Rockler Abrasive cleaning stick review

I am certain most of you either have used these or know about them, but… for those of you who do not:

I began using a combination belt / disk sander in my home shop a couple of months ago, so I ordered one of these cleaning sticks soon after since my belt was loading up a bit. When I used it on both the 4” belt and the 8” disk, they were almost instantly de-loaded and restore to like new condition. People, quite frankly I was actually a bit amazed at how well this piece of crepe rubber (or whatever it is) would do that to that… lol

If it weren’t so cheap and long-lasting, I’d go to k-mart and get a pair of fake Clark Wallabees to see if the sole of those shoes would work as well. j/k But that’s what it looks like. :=)

Since then, I have cleaned / de-loaded anything and everything with sandpaper abrasive in my shop (palm sander, ROS, Sandblaster paper on the little holder, etc.) with totally excellent results.

But wait ! The best thing of all: We had a job to refinish about 900 sf of oak hardwood flooring that was stained and finished about 30 or so years ago. Since we were going back natural (no stain) with Rexthane finish, we had to grind the old finish and stain as well as level the flooring for the new finish. Basically we had a bit more rough sanding than would be required if the floor were new raw and had never been stained. The sand paper for the big belt sander will eat your wallet. So after we’d gone through 6 of them, I got a call that we needed more. I sent them to my house, telling them to cut my cleaning stick in half to take with them to try it on the big 35 grit paper. They did and called me back to say that is was miraculous and that they were totally cleaned and de-loaded most of the grit was still ready for duty. Mitch asked me why I would hide such a thing since it will save so much money in abrasives cost. I explained that I was a newbie to it as well and how glad I was that it worked on the big stuff.

Not only did they use it on the grits of the large floor belt sander, but is did exactly the same for the edge sander and later the vibrating screen sander in between coats.

I paid $6.99 on sale through Rockler, but I am certain they are available elsewhere, from different makers, and possibly even locally (I haven’t checked).

This is good stuff, y’all. Try some before you toss the loaded paper out.