue to drain/drip out and for air to flow by so that they will dry.

Some people will hang their pads like you would laundry on a clothes line to let them dry like cloths on a clothes line.

You have to be careful that whatever plan you device to enable the pads to dry that at the same time they don't get dirty from dirt and dust in the air.

It all gets kind of complicated for such a simple process but at the cost of a single pad, most people want to find a way to clean their pads so they can use them over and over again and get the most use out of their investment.

Pad Saturation
The root cause of the problem is that when you place your product on the face of the foam pad and then place the face of the foam pad on the surface of the paint, before you even turn on the polisher the chemical on the pad is saturating into the foam because when you placed the foam pad with the chemical against the paint, the chemical only has one place to go and that's into the foam pad.

As you continue to work around the car, each time placing fresh product onto the face of the pad and then placing the face of the pad against the surface of the paint, you continue to force product into the pad.

The oscillating action of the pad further forces the liquid chemical into the pad and these two factors, repeatedly applying product to the face of the pad and the oscillating action act to saturate the pad.

We call this, Pad Saturation

We've come to a point in time that because of the popularity of DA Polisher over the last 10 years or so, (longer for Meguiar's because we introduced the Porter Cable to the world years before any of these other online vendors, and we introduced the Professional side of the industry to polishing with a DA sander as far back as the 1970's), we've reached a critical mass of people with dirty pads that are frustrated with a way to quickly and easily clean them.


So to recap, at this time Meguiar's does not recommend washing our pads and instead use the "Cleaning your pads on the fly" method. Give us a few seconds and we'll try to find the thread on that so we don't have to re-type everything.

I thought it would only be me as i once saw a guy being electrified by a faulty pressure washer,he passed away before we could reach hospital.Since then i am with electricity. Take care.