Review: Heavy Duty DA Carpet Brushes

The following covers both bristle lengths.

Product pages on AG:

Heavy-Duty DA Carpet Brush Short Bristles

Heavy-Duty DA Carpet Brush Long Bristles

Mike Phillips was kind enough to send these to me after I expressed interest in these products. Stipulation was give him feedback no matter good or bad. Figured I would share my findings here in the forums for all.


I will try to keep my thoughts short here.

- Two sizes for different task. While these are meant to be carpet brushes, Mike has exploited other uses for them.

- The shorter bristled one I like for carpet and upholstery on a standard free spinning DA(Porter Cable style). I always did carpets with a brush and elbow grease. I attached the Shorter on to the PC and let the machine do the work. Palm to forehead as to why I haven’t used this method much earlier. The free spinning of the machine agitated enough to get soiling out yet was gentle to the fabric so it didn’t pull the fibers out. I generally use speed 2-3 on my PC for this operation.

- The long Bristled brush is where the magic happens. I have scrubbed tires(A Mike Phillips suggestion), floor mats, bed liners, rubber mats, some under-hood areas, spare tire covers and basically anything that needs scrubbing.

- Cordless tool= no shock around wet products.

- While it is suggested by MP to use the cordless rotary, I ended up liking the C-Beast much better as it’s random orbit seemed to hit the nooks and crannies a bit better with less product sling. A rotary still works really well and it is faster. You can be the judge yourself.

- These are a real pain to separate from a backing plate since you can’t “peel” them off like a foam buffing pad. They have a solid wooden backing. So I suggest putting one stripe of electrical tape across the center of the brush, then using a slicing type motion with a butter knife type object.

- Tip. Get a few and mark them. Some old tire dressings can really nestle into the brush. You don’t want that grime transferring onto a carpet or upholstery.

- Would I purchase these with my own money? YES. After really giving these a run thru the mill, I’m sorry I haven’t tried these much earlier as they have been around a while. While I find myself using the longer bristled one much more, the short bristles one works really well on carpets. I suggest getting one of each to start and finding your own uses(you will find many)

- Machine power trumps human power. We get tired, machines don’t.

I would rate these as a mush have, especially if you are detailing for money.

Thank you for reading. Questions and comments welcome. Also I would like to thank Mike Phillips for sending these to me and only expecting HONEST feedback in return.

Very good info, Jim!! :props:

These things are absolute murder to remove from your backing plate after use... Not only that, but the thing started to delaminate within the 1st minute of use. And 3rd trying to get effective scrubbing on any speed on a weaker 8mm DA is like riding a bike uphill... Impossible.

I’ve been meaning to purchase a quality cordless drill and the brushes that connect to that setup ever since the day I tried this inferior version of the same concept.

I tried looking for this brush just now in my backyard, because I know for a fact that it’s still welded onto the backing plate that originally came with my HFDA. Trying to get it off was the equivalent of pulling out your own wisdom teeth with a set a pliers.[emoji23]lol.

I’m glad you had better luck using this setup than I did.

Thanks for sharing Jim,


For those reading this into the future, here's how I use the 1.5" long bristle brush. I put it on a cordless rotary polisher, (so I don't get shocked around water), and then scrub the hell out of the tires. So much better than scrubbing by hand.

How to machine scrub tires using the Cordless FLEX PE14


This is the short bristle brush, this is when I was still experimenting with the 2 different brushes. With experience I found the longer bristle brush to work better on tires.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...Scubber_08.JPG




This video shows you how to do it and then how to apply a tire COATING.


Here's the video from this LIVE DETAILING CLASS

https://youtu.be/NX3V7qgcxmo


:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dr Oldz

- These are a real pain to separate from a backing plate since you can’t “peel” them off like a foam buffing pad. They have a solid wooden backing. So I suggest putting one stripe of electrical tape across the center of the brush, then using a slicing type motion with a butter knife type object.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eldorado2k

These things are absolute murder to remove from your backing plate after use...

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Attachment strength

It's true, the velcro HOOKS on the back of the backing plate have a strong attachment strength to the velcro LOOPS of the backing plate.

Here's my article that also shows how to make removing the brush from the backing plate easier.

BUT - what's even easier is to leave the brush attached. Simply make the 4 7/8" backing plate a dedicated backing plate for ONE brush. If you get two brushes, get a second backing plate.

Heck I forgot I even wrote the below article until I did some searching on Skynet..


How to machine scrub with a rotary polisher - Tires - Vinyl Tops - Non-skid - Anything - DA Carpet Brush



The Cordless FLEX PE14 with a Heavy Duty DA Carpet Brush - Long Bristle - The only way to scrub!

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_03.JPG





In the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point,

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_08.JPG


I think of shared enough how-to articles and reviews showing a rotary buffer being used to machine scrub just about anything and everything that a common question I get now days is,


Where can I get that brush?


And what they are talking about is the brush I show on the FLEX Cordless PE14 when I'm machine scrubbing. So to same be typing time and help show others the way, here the info you need to get into machine scrubbing using a rotary polisher.



The back of this brush is approximately 4 7/8" in diameter. So you want what is sold as a 5" rotary buffer backing plate.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_04.JPG


This is a Lake Country 4 3/4" backing plate - it measures in at approximately 4 5/8th - just a tick under 4 3/4". This is kind of the norm for backing plates, they usually run a tick smaller than the advertised size. I'll explain why below.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_05.JPG



It's easier to center and align a backing plate to a brush or a buffing pad if the diameter of the backing plate is smaller than the diameter of the thing you want to attach it to BECAUSE you can see to "center" it. If the diameter of the backing plate is LARGER than the the back of the thing you want to attach it to you CANNOT see how to position it so that it's centers. This means you would be guessing and this leads to wasting time.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_06.JPG





Here's a tip....
The attachment strength of the velcro LOOP on the back of the brush to the Velcro HOOKS on most backing plates I've used is STRONG. That's a good thing as the brush won't go flying off. BUT - it can be difficult to remove the brush. I recommend purchasing a backing plate and make it your DEDICATED backing plate just for your brush so you won't be removing it often.

When you do go to remove it, find something with a think-like blade, I use a Griot's Garage wrench but a Butter Knife would work, and slice into the area between the backing plate hooks and the velcro loops to separate the brush from the backing plate and not only will it be easier to remove the brush from the backing plate - it will also prevent you from pulling the velcro loop backing material off the hard plastic back of the brush.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_07.JPG



Here's polisher, brush and backing plate

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_01.JPG



Brush centered onto the backing plate....

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_02.JPG


Backing plate spun onto the spindle of the rotary polisher. You are now ready to machine scrub!

http://www.autogeekonline.net/galler...ristles_03.JPG






And just to note, you can use this brush on any rotary polisher BUT if you're working around water of any sort - for common sense safety reasons I would highly recommend investing in a cordless tool.


Also the brush I show and use is the brush with the 1.5" long bristles. There is also a brush with 1" bristles. It works but the longer bristles offer more flexibility when scrubbing and from experience, this works better than the shorter bristle brush.


On Autogeek.com


The Heavy-Duty DA Carpet Brush features deep 1.5-inch nylon bristles and it is the length of these bristles that lets them conform to curved surfaces like tire sidewalls better than the short bristle brush.

Heavy-Duty DA Carpet Brush – Long Bristles



This is a good match for either the long or short bristle brush but any brand where the diameter is smaller than 5" should work just fine.

Rotary 4 ¾ inch Flexible Backing Plate



FLEX PE-150 Cordless Rotary Polisher

The FLEX PE-150 Cordless Rotary Polisher has a 1400 watt motor with a no-load speed range of 150 - 1,450 rpm. When powered by the 5 amp battery pack, the FLEX PE-150 Cordless Rotary Polisher can use a cutting wool pad at full power for 30-35 minutes – the perfect amount of time to polish a couple panels. The average charge time from dead to fully charged is approximately 40 minutes – and you can have a back-up battery on hand to keep going while the other battery is still charging!



If you need more aggressive scrubbing action and the surface you're scrubbing is FLAT then the short bristle brush is a good option.

Heavy-Duty DA Carpet Brush – Short Bristles






:)

Great follow up, Mike!

Thanks Jim, and Mike. I finally purchased one of these, haven’t used yet. I’m sick of manually scrubbing tires and I hope that the advice detailed here will make machine scrubbing tires a success for me.

It sounds like the Velcro is really tough to detach from the backing plate, I definitely like Jim’s advice about using a strip of electrical tape to layer get a butter knife in there to wedge it off.

These brushes are totally legit!

I love cleaning floor mats with them and the BLACKFIRE Mat Cleaner and Protectant. In order to save product I first machine scrub with Meguiar's APC Then Clean with the BLACKFIRE Mat Cleaner and Protectant. Both times they get a machine scrubbing. People can buy the Mat Cleaner and Protectant package from me, but I've been giving it out as a promotional item lately. I just love the way it makes the floormats look.

I will never go back to hand scrubbing tires and floormats again!

Thanks so much for this awesome review!!! [emoji2]

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:buffing: