Rotary Pads: Wool or Foam

[Shaun Carollo]

What do you prefer to use? What kind of situations may call for what type of pad? I`m just learning how to wheel and it seems like my one wool pad that I have leaves no swirls and my meguiars soft buff foam pad leaves a ton of swirl marks.

Thanks,
Shaun

[alanceperson]

Soft pad is more for waxing or sealing,not aggresive enough to remove swirls . I use both . Wool pad to remove flaws in paint followed by soft pad for sealing/waxing

[Vegaslightz]

Shaun,
I`m not a pro, but I`ve learned enough to know to be very careful with the wool pads, they are used for polishing, but if you don`t have enough product on the wool, or you use too much pressure, you`ll end up causing more swirls in the paint. There are foam pads that are available that are a bit coarser than the waxing pads and are made for polishing and are much safer to use than wool.

[Anthony O.]

Foam pads are really not safer than wool pads. Foam pads generate more heat and do so quicker while wool pads usually run at a lower temp but cut or level paint faster.

Wool polishing pads many times leave a far better "swirl free" finish than foam pads unless it`s a foam finishing pad. Wool pads are messy and don`t last as long as foam but they do a great job in leveling and polishing.

If I wetsand a car I might be able to remove the sanding marks with my leveler and an LC orange pad but it`s twice as fast with a LC wool cutting pad folowed by a wool polishing pad.

Anthony

[Bill D]

I see SM Arnold makes foam pads with "cut outs" in them that claim to dissipate and reduce heat. I wonder if that really is true

[shotime]

Foam pads are really not safer than wool pads. Foam pads generate more heat and do so quicker while wool pads usually run at a lower temp but cut or level paint faster.

Wool polishing pads many times leave a far better "swirl free" finish than foam pads unless it`s a foam finishing pad. Wool pads are messy and don`t last as long as foam but they do a great job in leveling and polishing.

If I wetsand a car I might be able to remove the sanding marks with my leveler and an LC orange pad but it`s twice as fast with a LC wool cutting pad folowed by a wool polishing pad.

Anthony

Also what many people don`t realize, is there are different courseness of wool pads just like foam. Most places only stock the leveling pads, in synthetic and wool. I was digging through the buffing pad box at car quest a couple weeks ago and found a wool finishing pad, the strands were extremely soft and not twisted like many pads. I didn`t buy it because I only use wool for heavy scratches/wetsanding but I might try it out.

[Bill D]

Yeah, Car Quest seems to be source for decent buffing accessories, I only saw 9" diameter pads around here though :( I did see those vented foam pads there too, I wonder if they are rebadged SM Arnold pads.

[Nickc0844]

I personally use the Edge 2000 Wool pads on my Rotary after wetsanding work, then use their foam pads for my final polishing. I seem to get good results from using both :D

[kimwallace]

Nick,
Which wool pads do you use? and with what products? ... I know Adam`s :)
I just tried the Edge 2000 Yellow Wool with DACP and thought it worked pretty well. I hadn`t used a blended pad before, but this pad didn`t generate hardly any heat and didn`t suck up the product like other Pure wool pads I have used in the past.

[Nickc0844]

Kim,

Actually I haven`t used the Adam`s products with the wool pads, as I save them for my intermediate and final polishing steps. I have the black and gold E2k Wool pads for my Makita. I have used Meg`s Compound Power (#84), 3M`s Fine cut, PB SSR 2.5, Hi-temps Medium cut (didn`t work well after wetsanding) and PB`s SSR3 (took a bit longer). I`ve used DACP after my initial leveling with great results afterwards, and have finished with a hoard of products, of which you`ve seen me spout out a few times before ;)

I haven`t "toyed" around much with just using wool as my initial cutting stage. I have typically used my E2K Yellow Foam pad for that, but I might just do that the next time around :bigups