If U Could Design a Pad?

Well I have some SM Arnold speedy cut pads and they are pretty thick. Even with the recessed back they are as thick if not thicker than most other brands plus they have an edge the whole way around the backing plate. That style of pad provides some extra safety when using a rotary.
 
Anybody use wool? I would think you could get great results with different blends and varying the speed of the rotary. I currently use LC 6.5" pads and I'm not crazy about trying to center them. Whatever is the "ideal" pad, it must be easy to self center.
 
I use some twisted, and knitted wool, but I dislike the shedding. They have a place in my arsenal, but I prefer foam unless I am working on a really hammered finish.



AB, that cool cut that you guys sell (the blue blended pad) is very nice, but it lints really bad for me. I also wish that it was available in a smaller size--or is it? :D ANy advice on the lint?
 
How's this concerning wool? If you sell it - I will buy. I spoke with the guy at Edge Pads and complained to him that although they have wool pads, you can't find them from the usual sites (AG,CD, TOL,CMA etc) and he said that's because there isn't that big of a demand. HORSE HOCKEY! Offer the stuff and people will try it. He did say that when he detailed a car with issues, he reached for the wool pad everytime. Why is everybody so terrified of them? First, it was - don't get a rotary, you'll burn up your paint - NOT! Not, if you have some functioning brain cells and can use power tools. Now, it's wool pads. Back in the Fred Flintstone era when I worked at a body shop, we used wool pads to buff a car, I checked a few weeks ago and the guys painting cars are still using wool pads and 3M products. And considering they're both wealthy, have waiting lists and drive Hummers and Lexus - I think they know what the hell they're doing. I detail on the side and I treat every car like it was my own, but I don't want to spend all day on one car - not for the money I'm making. Can we get past the " my boutique product is better than your boutique product " and talk about getting the car detailed by working smarter, not harder, cause personally, at 47, my old back can't spend 5 hours buzzing with a PC.
 
yeah i agree with you again rag, 7 is too big, i used 8 inch pads on this motorhome and they almost felt too big even on that thing, i've been using pretty much four inch for all correction lately, very affective, might as well reorder a cyclo, four inch pads are so much quicker the cyclo has gotta kick @ss.
 
junebug, the only times ive used wool regardless of speed set on rotary hologram galore. why go so aggresive and make yourself work harder at finishing if you dont have to. i don't even like using yellow if not needed.
 
ebpcivicsi said:
AB, that cool cut that you guys sell (the blue blended pad) is very nice, but it lints really bad for me. I also wish that it was available in a smaller size--or is it? :D ANy advice on the lint?
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No smaller wool pads other than the lambswool and sheepskin ones.



My advice on the linting issue is rather unhelpful: If you don't like lint, don't use wool pads. ;) The lint is the price we pay for the fibers that make the Cool Cut and Soft Cut pads special.



The man who invents a wool blend that can polish/finish without linting will be very rich, indeed.
 
JuneBug said:
I spoke with the guy at Edge Pads and complained to him that although they have wool pads, you can't find them from the usual sites (AG,CD, TOL,CMA etc) and he said that's because there isn't that big of a demand. HORSE HOCKEY! Offer the stuff and people will try it. ........ Can we get past the " my boutique product is better than your boutique product " and talk about getting the car detailed by working smarter, not harder, cause personally, at 47, my old back can't spend 5 hours buzzing with a PC.
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Sadly, the guy at Edge Pads is right. There just isn't the consumer demand for wool pads to make it profitable for such folks as Autopia to maintain an inventory and market them.



We sell a LOT of wool pads. But I don't think even a small fraction of them ever get into the hands of your average Joe Detail.



I don't know if I'm allowed to do this per the forum rules... but if you'd like, you can PM me an e-mail address and general location in the US and I'll see if I can't have one of my customers sell you a few wool pads.
 
In sum, I'm very happy with the flowered edge AB pads.



Keep on making them. "Quality" rotary guys will keep buying them.
 
Okay, can't help myself here:



Most paint shops do a horrible job with their buff work, so don't use them as a guide (leaving DEEP wool/buffer induced marks is their trademark). With that said, wool is require for removing ultra-deep defects, like sanding marks. But for every day detailing - wool isn't going to save you work, it's going to create work - polishing out the buffer swirls from a twisted wool pad generally takes MULTIPLE polishing steps. Wool has it's place, but it's not in every day "detailing" use.







JuneBug said:
How's this concerning wool? If you sell it - I will buy. I spoke with the guy at Edge Pads and complained to him that although they have wool pads, you can't find them from the usual sites (AG,CD, TOL,CMA etc) and he said that's because there isn't that big of a demand. HORSE HOCKEY! Offer the stuff and people will try it. He did say that when he detailed a car with issues, he reached for the wool pad everytime. Why is everybody so terrified of them? First, it was - don't get a rotary, you'll burn up your paint - NOT! Not, if you have some functioning brain cells and can use power tools. Now, it's wool pads. Back in the Fred Flintstone era when I worked at a body shop, we used wool pads to buff a car, I checked a few weeks ago and the guys painting cars are still using wool pads and 3M products. And considering they're both wealthy, have waiting lists and drive Hummers and Lexus - I think they know what the hell they're doing. I detail on the side and I treat every car like it was my own, but I don't want to spend all day on one car - not for the money I'm making. Can we get past the " my boutique product is better than your boutique product " and talk about getting the car detailed by working smarter, not harder, cause personally, at 47, my old back can't spend 5 hours buzzing with a PC.
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I've got a meguiars mirror glaze and an edge black wool pad but they are reserved for really badly chalky and oxidised single stage paints only as I believe that using them on modern clearcoats is not a good idea due to thickness of the clear and extra work involved

Plus with edge foam black and yellow pads and sonus DAS orange being almost as powerful as a wool but without the hassle, I don't see a need for them 99% of the time.



A poor condition pre 90's SS paint treated with a wool pad and farecla G3 or HTEC does wonders
 
Guys, if you're talking most paint shops as in Maaco and Earl Schieb then I agree. But, the guys I use to work him and some others that I've know for 30+ years would disagree. I've seen work that has come out of their shops, late model Volvo's, GM, Ford and Toyota/Honda's so who am I to believe, you or my lying eyes! Just as there are 5-6 types of foam, there are 3-4 different kinds of wool. Hey, I'm the guy that goes against the grain on these forums, maybe cause I have worked in body shops in the past. I took the advice here and at Detail City and bought a PC, it hasn't been touched since I said F- it and bought a Makita. A while back I had to get scratches out of a 2002 325i, all I had was a PC some Meg's 84 and a wool pad that came with the PC. Now according to the "expert" at DC I should never use wool, 84 is for rotary only, and never run it at 6 holding it over the same spot for a timed 1 minute with all the weight I could muster - BUT, it worked and the customer gave me a 20 dollar tip, he was told by others that the car needed to be repainted. While I'm on a roll, how bout the "use a dime size" amount of polish on a pad, ***? I told my friends at the shop and they laughed, said you never buff dry - you need to keep it wet between the buffer and paint. Side note here - #84 did that very well. I know finding a good auto body painter is getting harder and harder, there are many out there that should be asking if you want fries with that. I'm lucky to have friends that are professional, how did that happen, well - let's say that when I was a teen, I misjudged distances and tolarances a few times with my Z-28 and later my Chevelle SS. So I worked to pay off my tab and learned I liked it, beat the hell out of working on a tobacco farm.
 
JuneBug said:
How's this concerning wool? If you sell it - I will buy. I spoke with the guy at Edge Pads and complained to him that although they have wool pads, you can't find them from the usual sites (AG,CD, TOL,CMA etc) and he said that's because there isn't that big of a demand. HORSE HOCKEY! Offer the stuff and people will try it. He did say that when he detailed a car with issues, he reached for the wool pad everytime. Why is everybody so terrified of them? First, it was - don't get a rotary, you'll burn up your paint - NOT! Not, if you have some functioning brain cells and can use power tools. Now, it's wool pads. Back in the Fred Flintstone era when I worked at a body shop, we used wool pads to buff a car, I checked a few weeks ago and the guys painting cars are still using wool pads and 3M products. And considering they're both wealthy, have waiting lists and drive Hummers and Lexus - I think they know what the hell they're doing. I detail on the side and I treat every car like it was my own, but I don't want to spend all day on one car - not for the money I'm making. Can we get past the " my boutique product is better than your boutique product " and talk about getting the car detailed by working smarter, not harder, cause personally, at 47, my old back can't spend 5 hours buzzing with a PC.
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He's right. I offered wool pads back when we first started and nobody showed any interest in it. Even body shops now-a-days are using foam pads. Most of them, from what I deal with, only use the finishing pads too.
 
RAG - do what I do. Soak the orange/yellow pads in water for a minute, spin it on the rotary. You have a soft cutting pad. Or use it on the pc until the pad is saturated with the polish.



On a side note: using optimum polishes will eliminate sling. Just a thought.
 
The edge wool pads are pretty good, though they are a bit unruley (and really messy). Lambswool pads tackle most nasty scratches just fine. Also, isn't it a bit ridiculous that Edge offers something like 4 or 5 different grades of twisted wool - seriously, are you supposed to compound with the aggressive (black), light compound with a medium grade, and then finish with the least agressive one (tourqouise)? Not gonna happen. Shoot, I can hardly tell the different in cut and finish between the black and touqouise...so I'm sure you couldn't tell a difference between the other ones.
 
I'm no math major, but I'll bet they're hundreds of combinations of pads/compounds and then throw in types of paint and the choices go off the chart. I can see compounding with wool, hey, it's the right tool in some cases for quick & easy paint correction. I believe you could polish with wool too, depending on the polish and type of wool pad. The only way this debate will ever get even close to being settled is for someone to get a badly scratched or swirled car and do a comparison between wool and foam, keeping the compounds/polishes the same. Volunteers?
 
JuneBug said:
I'm no math major, but I'll bet they're hundreds of combinations of pads/compounds and then throw in types of paint and the choices go off the chart. I can see compounding with wool, hey, it's the right tool in some cases for quick & easy paint correction. I believe you could polish with wool too, depending on the polish and type of wool pad. The only way this debate will ever get even close to being settled is for someone to get a badly scratched or swirled car and do a comparison between wool and foam, keeping the compounds/polishes the same. Volunteers?
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I'm sure this "test" has been done by most of the professionals on this board already. I know I have, which is why I posted as above.
 
While I'm on a roll, how bout the "use a dime size" amount of polish on a pad, ***? I told my friends at the shop and they laughed, said you never buff dry - you need to keep it wet between the buffer and paint.



That's why some cause splatter. I'd say damp yes but not wet.

In my earlier autopian days I was applying a 6 inch line (as it stated on menzerna bottle) on every panel and although I was not getting splatter, it sure did clog up the pads pretty quick. Since reading about the 4 x pea sized drops method, it has worked wonderfully and saved alot of product and pads from clogging and I don't get holograms



The problem is alot of body shop people are old school. The ones I have spoken too think that all these enviro safe products we use are too soft and they would rather use strong acid degreasers, truck wash with a broom or sponge to wash fresh paint and have plenty of stock of MAX (green coloured maximum cutting compound (so course you could almost cut your hand open when touching it) with a wool pad and then they just chuck on some flash wax



MORONS
 
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