Dried wax on my foam pad!!

[Qusai]

So it turns out that i forgot to wash my finishing foam pad after using it one afternoon. I found it a couple days later and it had dried wax. I heard that people discard the pad when this happens. I mean i cleaned it let it sit for a day in some pad solution and i still see wax that stained the pad. Also it feels kind of waxy still. Lol, im not sure whether i should throw it away, or keep it? how would i know if its not useful anymore?

[Divine Details]

A couple of days ago I might have said toss it. But I read an article on using a pressure washer to clean pads. I tried it and it works pretty good.

I had a LC blue pad with 3m marine wax in it for a couple of days. So I sprayed some OPC on it and let it sit for a few minutes and power washed it almost as good as new.

So I wouldn't throw it away if I were u

[y8s]

leave it out in the rain and take it to the gas station car wash. that'll remove it after a few weeks.

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Use a combo of pad cleaner and a strong adhesive remove such as 3M's version. Then work it in with your fingers and let the pad soak in water. This will pull out even the stubborn seleants.

[tuscarora dave]

If you have a junk panel laying around or even a garage refrigerator (anything you can buff on) apply some polish to the pad and run the pad on something for a few section passes, then spray it with APC and hand wash it. This will remove the wax easily.

[Kinalyx]

I did some testing(which i didnt take pics of, or do a write up on because im lazy) with some of the XMT Pad cleaner. I left a few pads with different stuff on them for a while....actually i forgot i left stuff on them on purpose, then rememberd about 2 months later, lol.

Anyway, i had a white pad with WGFG on it, i had a red hand applicator with WGDGPS, a yellow pad with fuzion, and an orange pad with m105 on it.

I knew these were probably all toast after leaving stuff for that amount of time, but i decided to see what icould do. First i filled a bucket with water & some dawn, then added about 2oz of the pad cleaner and mixed it up, then i put the pads in, squeezed them a few times to get as much solution in as possible, and found a weight to hold everything under the water.

I left everything in the bucket for a couple hours, and then worked some of them a bit in the bucket before going to the sink with them. I got them as dry and clean as possible before moving on, then saturated the pads with the XMT Pad cleaner. I left them to sit for 10 minutes or so, to make sure everything was as deep as it could get, and proceeded to work the pads with my hands.

All in all after 2 passes with the XMT pad cleaner, i got all of the fuzion and WGFG out, the DGPS i could have probably done more with, but i gave up at that point, as i dont really need those pads anymore anyway, and the M105 looked clean and felt clean, but being that its really abrasive, decided it wasnt worth the risk to try to use that pad anymore anyway.

I would say most pads can be saved, but if you have extra pads, it may not be worth the headache.

From now on, i will have a bucket with a bit of dawn and pad cleaner in it that i toss used stuff in while im working. Should make life much easier, and much harder to forget to clean a pad, since theyre all in 1 spot.

Hope this helps, and sorry for the rambling.....i have problems....and ocd....and add...and...well you get the point.

shawn