Flex 3401 owners what do you use on tight areas where a smaller pad is required

unclestu

unclestu

New member
Joined
Jun 13, 2009
Messages
483
Reaction score
0
Feed back please

I have the Flex 3401 and I use the Edge Flex adapter with 4" pads for tight areas.
I was wondering what other Flex 3401 owners do in this situation as I am not completely satisfied with the Edge pads.
 
I had wished that flex would have made a smaller backing plate for the 3401 but it never happened....
 
I too have the edge adapter and it works .But I also have a couple of PC's and mostly use those for tight areas
 
PC here too, the Edge deal with pads would have cost me 80-90 dollars so it worked better for me to use pads I could get for 30 dollars and buy a PC for a 100 and have an extra machine in case mine broke or if someone else wanted to help me do a job.
 
Thanks everyone for you input. I think I got my answer. Use a PC. It is a shame that the makers of the Flex (such a fine machine) have left such a deficiency in their product unaddressed.:confused:
 
unclestu said:
Thanks everyone for you input. I think I got my answer. Use a PC. It is a shame that the makers of the Flex (such a fine machine) have left such a deficiency in their product unaddressed.:confused:
Click to expand...

As a product guy myself, I'm guessing they faced tradeoffs in cost, effectiveness or both. At the end of the day, the Flex is a machine for a specific purpose. I've really liked mine. My PC is used for certain tasks, or when I'm not interested in being as aggressive as the Flex allows me to be, or I use the 3" for the tight stuff.

I think they chose not to compromise, and it is a great product.
 
So Stu, if you don't mind a question. You bought the 4" Edge adapter and you still have a lot of areas that require something smaller? Being on a budget I've had to make do with doing small areas by hand, but I have the Edge adapter on my radar for a future purchase. I'm surprised there would be that many spots unreachable with a 4" pad.

Can you elaborate?
 
The edge adapter with 4" pads works great but there are still some places that the PC gets into better . Even when I use one of my rotaries I still use the PC to get into tight areas. But is all relevant to the Vehicle that you are working on. Plus recently I have been using the new Lake Country Hydro pads so I'm using the Flex standard backing plate for the 6.5 " pads and the PC XP with the 4 " ones.
 
VR8 said:
So Stu, if you don't mind a question. You bought the 4" Edge adapter and you still have a lot of areas that require something smaller? Being on a budget I've had to make do with doing small areas by hand, but I have the Edge adapter on my radar for a future purchase. I'm surprised there would be that many spots unreachable with a 4" pad.

Can you elaborate?
Click to expand...

No the 4" pads with the adapter are fine and I would love to continue with the Edge line except that in my brief experience with using the Edge 4" pads I have encountered characteristics in the quality of the pad that concern me.
One being that after only one polishing job on my Porsche it appears that the double sided pads are starting to separate in the middle.
Two being that my green 4" pad seems to have become misshapen in that areas on the face of the pad seem to have become compressed and not returned to the original shape. In fact I think I will start a thread addressing this situation to see if it is prevalent of just an isolated issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top