I will be the first to admit there is a convenience factor here. The ASO
reference lists everything that you need to acquire. All of the liquids are
readily available. The non-cotton intrinsic pads (which he specifies for
the actual cleaning) are the only item that is hard to come by. Frankly the
pads were the deciding factor for my buying the OPT kit. Dr Clay Sherrod of
ASO did a lot of research before settling on non-cotton pads. I have seen
the results of folks that tried to clean optics with cotton. It was not a
pretty sight. I think that the purity of Kleenex is suspect also even though
Dr Clay uses it as a part of his process.
I used to be a chemist (long ago). Personally I would not use acetone for
this application. What ever you use do you need to insure it is pure.
If you want the pads only, OPT sells them unbundled.
Rob Hawley
Optics cleaning kits are one of those products that are "high margin" for
those that sell them. Their costs are quite low and they price them quite
high considering what you get.