Lake Country Red, Blue and Grey Pads

dschribs

dschribs

Active member
Is there really much difference in the Lake Country Red, Blue and grey pads? From what I see, they're all fine for waxes, sealants and glazes? Is it really necessary to have three different pads that are basically all for the same thing?

For me, it just ads to the confusion of the whole "which pad/which product" frustration….
 
dschribs said:
Is there really much difference in the Lake Country Red, Blue and grey pads? From what I see, they're all fine for waxes, sealants and glazes? Is it really necessary to have three different pads that are basically all for the same thing?

For me, it just ads to the confusion of the whole "which pad/which product" frustration….
Click to expand...



+1



PS You forgot about the gold pads.
 
Here's my take on it



Black has no cut but is a bit firmer than the blue/red pads so its good for finishing polishes where you only want the polish to do the work.



I've heard red and blue are the same pad. I honestly don't see a difference except I seem to reach for blue more often. I thought it soaked upped a bit less product but that may be in my head.



I haven't used gold but they're supposed to keep all the product on the surface so a little bit of sealant goes a lot further instead of soaking up in the pad
 
Yeah, that gold pad is supposed to be really special in the sense of perfect for LSPs.



I use a few different zero-cut pads, but I usually make my choice based on firmness and apparent porosity. I'm not going about this all that scientifically, I just get a gut-feeling that a certain pad/product combo is gonna be best for a given situation, and IMO it's not like making a mistake is gonna be a big deal.



Now if I were working on stupid-soft clear that might be different...and IIRC SuperBee364 didn't like how M205 worked with the Edge blue pad so there might be some pad/product combos that oughta be avoided.



It wasn't all that long ago that there were relatively few different pads, and people did fine. Griot's still only sells a polishing and a waxing, and (just) those two would, IMO, probably be OK for most people doing this stuff.
 
Accumulator said:
It wasn't all that long ago that there were relatively few different pads, and people did fine. Griot's still only sells a polishing and a waxing, and (just) those two would, IMO, probably be OK for most people doing this stuff.
Click to expand...



You expose a good point with this statement.



Over-complication is often used in marketing and merchandising of certain industires to give the effect of a more research-oriented retailer. Being an OCD hobby/profession, I'm sure it's easy for us to buy into that, as a few large threads on the forum have shown recently.



What's funny is that I'm getting ready to make a decent sized pad/polish order, and even in light of the above, I'm still probably getting at least four different cut/use pad types, and three different grade polishes. Guess I'm an easy sell. :chuckle:
 
ten39- You ever read the book "Predictably Irrational"? Good info on this sort of thing.



Actually, I can see four grades of pads (very aggressive, medium aggressive, medium, and zero cut) being useful. That's what I use on full-bore major makover type details.



Three or four grades of polish isn't overkill either, depending on whether you *really* want/need to do a final burnishing/jeweling and/or you need to do some *exteremely* serious correction. (One could also count some wetsanding papers as one of these "polishes".)





But *most* people..eh...IMO they don't need a really involved, complicated approach.
 
I agree w/the marketing & true product differentiation issues with these pads.



Griots sells two pads.....I would think that over simplifies it. Adams has three, all corresponding to a particular product. When I read the Lake Country site, they describe them well, but the charts I see don't really indicate how fine a gradient really exists between them.



Anybody out there got any other good resources for what to choose? The AG Lake DA pad description chart is about the best I've seen........at least it kind of mates a particular polish type with a pad type. Typically, I see most people starting with an orange as the most aggressive (even though there are other choices.......perhaps its biased toward the user's experience). White and black for sure are in everybody's bag, then there is the choice between blue, red & gold, et.al. (plus the more aggressive green and the green in the middle of the line.......ugh!).



It's almost worthy of a PhD disertation! :)



See ya. :wavey:
 
tenorplayer23 said:
I agree w/the marketing & true product differentiation issues with these pads.



Griots sells two pads.....I would think that over simplifies it. Adams has three, all corresponding to a particular product. When I read the Lake Country site, they describe them well, but the charts I see don't really indicate how fine a gradient really exists between them.



Anybody out there got any other good resources for what to choose? The AG Lake DA pad description chart is about the best I've seen........at least it kind of mates a particular polish type with a pad type. Typically, I see most people starting with an orange as the most aggressive (even though there are other choices.......perhaps its biased toward the user's experience). White and black for sure are in everybody's bag, then there is the choice between blue, red & gold, et.al. (plus the more aggressive green and the green in the middle of the line.......ugh!).



It's almost worthy of a PhD disertation! :)



See ya. :wavey:
Click to expand...



There is a chart on TID that is awesome!
 
RaskyR1 said:
I thought the black LC had a slight cut???
Click to expand...



Noting again that I don't work on stupid-soft clear, IME the LC black does not have cut in-an-of itself. It might make products behave more aggressively than some other finishing pads because of of it's porosity, or the foam's firmness, or...well...something.



It wasn't all that long ago that the LC black was touted as *the* soft finishing pad for applying LSPs. Using it for actual *polishing* wasn't very common until quite recently.



tenorplayer23 said:
Griots sells two pads.....I would think that over simplifies it.
Click to expand...



Just depends on the paint. Their orange pad doesn't cut like a "regular" orange pad, but it *does* finish out quite well. Better than you'd probably think just judging it by how it looks and feels. For the Griot's line of Machine Polishes the two pads work out pretty well.



Heh heh, for *real* oversimplification, consider that for *ages* the only pads for a Cyclo were the 4" green foam, a somewhat aggressive polishing pad.



And AFAIK there are/have been *four* different green pads in addition to that 4" Cyclo brand one! Talk about confusing....
 
grey can be used with finnishing polishes,and is a bit firmer than the blue.. ive never used red or gold. blue is just meant for applying waxes and sealants, i tried it but perfer doing it by hand, so i dont use blue anymore, i dont know what the difference between red and blue are... let me go get my booklet about the pads , ha..this is about CCS pads, so idk if its the same as lake county, but ill post it anyway



OK



GREY(finnishing): "composition is firm enough to withstand added ppressure durring final buffing to remove buffer swirls. it has no cut adn will apply thin even coats of paste and liquid waxes,sealants, and glazes."



BLUE(finessing): " the blue pad has soft enough composition for applying glazes, sealants and liquid waxes. the finessing pad provides full contact to the paint surfave to minimize the pressure applied by the user."



RED (ultrasoft wax/sealant): " this soft, imported foam is ideal for applying a final coat of wax or sealant. the foam works especially well when applying liquid waxes or sealants because it is firm enough to keep the majority of the product on the paint, rather than soaking it up. the red foam pad has no cut or cleaning ability."
 
Thanks a lot for the clarification. I figured it was a detailing site.



I'll check it out. Will undoubtedly be very helpful.....any of this relative comparison information is a terrific starting point & I'm accumulating hard copies for my future reference. The bad news is, it's probably only as good as the skill of the person doing the work :nixweiss :scared:



Just have to dive in, I guess.



Thx.



See ya :wavey:



Dsoto87 said:
Truth in detailing. Its another forum. And yea the menz/lc pad chart is pretty detailed
Click to expand...
 
FWIW, I recently used a Griot's red waxing pad (is it the same as other red finishing pads :nixweiss ) to do KAIO. It worked OK but it seemed to flash the AIO a bit faster than I'd like, making it a little harder to buff off than normal. I suspect that a more "open"/porous pad (like I usually reach for) leaves things "wetter" which *in this case* makes for easier buff-off.



The real point being that these "tight" pads can do things that one might not expect.
 
I just saw this on another forum: "I was informed by Lake Country that the black pad does have some correction ability which i never knew ..they advised that for pure finishing a red or blue pad be used ..."



This particular poster was using a rotary.
 
Setec Astronomy- I'd put more credence in that if somebody I was Autopia-acquainted with got the info straight from LC. And one might split hairs and question whether "correction ability" is the same as having cut in-and-of itself :think: Consider that the Meg's finishing pads (or pretty much *all pads*) have corrective ability too but that's a matter of the product they're used with, not the pads themselves.



And hey, back before they came out with those red/blue/gold pads you never heard of the black/gray having any cut. I'm cynical enough to have suspicions related to selling everybody a lot of different pads.



My black LC pads exhibit zero cut on black ss paint that I'd consider pretty soft.



But then there seen to be at least two generations/variations of LC black pads too. One of my older ones is *SO* soft I simply cannot imagine it having any cut on the paints I work, the other is more aggressive looking/feeling, but still doesn't exhibit any cut *for me*.



I dunno...for some reason I'm just a very hard sell on the notion that the LC black aren't gentle enough (any more). Maybe I'm just being contrary, not having seen evidence of it myself, not that I work on soft paints so what do I know? :nixweiss
 
Well...I popped over to DC (where I'm not a member) to see if there were any more pics etc. from the recent Pb's detail day, and it was Poorboy Steve himself that posted that.



I agree that it's getting a bit crazy with all the LC finishing colors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top