I grabbed a PVA towel at KMart last week and tried it out today.
Yes, it does all that is advertised. Very absorbent! Definitely a keeper, at least for smooth sills.
Pva?
Polyvinyl Acetate. It’s basically a synthetic chamois. They are fairly inexpensive and can be wrung out as you need and are easily cleaned up. I go thru about 1 a year but I use it on exteriors mostly and bought a bunch for $5 a piece.
i didnt know kmart was still around.
Yeah, Kmart liquidated a bunch of nation wide stores a decade or so ago, used that huge lump sum of cash to buy-out Sears, and has been living off of the money Sears makes them, and keeping some Kmart stores open to boot. We still have a Kmart here too, but it really is like Walmart’s ugly step-brother. Sometimes when they run a good deal in an ad I’ll go in there and it’s almost always like a ghost town.
How’s that compared to a scrim ?
I use the PVA towel like others use a sponge - for a sill pick up towel. I use scrim for detailing.
Ok sweet jesus I love the help and ideas you guys come with its been a huge help for me more and more to make my business be unique
Hey Dan,
How does the PVA towel compare with a natural sea sponge?
Is it like the ShamWOW? Yesterday I used a dry ShamWOW to polish some fingerprints of a door & it worked great.
I have both the shamwow and the PVA. They work similar but there is a big difference in the texture. The PVA when wet is squishy and kinda slippery feeling. I use the shamwow for washing my truck and cars. Never tried it on sills. It would probably work well too. I like the PVA because when you wipe out dirty sills, you can dunk it in water, swish it around to clean it off, wring it out and continue working. I use one for a whole day and the scrim for detailing glass.
I’ve tried both the ShamWow and PVA towel and the PVA towel works better in my opinion.
Tony,
How does it compare to a natural sea sponge?
PS
Have any sea sponge users kicked their sea sponge to the curb in favor of the PVA towel?
I think we’ve had this discussion before Mike. Since I do residential work it’s better than a sea sponge for me. I was done doing storefront by the time I started using the PVA so I never compared it in that situation.
Thanks Tony,
I forgot. John Lee posted a nice video to YouTube today showing how he uses a PVA towel for cut ups. Residential! I may go with a PVA towel in peoples homes and a sea sponge for storefronts.
that’s exactly what I didn’t like about it, especially in winter time.
I will admit that it does work good, equal to or even better than shamwow but like I say, I just couldn’t get into the feel. Btw, I gave it a good month before I decided it wasn’t for me.
Mike, I have a natural sea sponge, but I can’t find it! I’ll make a comparison when I do find it.
Tony got me on the PVA a year ago. I only use two towels in 2 weeks, the PVA and Scrim. They both get washed every 2 weeks. The PVA does all my wiping up and frames and the scrim for detail work. I love the sea sponge and used one for years but it was hard to store in my pouch and expensive if it fell out. The PVA stores great in my Unger pouch and also does a great job getting in corners with you finger as a guide. I have only worn one out in a year. Thanks Tony Evans.
Glad it’s working for you John Lee. I owe a big thanks to Richard Crocker for convincing be to try the PVA towel.
