How to Wash Foam Applicators

CARTfan

CARTfan

New member
I've got a few of those German 2 tone applicators and was wondering what the most effective method of washing them out would be. I used soap by hand, but I can still see a substantial amount of polish/wax/sealer residue and dirt. Any tips?
 
I have a small bucket (about 1.5 gallons) that I have specifically for soaking. I fill the bucket with about 1 gal of very hot water and put in about a half cup of simple green. I put the pads in one at a time, squeezing them so they soak up the mixture. I let that sit for about ten minutes and then I take each pad and run it under hot water in my sink while I agitate it with my hands and squeeze everything out multiple times. This gets out the majority of the crap that accumulates in pads. For tougher stuff I spray APC at about 1:1 straight into the pad and rub the pad with my hand to mix up the APC inside. I then rinse it out completely and repeat until the pad is perfectly clean.
 
Sometime, I just toss them out(to extreme filty) I'm using those 4" yellow one that looks a cookie. Its .66 cents a pc, so aint that bad. I want to try out the PB foam one thou.
 
Generally a good rinsing will take care of most water-based dirtiness, that's for considerably dirty pads or non-water-based soiling. Remember that very hot water does a better job of cleaning, if there's a stain that you can't get out you should try boiling water, it'll get mostly anything out.
 
Warm/Hot water and APC do the trick for me. Some product will stain (like FMJ), and getting the dye 100% removed is next to impossible.
 
I did that until one dissolved and dispersed itself into some of my MF's, they were crappy turtle wax MF's, but it was a bad experience.
 
I just give my foams pads to my wife and she throws them in the washer to clean them.
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I just give my foams pads to my wife and she tells me to throw them in the washer myself! :lmfao
 
Would the above methods work for the Meguiars foam applicators? The packaging claims they're washabale, but I could never get them clean and had to throw all 4 away!
 
I squirt a bit of Dawn dish soap into a bucket, add some water and throw the dirty pads in. After they've soaked for a bit I squeeze them out a few times. Next I rinse them in warm water, folding and squeezing them repeatedly. After all the suds are gone I spin dry them on the PC. Usually, the PC gets them dry enough that I can reuse them right away with a different product. Hope that helps.

EDIT: Never mind. I thought you meant the foam pads for the PC.
 
That's a pretty good process for washing most things, you could do it with MF's, I might try that actually.
 
I don't want to hijack the thread but this is the reason I tend to stay away from using foam applicators .... absorbancy.

Seems like as much product (if not more) gets absorbed INTO the foam app as stays on the SURFACE. They're not hard to clean but it's annoying to see all the unused product that you're squeezing out of the foam when cleaning.

I've had much better luck ( and excellent results) using MF "brick shaped" applicators. Lightly misted or not, they tend to absorb very little product and MF applicator cleanup is the same as MF towels.
 
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