I have also done a mess of counter tops and found that by far the easiest way to get rid of the goo is a combination of thinners. I usually use white paper towels and keep two seperate. The first one you use with laquer thinner but if you try to remove all the cement with it you just get a gooy mess especially if there is a bunch of it. What the laquer thinner does well is to soften the cement then you take your next towel and dampen it with alcohol this will tend to ball up the soft cement and remove all the reside. It is always hard to get the last bit with straight laquer thinner and you have to work too hard with just the alcohol. Try the combo it really does work great. Just keep the resperator on, Steve.