In the few years of major paintwork enhancements and correction ive found these pads to be very good with a multitude of polish combinations. I am a huge user of Scholl concepts polishes but do also use 3M perfect it range and the odd Menzerna | Chemical guys optical polishes.
Pads
3M blue finishing pad – Great with any types of finishing polishes
3M black finesse it pad – great with glazes, 3M finnese it, Dodo juice need for speed.
3M yellow polishing pad – Great with Scholl S17+, 3M extrafine, Dodo Juice lime prime & need for speed.
Scholl black waffle – S17+
Scholl orange sandwich pad – S17+ or S30 and S40 but I don’t recommend this for S40 personally due to pad marring.
Lake country compressor range pads
Lake country foamed purple wool – 3M fastcut +, Scholl S17+, Farecal G3.
Lake country ccs white / black – Just great pads.
Flexi pads wool
Flexi pads red waffle finishing pad – Fantastic pads for jewelling the finish.
Polishes
I used to be a huge fan of Menzerna but along in time I found Scholl concepts and have never looked back albeit using 3M perfect it range purely out of curiosity.
Menzerna po85rd final finish
Scholl S40
Nanotech super gloss
3M ultrafine se
Scholl S17+
Meguiars so1o system polish
3M fastcut +
Farecla G3
Menzerna powergloss
Rule of thumb is always Measure the paint prior to working and keep a close eye on the PTG ( paint depth gauge ) readings.
start with the least aggressive combination and see what your first initial set will create. If not the desired results, attempt again. Should the finish not be what your looking for, step up to the next level of pad to aid in extra cut levels. Chances are, you will find a vast majority of the time you will find a polishing pad / medium polish combination will give great results and do the vehicle some fantastic justice. In worse cases you will use a more aggressive polish with a cutting pad which will remove a few microns of the clear coat and will look like there are more swirls than before. This is known as compound / polish marring. This will be easily rectified with a lesser aggressive polish and pad combination to refine and jewel the finish to its utmost burnished perfection. Bottom line is, if heavier compounding is needed, you will be inflicting damage to rectify damage. Sounds worse than it is but lets looks at another angle...
When you want to re-treat a piece of painted wood such as a skirting board in your house. You will essentially strip the old paint back with a harsh method such as a heavy grit sand paper. This will leave the finish rough but less tarnished. Next step would be to use a lesser aggressive sand paper to level the finish out and a final light grade paper to smooth the finish. Once done and painted, it will look good as new. Same applies to polishing paintwork on a vehicle. Cut, polish, refine / jewel.
You will see on many a forum. Plenty tend to so what is known as a 50/50. This is a good show case for the pictorials but does aid in finding that combination your after to achieve great results.
When you start machine polishing its imperitive that you keep the pad face flat to the surface of the panel as you can burn through or get uneven marring put into the paint.
This is also known as half mooning, holograms or buffer trails. Due to uneven pad and pressure displacement, you will never gain a level and trail free finish. Sometimes its harder to achieve a flat pad on certain panels with hard cutting pads as they do not conform to the contours of the panel. Should this be the case for you, a soft wool pad and foamed backing plate will help tremendously.
Backing plates
3M perfect it backing plate
3M finesse it backing plate
Dodo juice soft buff backing plate
Gloss it backing plate
All are very good items to have and aid in a better flow of polishing.
So you will have fitted your pad to the backing plate if you want give the pad a light spray with water or quick detailer ( just enough to feel moist, spray about 6" away ) Best product is Chemical guys polishing pad conditioner. One spray prior to first initial set really helps get the best from the pad / polish combination and primes the pad ready for work.
Add 2 – 3 pea sized drops of polish to the pad adjacent to each other. If Scholl S17+, best apply smaller drops and more of them around the pad round the pad.
Work the polish over the area before switching on.
Now at speed 1 of the rotary ( 600-700rpm ) work the polish slowly across the panel side to side twice at this speed so you break the polish down ready to work it to its peak.
At speed 3 (1100-1300rpm ) Continue with the 1" per 2 seconds as this will work the polish evenly so you getting all the surface. You can apply about 10lbs of pressure so you get the best of the pad and product but still not bogging the rotary down or causing too higher panel temperatures.
Side to side twice then come back down to speed 2 ( 900 – 1000rpm ) to finish the last of the polish and burnish as to ensure little if no holograms are left inflicted on the finish.
With a soft microfibre cloth remove any residue and inspect your work ( this is best with a light source such as a Brinkmann torch, sungun or halogen lights at a minimum ).
Perfect paint!
If you feel it needs a stronger cut then step up with the polish. Again if needs be step up to the next pad and so on.
If youve gone to the point of using a lite cutting pad you do the same process then come down to a polishing pad then a finshing pad reducing the strength of polishes as you go. Majority of first timers like to play it safe and break there polishing cherry with a DA polisher such as the Kestral das6 or Meguiars g220 but in all honesty, you will improve your finish but it wont de-swirl or correct to the level that a rotary will do.
This is just the beginning as there is so much to learn in the realms of machine polishing and creating that perfect finish however. This will get you on the road to that flawless finish.
