I found some nice pads locally

tuscarora dave

tuscarora dave

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After many failures with the mainstream 4 inch pads I was determined to find a solution in the way of a better 4 inch pad. Genuine Cyclo pads had been my solution to premature velcro separation in 4" foam pads so I went on a quest to find them locally to no avail. In fact Google had produced no local results either. Finally I started calling around to local body shop supply stores where most only carried 3M brand wavy type pads that I just don't care for.

Today I was thinking back to when I was a kid and worked in a body shop taping, sanding and buffing out fresh paint. It occurred to me that I never looked into the place that supplied their stuff so I gave them a call and inquired about 4" foam pads and was told that they only carried S.M. Arnold brand 4" pads. Being just a 10 mile drive away I thought I would take my dog Jack for a little car ride and go check the place out. Jack was happy to take the trip.

I was delighted and surprised when I walked in the place and saw that they carry Schlagel, Meguiars, S.M. Arnold, Mothers pro line, Clay Magic, 3M and many other brands. This is a literal one stop shop that I didn't realize existed so close to home. Anyway here is what I came home with. 12 4 inch pads. 1 wool cutting, 1 wool finishing, 5 foam cutting, 5 foam polishing pads, 1 rotary backing plate with adapter to fit the cupped design of the hook and loop backing perfectly centered. Total spent after tax $57 and change. I will have to report back with my findings in the way of durability and quality of the products. I just got 7 full details scheduled to do over the next few weeks so I am sure to have plenty of opportunity to test them out. Way Excited!! Here's a few pics.

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Great find! Need to find something in MA like that, just like see it in person sometimes before I buy. Also for some those "in a pinch" situations.
 
Dave, You sound allot like me, when I get something on my mind I wont let it go until I get it resolved...or eventually worn down.....I love a good Quest........You scored my brother !!!
 
Wendell Jarvis said:
Dave, You sound allot like me, when I get something on my mind I wont let it go until I get it resolved...or eventually worn down.....I love a good Quest........You scored my brother !!!
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I just refuse to pay top dollar for something that fails over and over and over. I just hope these work for me. The cupped design of the velcro backing leads me to believe that they will work out just fine. The cupped design of the backing sort of reminds me of the Lake Country VC pads that I get from Poorboy's World pictured below.

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This is a great design and I wish that Lake Country would design all their pads with a backing like this. This particular pad has served my finishing needs through at least 30 full details. Then I retired it to applying cleaner wax to these ratty old buses that I have been working on. Now it looks like this and the backing has not failed yet.

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This pad on the other hand didn't make it through 2 details and I only use it for a small portion of the job and it looks like this. (pic below)

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I just refuse to ever buy another one. I don't want a replacement or a rebate, I want a better 4 inch pad. Call me a jerk or call me a crusader or whatever but if a company can make a great 5.5 inch pad they can make a great 4 inch pad too. Done
 
tuscarora dave said:
I just refuse to pay top dollar for something that fails over and over and over. I just hope these work for me. The cupped design of the velcro backing leads me to believe that they will work out just fine. The cupped design of the backing sort of reminds me of the Lake Country VC pads that I get from Poorboy's World pictured below.

022-6.jpg


This is a great design and I wish that Lake Country would design all their pads with a backing like this. This particular pad has served my finishing needs through at least 30 full details. Then I retired it to applying cleaner wax to these ratty old buses that I have been working on. Now it looks like this and the backing has not failed yet.

021-12.jpg


This pad on the other hand didn't make it through 2 details and I only use it for a small portion of the job and it looks like this. (pic below)

023-6.jpg


I just refuse to ever buy another one. I don't want a replacement or a rebate, I want a better 4 inch pad. Call me a jerk or call me a crusader or whatever but if a company can make a great 5.5 inch pad they can make a great 4 inch pad too. Done
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I've used a few buff n shine pads recently. I chewed up one of the 5.5" orange pads over four major rejuvenations but I pushed it very hard and caught it on an emblem that I should have taped (my fault). They are 1" thick and eurofoam. I like them better than the thicker lake country flats. I like their 4" flats better too, which are thinner than my older 4" from Lake Country.

I really want to try the thinner HT cyan and tangerine pads. They could be exactly what I'm looking for in a 5.5 pad.
 
Thats a sweet find. That reminds me, I need to stop by my old bodyshop supplier to see if he's got anything spot buff pads. I alway forget as the only time I'm in there is to by DA sanding paper and compounds.

I can't wait for the review. You don't really hear much people using SM Arnold Pads and from what I understand the three big buffing pad makers are lake country, buff and shine, and sm arnold. What brand was that 4" orange pad?
 
snowking724 said:
Great find! Need to find something in MA like that, just like see it in person sometimes before I buy. Also for some those "in a pinch" situations.
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I'm completely with you on this one! I could really use a place like this as I have a detail to do tomorrow and I ruined my 4" CCS yellow pad last night. I'm hoping that I can use a less aggressive pad to get the correction to where I need it. We'll see what happens!
 
call around to the different body shop and paint supply stores in your area, you may be surprised what you can find locally in a pinch.
 
Kurt_s said:
I really want to try the thinner HT cyan and tangerine pads. They could be exactly what I'm looking for in a 5.5 pad.
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I've got a set, and thus far I'm VERY impressed with them both on my DA (old-school PC7424) and my rotary (Flex 3403). I just hope LC comes out with thin 6.5" HT pads so I can use them with my Flex DA as well.
 
Kurt_s said:
I really want to try the thinner HT cyan and tangerine pads. They could be exactly what I'm looking for in a 5.5 pad.
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They are awesome! I just used them last weekend when I did a 2 step on a Subaru Outback. I found myself using less pressure and think they are perfect for DA's.
 
rwright said:
They are awesome! I just used them last weekend when I did a 2 step on a Subaru Outback. I found myself using less pressure and think they are perfect for DA's.
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Just what I wanted to hear. Thanks!
 
Nice write up, looking forward to the review...and gotta love that the dog got to go on a car ride :).

I had ordered megs 7" 2.0 softbuff pads...used the polishing one once on my PC just to do the roof of a car...no problems...but then the 2nd time i used it i got about 2/3 of the way thru on the car...and noticed the same thing you did, the pad wasnt rotating correctly.

Turns out that the glue had melted (note it was pretty warm out, but it was still near sundown when i was doing this) and was seperating AND how the megs 2.0 pads have the 'self centering' design...so that where you put the backing plate is sort of set in some from the outside edge of the pad...well the foam on the outside portion of the area where the backing plate goes was seperating from the foam that makes up the remainding edge of the pad.

Figured ok, bad pad, called and AG hooked me up with a new one....used it...made it thru a full suburban AIO detail in 107 degrees, no problem. I washed it by hand..even thou its suppose to be machine washable....then go to use it on a Lexus we did last week and about 3/4 of the way thru...had the same damn thing happen. For something around $10 a pad...I would expect a little more as well.

I placed an order for some LC flats and went with 5.5" rather than the 7"....ive heard 7" is too big for a PC and all that but I got very good results on the suburban i did with that size pad...especially for a single pass. Maybe some of it was user error on the 1st one coming apart, maybe I should have let it cool down some...but on the Lexus it was a pretty cool day...i was taking my time...and still it got screwed up on me...I kinda feel the same as you Dave, I dont want a replacement, i just want it to work.

I bought a 3 pack of the LC Hydro's as well so I'll give them a go and see how I like em...I'm so surprised you got ALL that for $57 at a local shop...thats pretty cool:props:
 
Yes I have tried them out. To test their durability I did a complete paint correction on a 95 Honda Odyssey using nothing but these 4" pads. I cut the paint with the yellow pad and Makita rotary then used my G110V2 with the black pad. The pads held out very well and are still good for more. No separation on the backing and just a little wear on the face of the yellow pad from the friction of spinning on the rotary at 2500 RPM.
 
tuscarora dave said:
Yes I have tried them out. To test their durability I did a complete paint correction on a 95 Honda Odyssey using nothing but these 4" pads. I cut the paint with the yellow pad and Makita rotary then used my G110V2 with the black pad. The pads held out very well and are still good for more. No separation on the backing and just a little wear on the face of the yellow pad from the friction of spinning on the rotary at 2500 RPM.
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Awesome, any pictures of the job?

I learned something..I didnt know you could use 4" pads on a rotary. Using 4" pads for a whole car can be a veryyyy time consuming process. When i first got my PC i only ordered 4" pads because i thought i needed that extra cut small pads give....i needed a NAP when i was done! The car i did wasn't too bad...but then I did a full size conversion van...whew...took a while. Lucky for me it was a family members car so i could kinda take my time and had a couple days to work on it, but man what a slow process.

Glad to hear the pads held up...hope you do/did a write up on the job!:props:
 
Nice to get those locally when you don't have time to order. And at a good price it seems.

I am not so fond of the Soft Buff 2.0 7" either. The yellow pad separated in the center on the velcro back. The center plastic part melted and opened it up to the edges and you can slip your finger under the velcro all the way around on the pad. So it doesn't work well with loose velcro as you can imagine.

And in the process of that failure, I am guessing it heated up enough to melt the backing plate plastic loops and it was toast as well, wouldn't hold any pad from then on.

I am excited to try these HT pads now and will go with the 5.5".

Thanks for your reviews on these also.
 
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