[joshem]

No doubt this has been covered so sorry in advance.

I'm hopefully going to be starting my round soon. Up until now I've been practising with microfibre but the other day decided to buy some scrim to see what it's like.

I bought a square yard of it and the bloke in the shop said to "boil it up like you would pasta and it'll shrink down." So I should just tip a kettle of boiling water over it and boil the hell out of it for 10 minutes or so? Then what? Anything else I need to know? Tips on effective use? I am a dummy so treat me like one.

Cheers.

[Gav Camm lammy 283]

scrims ad its day m8 try unger giant green cloths
bout a fiver a lot better than scrim 

[mark dew]

Boil in a saucepan for an hour or put the scrim in the washing machine in a hot wash. The number 1 setting on mine. For cotton it says on the dial.
Repeat the process, shake out the creases and leave to drip dry.

[bobby p]

scrim is ace !      nothing else comes near it

[Londoner]

Scrim is unbleached calico, or at least true scrim is. These days all sorts of cloths get sold under the name scrim.
You need to boil scrim to prepare it but using it initially as a sill cloth and putting it through the wash with the other cloths a few times works as well.

The thing is, and this is important, in the old days scrim was NOT a drying cloth. It was a POLISHING cloth. You dried the window with a shammy (still the best IMO) and then polished off the window with the scrim to remove any drying marks. The result was absolutely perfect, much better than wiping the windows with a damp microfibre and leaving it.

I still keep a piece of scrim in the van and regularly polish off windows after they have dried.

Thats why window cleaners were called shiners or diamond polishers

[joshem]

Thanks everyone. So what about pre-washed scrim like this stuff: http://www.windowcleaningwarehouse.co.uk/shop/cloths/unger-pre-washed-scrim.html ? I see someone has reviewed the product, writing: "The best currently on the market. The last batch of this was excellent and took around another 10 washes to "break in" this pre-washed scrim. The pros choice." So if you need to wash it again "10 times" then why buy pre-washed?

Cheers.

[ccmids]

i used scrim on the sills , micro on the glass when i was trad , but now im wfp 

[Richard Neal]

i have always used prewashed scrims rather than micro cloths just seem to absorb better to me and are good for internal cleans on georgian windows use one one damp with a spray bottle of diluted fairy and one dry to polish, always works for me! i do a lot of wfp now but always have a load of scrims and trad gear ready just in case!

[hydro]

i find that boiling them for a good 20 mins then whacking them up a brick wall loosens them up then i wash them on a hot wash in washer and then repeat the boiling again and they work better! but i find that u should never dry scrim in a tumble dryer its harder to work with after untill its been washed again.

[barry mallett]

yes scrim is for dummies

[weetot]

Don't listen to gav, he uses beer towels!

[Window Washers]

scrim is ace !      nothing else comes near it

dream on, your well out of date, scrim leaves fibres all over glass in any sort of heat even a start up person after a week would know that. 

Scrim is a dying cloth held up by people that do not like change. GO wfp and forgot the lot 

[hydro]

i use the reach and wash on the both vans ive got but sometimes i use the scrims on the old bungalows that dont like water fed poles because the bungalow bunnies dont like change lol

[smearo]

does any one not bleach the scrim after boiling it ? and then stick in the washing machine...

[windowswashed]

Microfibre cloths are good, but scrims are better overall

[bobby p]

scrim is ace !      nothing else comes near it

dream on, your well out of date, scrim leaves fibres all over glass in any sort of heat even a start up person after a week would know that. 

Scrim is a dying cloth held up by people that do not like change. GO wfp and forgot the lot 

everybody has their dreams!   if you look closely you will see how cleverly made SCRIM  is,it not woven like cloths are ,its glued together . because each strand lays totally flat it can absorb better