Gents, I`ve been thinking... (just don`t let my wife know that. She gets nervous when I think).



How do you select what pad you are going to use? What`s the thought process behind your selection?



FWIW, here`s my thoughts on the issue...



When compounding, I like to pick a compound suitable for the paint I`m correcting, then vary the pad aggressiveness according to how much correcting I need to do. For the most part, I try to stay with M105 and PFW for compounding, as it is a great combination of correction ability and it finishes down *very* nicely, even on soft paints. However, if I need more correction, I`ll stick with the M105, and increase the aggressiveness of the pad to, say, an Edge 2K yellow wool. If even that isn`t enough, I`ll go up to a black Edge wool. At this point, if I`m still not getting enough cut, I`ll change to a more aggressive compound and go back to the PFW.



For light polishing and jeweling, I like to stick with a zero bite pad (I`m using either red Edge wave foam, Edge white finishing wool, or Meg`s Soft Buff 2.0 Black) and vary the polish according to how bad the remaining defects are and according to the hardness of the paint. I like to stay with a zero bite pad, because any pad that has any bite to it can only finish down to a level that that particular pad is capable of. Yeesh, that sounds complicated... Let`s see if I can paint a better picture.. Let`s say we have a Gloss Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest possible gloss. Now let`s pair a zero bite pad (gloss potential of 10) with a polish that hits 8 on the gloss scale. As long as our technique is correct, we finish out with the gloss scale number that is lowest of the pad/polish used. In this case 8, as the polish is only capable of finishing out to an 8. Now let`s use that same 8-rated polish with an LC white pad, which does have some bite to it, and it has a gloss rating of 6. Now our final gloss is limited to six because of the pad`s max gloss rating.



So by using a zero bite pad, we eliminate the pad`s ability to negatively effect the final gloss, and are truly seeing the *polish`s* gloss ability, which is what we want. Otherwise, how would you ever know if you are really reaching your light/finishing polish`s potential if you are using a pad that has bite to it?



So to summarize, I always use a zero bite pad after compounding in order to get the maximum gloss that particular polish can give me. If I need more bite, I`ll change to a polish with more bite to it, but stay with a zero bite pad, again so I get the best finish that polish can give me.



Works for me, anyway. How do you guys decide?