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Wiping Rags

I like the blue paper towels made by Scott. About $1.77 per roll at WallyWorld.

They are plenty thick, and tackle most any chore a cloth rag can do.
 
I use recycled regular white paper towels. I use the paper towels while drying my hands after using the can, and throw them in a box to recycle as shop towels.

Think about it, if you wash your hands PROPERLY, all you have on the paper towel is water. The paper towel dries, and voila! instant shop towel.
 
It's garage sales for me. I buy old bedsheets for half a buck, and seem to find 'em often enough to keep me in rags. Some time ago I discovered I could take a sheet, fold it up and run it through my bandsaw with a piece of cardboard on top and bottom to make regular shaped rags with almost no effort at all. Cheaper than paper towels at that, and even the stupid printed poly/cotton ones work well for oily wipe-ups.

I use paper towels, and the blue shop towels, too, of course.

Megan -

Good meeting you today! And, a good meeting, too, I think.

I've put together a short list of Internet resources, and posted them on my Web site. As it happens, I'm just migrating the site to a new Name Server, so the site will be down for a day or so early next week. And, of course they've already started messing with me, so the current address of the Tech Shop stuff is:

Cheers,

Frank Ford
FRETS.COM
Gryphon Stringed Instruments
My Home Shop Pages
 
Maybe I’m crazy but I buy the Blue Mechanics shop towels at the flea market at 10 for $5. They absorb oil and don’t leave lint every where

I must have 50 or so of them and when I get a pile of oily dirty towels I soak them in soapy water over night and wash them. Of course I have to be careful to wipe out the inside of the washing machine before Mamma sees it
 
Check local drycleaners for used restaurant napkins. 100% cotton, perfect size and super absorbent. I suppose you could clean them if you wanted to as well.
 
We buy rags from the school / industry for mentally challenged folks around here. Old shirts they rip in two. Usally white, but sometimes colored.

Price wise not too bad, but sometimes too much polyester, which doesn't soak up things as well. I use these to keep chips out of the t slots. Otherwise they work great.

It helps out a good cause and it supports them beyond of the few tax issues I and the rest of the county generally votes for.

Walt
 
At my home, a towel, wash cloth, or a garment has 2 lives, 1st for it's intended use, then to the "rag bag" that I take to the shop. When they're too oily for shop use they go in the trash can.
Dave
 
Welcome, Doug.

I buy the square red cloth shop rags. They come packed tight in a transparent plastic bag about the size of a small bed pillow, about a hundred to the bag. Sold at Sam's Club. Cheap enough that I don't wince every time I chuck one.
 
Many industrial dry cleaners that supply 100% cotton wipers to the garages will sell you damaged or torn wipers quite cheaply.

At the place I deal with, they sort the wipers after cleaning them and pull out any that have a blob of silicone, paint, or any tears, then put them in bags of about 25 and sell them for $2.50 a bag.

I go there once a year and buy 6-8 bags ($15 worth), and go home and sort through them. Many are unusable due to being hard with body filler or paint, but for each bag I get about 75% are quite usable.

I think the garage wipers are the most durable and becasue they are so cheap to buy this way I just toss them out when they get oily or dirty.
 
My wife goes to a local church rumage sale every week looking for unuusal clothing, some of which she modifies into unusual outfits [She once had a woman offer to buy an outfit off her back at a museum reception]. Since this is in a poor area the nice clothing goes begging, she once got me a Yves St Laurent linen jacket with the tags still on it for $1.50! Anyways, she always comes home with some old tee shirts that they sell for .10 each, that are worn out and are perfect paint rags. When I was cleaning lots of machinery, I decided that the best method was to use newspaper for heavy gobs, then the blue shop wipes for everything else. Cheapest white paper towels were used for cleaning paint brushes, etc. All of them went into a bucket of water after use.
 
Doug, regarding shop rags, they are a necessary item, but too cheap mess with.
We used to have a commercial laundry service, Unifirst. The hidden fees and surcharges became absurd. We were getting BFed about $50/week for rag service!
The best solution for us, was to buy bulk, cotton shop towels. Look around on the internet. Typically about $100/K. We got an old washing machine for free. Wash the less soiled ones as necessary, and burn those too greasy or torn in a wood stove.
 
I use the bags of recycled clothes. Bought one 3 years ago and its not even 10% used yet. Just got to have something to put them all into as there's a LOT of them compressed in that bag. It filled a big upright laundry basket. I rorate a couple of them around the shop. When its gets a bit too dirty to wipe my hands with when working, it goes to wiping machines, and the worse gets thrown out.
 
Bounty paper towels can't be beat. A high percentage of rags, these days, are either synthetic (polyester) or cotton/polyester blends. IMHO, they are about as absorbent as a sheet of celophane. I hate 'em.

I, too, recycle my paper towels from the kitchen and bathroom. Call me cheap, if you want, but doing that helps to keep from filling up our landfills so fast. Sixty-percent of what goes into landfills is paper.

If I need lint-free wipers I'll switch to the blue paper shop towels.

Orrin
 
Like every one else, after the second time wiping hands, the third time, I use them to wipe down the ways on the machines as well as other surfaces to remove crud. Then they goto the trash can.
 
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