Tools & Fabrication - How are yall cleaning your shop rags?

Mods if you feel the need to move this thread go for it, im not sure where the best place for it would be.


My red shop rags get nasty and im not mean enough to go to a laundromat and ruin the washers lol.
I use a 6 gallon plastic bucket with a lid that has a small round hole in the center. put the rags in, some water, and every cleaning agent i can find in my house. put a regular bathroom plunger in, put the lid on with the plunger handle sticking through the hole, grab the plunger handle and work it harder than a 2 dollar stripper on a pole :jest:
this has worked for me for years but it just doesnt get all the grease out, nothing ive tried will cut it completely. any other ideas?

If you're talking about a home garage, just toss 'em. Buy the white terry cloth rags at Harbor Freight and toss 'em when they are too dirty.

hahah i always wondered what to do with them as well. i broke the oil line goin to the turbo and soaked my 100 dollar head blanket and cant even get the oil out?

its $10 for a 50 pack at harbor freight, so i just throw em away

the way im washing em now works decent enough that i dont have to toss em, im looking for a better way. My apartment complex pays the water bill, If i drive to Hobo Freight and spend 30 bucks on rags and drive home, thats on me.

hmm, I've just been washing mine in the washing machine.

Is that bad?

hmm, I've just been washing mine in the washing machine.

Is that bad?

roflmao, yes, yes it really is lol. bad for the machine and bad for the next load of clothes. I know guys that have done it, they usually run the washer with nothing but detergent in it after they wash the rags to help clean out the machine

I have had good success with using Oxyclean in the past to remove minor oil stains, but haven't tried to wash any rags. Might want to give it a shot if you haven't already.

My buddies family owns a dry cleaning business. FTW

My buddies family owns a dry cleaning business. FTW

:punch::gtfo:

i usually collect them all up and take them to the laundry mat, so that way i don't mess up my washer
but it usually is about 3 loads lol so it worth my time

I put mine in the same type 6 gallon bucket, let them soak for several days with about ¾ full water and a big dose of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Rinse the nasty crap off with the garden hose then throw them in the clothes washer with another hefty shot of Dawn and hot, hot water. I'll also run another empty cycle thru the washer with Dawn and the hottest water possible to 'rinse' the residue off the insides. Our washer has a stainless steel drum and I've been doing this in the same washer for over 12 years.

BTW, you'll never get all the grease stains out, even the commerical companies that pick-up and deliver them to the shops can't do that. When you wash them, the most soap you can use without it bubbling over is best.
Mike

ive done a 5 gallon paint bucket, drilled a hole in the lid for the shaft of the paint stirrer to fit out and hook it up to a drill and use soap, detergent, bleach and oxy with water and it cleans them pretty nicely. but ive switched to the blue shop paper towels so i can just throw them away

With all the money on the crap I buy for the car and stuff to run a full-time garage, (I say fulltime bc it seems like there is always something being worked on) I just toss those fuckers and dont think twice about it.

I use my neighbor's washing machine when he's away at work.

I used to deliver chemicals to the commercial laundrys and for the red rags they just use a combination of hot water and Lye , yep just standard Lye crystals ( caustic soda) you can get it at the supermarket , I used to do the lye hot water soak , but you have to be carefull as the stuff is extremely hazardous ( wear eye protection and gloves ) then agitate it , then take out the rags and nuetralize the lye/water with vinager ( its a big alka suslzer ) if you have a septic tank, ( do not dump in the septic tank it will poison it ) if you have city sewer , it will be ok to dump it down the drain , after they have been soaked then I washed them in hot water with tide detergent with a double rinse , but since I live about 3 miles from the commercail laundry and have made aquatances there I know just buy the older ones for 2 bucks a pound , and throw them away .:D

Wife used to throw out old ripped or outgrown clothes. Now I have her set them out in the garage so I can look them over. I keep anything that's cotton, and I just cut the buttons or zippers off.

On top of that, I'm really stingy with rags. I re-use them until they're so greasy I can hardly hang onto them. I finally do throw them out, but new ones keep coming faster than I can use them up.

No buying, no washing.

Same here, use old clothes mostly from the female side of the family. I don't even bother with cutting the buttons off lol. I used to work for a dry chemical shop and the manager was anal about keeping the shop rags. We would use 1 gallon of simple green and fill the rest with water in a 6 gallon bucket. By the end of the week the water was so damn nasty lol.

I have a separate outdoor top-load washing machine that I use. Load it up with as much powdered detergent, Super Clean Degreaser, and oxy-wash as I dare, let the clothes/rags soak in that mixture for a few hours to a day, then run the wash/rinse cycle 2 or 3 times. Not really worth it for rags - mostly just worth it for work clothes that I want to re-use.

I get rags for free and toss them. They are non lint producing to boot.

Find someone that works at a hospital or surgery center, they have to have surgical facilities. They are used in wrapping the sterile instruments.

These are NOT contaminated. They are the towels that come from instruments that were supplied but not used in surgery.

They are commonly referred to as, you guessed it " blue towels", because they are blue, they can be green though.

I have, literally 60 pounds of "rags".

i used to work at delta sonic car wash and collected all i could lol. now when get my car done by a buddy, I have him stuff a bunch under the seats :secret2:

I get rags for free and toss them. They are non lint producing to boot.
Find someone that works at a hospital or surgery center, they have to have surgical facilities. They are used in wrapping the sterile instruments.
These are NOT contaminated. They are the towels that come from instruments that were supplied but not used in surgery.
They are commonly referred to as, you guessed it " blue towels", because they are blue, they can be green though.
I have, literally 60 pounds of "rags".
Before you posted that I would have voted this as the lamest thread ever. I've gotta check this out. That would make this an awesome winner! (At least as awesome as a dirty rag thread can get.)

I spray mines with properly deluded formula 88 or any degreaser should work and trow them in the washer like any other laundry plus detergents, washing machine looks like its never been used inside...

I put mine in the same type 6 gallon bucket, let them soak for several days with about ¾ full water and a big dose of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Rinse the nasty crap off with the garden hose then throw them in the clothes washer with another hefty shot of Dawn and hot, hot water. I'll also run another empty cycle thru the washer with Dawn and the hottest water possible to 'rinse' the residue off the insides. Our washer has a stainless steel drum and I've been doing this in the same washer for over 12 years.

BTW, you'll never get all the grease stains out, even the commerical companies that pick-up and deliver them to the shops can't do that. When you wash them, the most soap you can use without it bubbling over is best.
Mike

When I was in the military we'd have 1000s of rags cleaned weekly, they always came in clean. I guarantee we got the same ones back on occasion, so that's kinda amazing, as dirty as they got.

I get mine from work and just toss them in a dirty barrel and take more when I bring them back. Let work do the cleaning of them LOL

I scrub them before washing with a bar of this soap.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/310fFyVJ3XL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I also wash my hands with it if they get really greasy as it gets the grease out pretty easily (way quicker than hand soap).

th G&K guys that pick up all our dirty rags, and when I say dirty Im talking about smothered in asphalt dirts says they boil em to clean all the grunge out. not east to do at home on a small scale but they come out like new

i let them soak in a buck with a pad cleaner...then make sure i rinse them well, then into the washing machine.

I get mine from work and just toss them in a dirty barrel and take more when I bring them back. Let work do the cleaning of them LOL

^^^ Thats exactly what i do lol:D

Use to get from work.

Now , just throw away :( But a laundry mat sounds good :)

I just go to sams and get a big box of them and just throw them away after i use them. There cheap and not worth washing.