From Best to Worst, IMO: LC Orange Pads

Todd@RUPES

Todd@RUPES

Just a regular guy
I have a bunch of older Orange LC pads that I love. They where soft but had a nice cut (not too much to mess the paint up, but more than the average pad, while still finishing nice).



It seems about a year ago, the 6 inch pads (porter cable) became very stiff where as the 7.5 inch pads (rotary) where perfectly "soft" It made sense, since the PC needs something you can push into, where as the rotary needs a little more pliability.



It seems that recentley (about 5 months ago) LC started using the "stiffer foam" on the rotary pads. These pads have become very difficult to control, IMO, and more likely to hologram, skip, and hop. At first, I thought it was because the pads where new (compared to my more worn) pads. However, they never softened.



Unfortunately my older pads have pretty much worn out, except yesterday I was going through my stuff and found an older 7.5 inch pad. I pulled it out of the bag and compared it to the new stuff, and the older (but still "new") one was much softer.



Has anybody else noticed this is well, and is not happy with the stiffer rotary pads...
 
Call em and see what's up. I got a couple 7.5" from CMA with the blue intermediate foam and I like them a lot. I don't like the 6.5 CCS orange AT ALL.
 
I sure have. I soak 'em in hot water under the faucet everytime I use 'em and it softens them up quite a bit. Just spin dry and get to work, but I hate the extra step. They used to be better.
 
Noticed it too, really don't like orange pads via rotary. I do have an older yellow VC LC pad that seems to work very well via rotary.
 
I noticed the same thing with my newer LC orange pads, not a fan of them, pretty hard to control. I might go the route of purple wool to test that out.
 
they are really easy to control most of the time.

Really easy. The trick is to prepare the paint better before polishing and of course japanese paints cant take the heat of the rotary and causes skipping and drying out of the polish



Certain paints will be harder to work with than others
 
TH0001 said:
It seems that recentley (about 5 months ago) LC started using the "stiffer foam" on the rotary pads. These pads have become very difficult to control, IMO, and more likely to hologram, skip, and hop. At first, I thought it was because the pads where new (compared to my more worn) pads. However, they never softened.
Click to expand...



Todd, I have experienced this as well and glad you brought this up. I have an orange "mushroom top" pad and I have tried to use on multiple occasions, but it is very hard to control and seems way too stiff to use on any paint. It just doesn't seem to make much contact with the paint, which would result in hologramming.



I see all these people using orange pads and wonder why I have had such bad luck. It makes me feel a little better that others are experiencing this as well.
 
I have posted this before, but I occasionally use the 6.5" orange via rotary. I was having a hard time with it as well. So, just for the heck of it, I used the Meguiar's W66 backing plate that has about an inch of foam on it. In my experience, the orange is easier to control when using that plate. My theory is that the inch of foam on the plate serves as a shock absorber when the orange pad tries to hop. I may be wrong, but this was the best my little brain could come up with.
 
Also remember that LCM custom makes foam pads to specs. So a company could order soft pads that are orange in color. There is no standard when it comes to pads.
 
I tried a Low profile CCS orange pad with the rotary and 3m compound last week. I got splatter and hop-definitely not user friendly. I put a green german CCS pad on and it worked much better. I prefer softer pads with the rotary. Firm is better for the PC.
 
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