I plan to get an assortment of LC pads but not sure which type to get. CSS, foam etc etc. I was thinking of ordering 2 of each color that I choose for starters.
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Black is going to be your biggest hurdle, (learning wise).
Next is going to be what products, and what pads. There really is no wrong or right answer.
I tend to think for newbies that SMAT products (IE: Meguiar's) are easier to work with. Because of the predictable, and repeatable cut and performance. Pass one you *know* how much cut you are going to get, and you'll get the same cut on pass 2, and 3, and 4. But what you DO have to look out for is the abrasives building up, the particles actually getting larger as spent product and abraded paint build up around each particle. In that sense, it's good practice to keep your pads clean, (working clean), and do it more often than with DAT based products.
The caveat with soft paints though, (especially black) is that harder cutting products tend to leave more noticeable hazing (micromarring). All of it however can be avoided with technique, like arm, head & machine speed, and of course downward pressure, along with pad and product choice.
Then you have old school DAT products from everyone else you look at, which is pretty much everything except Meguiar's (although Meg's makes both). Where you would WANT to stop say the compounding process at a certain/exact stage to keep working 'clean', you want to ALWAYS make sure that the latest and greatest high end products from say Wolfgang and Menzerna are worked through their entire process. Given two, (SMAT & DAT) that theoretically have the *exact same cut* at the first moment you turn the machine on, the DAT product will actually cut more (in that instant), then it breaks down, and continues to break down with every moment that it's worked. But what it DOES do (some will say) is finish out better *BECAUSE* it's constantly breaking down, becoming finer and finer, all the while the polishing oils are continuing to do their job in the process thus turning from a compound to a polish all on it's own. (Which is why you'll hear FG400 is such a great AIO.)
Machine and pads.
Whatever you do, I mean WHAT * EVER * YOU * DO don't kid yourself into thinking you need 2 pads (or even worse ONE) of each color and that's the end of that. If you only own one car it makes it easier, but even then.... you just don't know what pad and product combo will work the best for you until you try each pad (and product) on THAT vehicle. Could be you have extensive swirls you want to attack, along with a DAT compound, and a reasonably hard paint. You may very well need a yellow pad to best attack that. And if you do, you'll need more than one. It's impossible to compound an entire vehicle with a single, or imo less than a minimum of FOUR of the same color pads.
Then after it's corrected that first time chances are you'll not need those yellow pads again.
But you did need them none the less. OTOH, for most everyone out there, with the right compound, a LC orange pad will provide the most cut they'll likely ever need. Still however, you'll need at least 4 even for a small car. If you have a full size pickup, long bed, crew cab, you can easily go through 7 or 8 before all the compounding is done. It's all about heat, keeping down the heat in the paint is one thing, but this is ESPECIALLY about heat in the pad. Heat up that backing plate area and the pad destroys itself from within.
So lets say you can get away with 4 orange, (or even 4 pink) then you'll need at least 2~4 white, (maybe green will fit in here) another 2 blue, plus 2 black. Didn't even get into the uber soft pads like the red and gold. (Although I think the gold is about useless, just too soft for any real use, especially daily drivers and hard paint.)
Then multiply this by how many vehicles you have.
Many can be used from one to another of course, but you DO NOT want to cross contaminate your pads. In other words, if you're working with compound and white pads, you don't want to do a clean on the fly then try and polish with the same pad(s). I'll take a sharpie and mark several of my orange, pink and white pads (
because all three of them can be used for compounding and polishing) and NEVER use any for polishing that have been used for compounding. Not even after they've been cleaned. But that's just me.... besides, pads are cheap.
But you're question was what to use for "starters", right? Best and most honest answer I would give there is 2 orange, 2 white, 2 blue, 2 black in FLAT pads. Then 2 pink, 2 green in CCS AS A START. I'd say also have orange, white, blue, black, red in both flat and CCS as you'll use them, it's just the pink and green that come in ONLY CCS. What I like about CCS is you can get up to an edge where a flat pad just doesn't do that. And I've yet to see a CCS not finish as well, just that they are thinner and don't absorb as much energy as the CCS pads do, therefore you get a little more work done on some surfaces. But if you have a more complex surface the extra padding on the CCS helps. (Although they have others, the Constant Pressure that are SWEET to work with!):dblthumb2:
Confused yet?Im the MAN
