Hi Gary!
You do not dilute either the red dye or the wood stain remover. If you want the most details. Go to you HB manual and it is the best resource for these types of questions. As a general rule of thumb though, mix equal parts of each A and B or 1 and 2. Apply directly to the spot. Make sure that you are not dealing with any type of wool first, then use the steam iron for 30 sec up to 2 1/2 minutes. I clean up red dye VERY regularly and absolutely love doing it! I have done red dye spots as big as a bicycle wheel and got 100% out! It really builds relations between you and customers. You can do something that many can not. Not all spots will come out but I have seen some real amazing things come out though, like rug dye from a mexican silk worm. Not all came out but most and the customer was thrilled!
As a standard with every jug of solution, I mix 1 and 3/4 cups of 101 1/4 to 1/2 cup citrus booster, and about 1-2 ounces of OD. BE CAREFULL though. For a while, I got lazy and just poured it directly into the jug and literally OD’ed on OD. When you smell it enough, you get used to it and dont even smell it any more. A good indicator of this is when the customer walks in and says “WOW, don’t you use some kind of mask or anything!” THe same goes with the CA deodorizer.
As for the dirty socks, you can’t be expected to get 100% of the dirt up. No cleaner can, nor will they ever guarentee it. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you are using CA or OD. I would venture to say that you are using too much solution and it is wicking back up into the socks. Any cleaner can go behind us and pick up dirt, but turn, I guarentee that I can go behind any other cleaner and pick up dirt. What customers are paying for is RESULTS, and WE DELIVER THAT. Today, I cleaned a 500sf LR. It was cream berber, and had lots of traffic wear. There were also lots and lots of spills. It took me 1 1/2 hours and I charged 165 for it at .33/sf which was $40 more than I quoted over the phone. (mostly because she had no idea how big her room was). When I finished, you could still see the areas in front of the couches, and there were still shadows where the traffic areas were. BUT, by dang, I got every single spill out, and spot off that carpet. When I finished, she was thrilled with the job! Did I leave dirt behind? Sure I did. Could I have done a better job? No. I did the best that I could. So, I guess that it boils down to…. if you are doing the best job that you can, nothing else matters. If you are producing results then nothing else matters.
Hope this helps. 🙂