polishing pad questions

[sweetlou]

Planning on getting a megs g110 da to start off with. Ive used a pc before so i have some experience with that and some menzerna polishes. I just need a bit of advice choosing some pads. I have used the big 7.5 in curved ccs pads on the pc, but don`t like them. Also the 6.5 in red ccs for finishing, which worked well for a liquid sealant. Im looking at the kit from autogeek that includes the g110, sip, 106fa, 2 orange, 2 white, and 1 red pad in the 5.5in . As well as a 6.5 in pfw. Are these all the pads i would need with the given polishes? Dont really understand the differences between the blue, black, red, and gold pads, as they are all finishing pads. Also not sure if i should get the flat pads instead, the ccs ones seem to absorb quite a bit of product.

[Accumulator]

sweetlou- Dunno how helpful the following will be to you, but maybe something will be of value.



I never do well using large pads for correction on machines like this. 5.5" is absolutely as big as I`d go (and I really prefer 4" for serious correction).



IME the *small* (i.e., 3.5-4") PFW pads can work well with this type of machine, but I *think* the 6.5" will be too big. Unless you`re gonna run small pads with a little backing plate, I think you might oughta stick with 5.5" foam instead.



For cutting, I`m hard-pressed to say whether you`d be better off with yellow or orange :nixweiss Most people use orange these days, but sometimes, if you have hard clear, the yellow is a better choice (even if it does leave more micromarring). Sometimes you even need *both*, first the yellow and then the orange, but that`s pretty rare IME.



The differences in finishing pads always leave me :think: too. Once a pad is gentle enough to *NOT* impart any cut of its own, any differences seem to be a matter of firmness and porosity. Some people like a certain "feel" to their pads and some pads just work better with certain products. But it`s not like most people *need* all those difference choices. As I understand it:



-The blue would be for final polishing or using an AIO

-The black/gray is sorta along the same lines but even more gentle and also better suited to LSPs

-The red is an LSP application pad that`s even softer (does this matter? In many cases I doubt it; use whichever *you* like).

-The gold pad is supposedly *VERY* good for light/thin LSPs like sealants; it doesn`t soak them up the way most foam pads can.



In *most* cases I`d only use the blue pad for burnishing/jeweling and/or maybe AIOs. I don`t much care for the black/gray pad and never seem to use mine- it`s not quite open/porous enough for use with AIOs and polishes IME and that can lead to loading/caking of product. If the red wax pad from Griot`s is the same as this, then OK...I really like that red Griot`s pad but I dunno if they`re really the same thing. The gold pad sounds great for use with liquid LSPs. But the preceding is just how *I* feel about these pads and others might have completely different opinions.





So your plan of orange (or yellow), white, and red sounds good to me but I`d pass on the 6.5" PFW.

[sweetlou]

thanks for the input. Ill probably be giving the orange, white, and red or gold pads a try in the 5.5 in and see how that goes. As for the blue being for burnishing/aio application, isnt the green the same type of thing?:nixweiss

[Accumulator]

.. As for the blue being for burnishing/aio application, isnt the green the same type of thing?:nixweiss

It seems there are a few different green foams out there, so don`t take this as the last word on the subject....but the green foam that one usually encounters is more like the white, a medium polishing pad that`s *not* what I`d use for burnishing. The last green pads I used (Edge and Cyclo branded, dunno who made the foam) seemed *more* aggressive than the LC white polishing pads; not leaves-micromarring-aggressive though, but I was using them on hard clear.