Cleaning up tubes....
 

Hey all,

Just wondered what people use to clean up their tubes?

The joys of having white tubes mean that mine always look worn and dirty... :nonono:

Any help would be nice :thumbs:

Diluted Traffic Film Remover and a greenie.

Thanks very much !

I bought Toobshine, a pure waste of friggin money, no different to fairy liquid :rolleyes:

:lol: That's brill... how do you do that :thumbs:

Ocado: Fairy Power Spray (Product Information)

cheap enough from tescos.
spray it on

light sponge
leave it for 20 mins to hour

hose it off,

looks polished , no effort.

Why set fire to a sponge?

Why are Petrol boat owners so obsessed with fires
:speedboat: BOOOOM :truce: :glug:

This mob do a good tube cleaner and then a good tube polish... the polish really brings out the colour, protects the tubes from UV damage, future mess and water beads off it. Do it twice a year max and it keeps it looking bob on... I got 5 litres of each, weren't cheap but its lasted 4 years and 3 RIBs and not even half way through yet.

Polymarine Paints, Adhesives, Parts & Accessories

Then you just have to sweet talk the mrs to roll her sleeves up.

S4R, Sorry that Toobshine hasn't lived up to your expectations - PM me or e-mail us; we hate having unhappy customers

It's always, difficult with specialised cleaners; there are two considerations for tube cleaners: i.e. removing surface oxidisation and grime but also ensuring that no adverse residues are left on your fabric. We all know that Fairly Liquid is a great all purpose cleaner (P&G Corp spends $squillions ensuring it shifts everything!) but are you really happy to use a general cleaner on your car bodywork or tubes (cue, "yes", "no" etc - obviously, a personal choice).

Cheers

Chris

I cant answer for SR4 or comment on fairy liquid.

I use Fairy Power spray.

I have used it for the last 7 years on tubes.
Its fantastic and has not left any marks on the tubes, it leaves them as new.

I was a little concerned when I recommended it to my neighbour for use on his 9m RIB as the tubes were looking very tired. He had tried all sorts special polish and cleaners but couldnt get it clean. He was about to have it re tube.
I showed him power spray , first on a seem in case it went straight through.

It brought it up like new.

Did one side in about 15 minutes, waited and rinsed off , looked new again .

Fairy Power spray, unbeatable !

Tried the fairy power spray on my delta today and now have clean orange tubes again. Amazing what it cleans off. Only problem was it made the console look dirty, so gave that a clean. Then the deck looked dirty.....

Cleans everything up nicely though. Highly recommended.

The Power Spray contains Sodium Hydroxide (drain cleaner) in small quantities. I'm fairly sure TFR does too. Some of the specific RIB toob cleaners I've used SMELL like they do. The rest is colour and surfactants, so far as I can see.

Is there a moral here, dunno, but I wouldn't be getting any of them on my skin... :ermm:

Really cant agree with you about ToobShine.

I brought a friends tender back for some TLC, it had been on the back of his boat, unloved for 4 or 5 seasons.

I tried all the usual suspects, everything under the kitchen sink, but none of them would shift the combined diesel soot and sun damage.

I started buying a few professional products, I started with Zodiac Revive. This used to be fantastic stuff but now its gone all namby pamby and green it really didnt do a lot of good.

Next I tried ToobShine and it scared the **** out of me :eek: Sprayed it on and the cream tube immediately went dark brown !! But I followed the instructions to the letter and the results were simply staggering :D. It was especially good on the handles and other deck pieces.

I've got nothing to do with the product, but based on my use I would recommend it.

My Chasecraft's got light, almost white, hypalon tubes, which hold air perfectly, still full pressure after a year, but looked quite grubby after a winter without a cover. Yesterday I spent 3 hours using a litre of Ribshop's "Rib Revive" which has done "quite" a good job - this seems some type of detergent based cleaner, which soaps up when rinsing off. The tubes don't look as new though - there are still feint spots which age it slightly, so today I tried various other solvents I had around - petrol, cellulose thinners and several of Arbo's cleaning thinners (sold to the window industry for removing structural sealants etc). (I tested all first on some spare hypalon in case they were too strong).

Henshaw supplied me 5L of Bostik M501 cleaner/thinners, normally supplied to deep clean prior to applying a patch. In case anyone reading has a chemistry background and can comment, the label says "contains heptane and isomers, hexane, mixture of isomers, toluene". This was quite good, but I'm worried about rubbing too hard despite Henshaw's assurance that it couldn't harm the fabric - it definitely lifts/dissolves the top surface, but evapourates so quickly little damage was obvious. The rest didnt work at all.

One successful tip I can suggest is Arbo's Xylene based cleaner no 17 (supplied with a warning label that is was unsuitable on plastics). This was useless on the hypalon, but fantastic on the rubber side strakes - it literally melted the dirt off along with the top surface, leaving them genuinely like new. In case anyone else tries this, I wiped any excess off quickly, and then applied a polish to protect the new surface.

So still on the hunt for an even better deep clean. Any suggestions?

TFR TFR TFR:bang:

Have to agree with Dave, after he told me about TFR my tubes look like new again :thumbs:

Pop along to your local carwash them Turks will fill anything for £5.00 :D i had me 10ltr of TFR should last a while :whistling: