I asked on here about those Axi cleaning sticks when I first joined some time back and was told that a short length of old-fashioned rubber/textile garden hose worked just as well. As it so happened I had a length of that stuff. I tried it and it does work OK.
But later, when I needed to "bulk up" an order for shipping costs reasons, I ordered the Axi stick. That works very well too - perhaps a bit better than the rubber hose does.
BUT, in both cases, I found one small "trouble". The residue from the cleaning stick tends to crumble into little "half-hard balls" which then clog up any internals on the sander (I'm talking about a little 5 inch disc/belt sander here). As those little crumbly balls are a bit sticky I find it a bit of a fiddle to get them out of the machine, even with a shop vac - for example, especially around the bottom of the casing where the belt and drive wheel run - the clearances are quite small on this little machine.
But as a belt & disc cleaner, both work well and significantly extend the life of the abrasive. I now use the cleaner almost every time after I've used the sander - and or course, you can use the same cleaner of other items such as sanding drums, even the little Dremel drums.
HTH
AES
