Clean your pad after every section pass or after every other section pass, here's why,
Why it's important to clean your pads often...
ANYTIME you're abrading the surface whether you're using an aggressive cutting compound of an ultra fine polish, you have two things building up on the face of your buffing pad...
- Spent product
- Removed paint
You need to remove both of these substances from the face of the pad
and the panel you're working on
before you apply fresh product. If you don't,
- Adding fresh product to spent product and removed paint adulterates the fresh product, it also dilutes it.
- Buffing with a dirty pad will be more difficult.
- The product will cake-up on the face of the pad.
- The product will become gummy on the paint and hard to wipe off.
How to clean your pads and other options to make buffing clean again...
- You can scrub the face of the pad with a nylon brush like a pad conditioning brush or even a nylon toothbrush
- If using a Dual Action Polisher or a Rotary Buffer you can clean your pad on the fly with a terry cloth towel
- You can wash your pads in a bucket of water
- You can wash your pads in a sink under running water
- You can wash your pads in a pad washer
- You can switch to a clean, dry pad
- You can switch to a brand new pad
I just buffed out half the hood on an oxidized 1959 Cadillac and used the technique along with a nylon brush and it works adequately enough to allow me to work clean and get back to work quickly.
That's the whole idea behind cleaning your pad on the fly... you can remove a majority of the
spent product and
removed paint and then get back to running the buffer... buffing out an entire car already takes a
l-o-n-g time... stopping to do some kind of pad cleaning procedure that
isn't quick and easy keeps you from buffing on the paint.
Fast methods include,
- Pad Washers
- Cleaning your pad on the fly with a terry cloth towel
- Using a nylon pad conditioning brush
- Using a Spur if you're using a wool pad on a rotary buffer
Slow methods, (they might work well but they take you away from buffing on the car)
- You can wash your pads in a bucket of water
- You can wash your pads in a sink under running water
Here's one way to clean your pads when using a PC style polisher,
How to clean your foam pad on the fly
When using a dual action polisher to remove below surface defects with any type of abrasive product you’re going to have two things building up on the face of the foam pad that you need to clean off.
- Spent residue - From the product you’re using.
- Paint - Small particles of paint that are coming off the car as you abrade the surface
If you’re working on a clear coat finish then keep in mind you won’t see the paint residue building up on the pad because the clear coat paint is clear. :idea:
Make sense?
If you’re working on a clearcoat finish, all you're going to see is the color of the product that you’re using. For example if you’re using a white colored polish you’ll see white residue building-up on the pad.
Now if you’re working on as single stage paint then you’ll see the color of the paint on the car on the face of your foam pad,. For example if you’re working on a single stage yellow paint system then you’ll see yellow paint on the face of your foam pad.
The important thing to understand is that as you work on the car with your polisher you’re going to be removing a little paint and there’s going to be used-up product
and paint building-up on the face of the foam pad. It's important to clean this gunk off your pad
often.
So the question is, how to you clean this gunk off the pad?
The answer is there’s a number of ways to clean your foam pad, the three most common are,
- Pad Washer
- Nylon Brush or Pad Cleaning Brush
- Terry Cloth Towel
Out of the 3 options listed above, cleaning your pad on the fly is probably the
most popular because it’s fast, and most people have a terry cloth towel in the linen closet that they can use to clean the pad.
The
best way to clean a pad is with a pad washer but before you can use a pad washer you must first own one. Pad washers are worth their weight in gold if you buff cars out with any kind of regularity. If however you’re just buffing out your own personal cars, then chances are you don’t own a pad washer but chances are very good you do own a terry cloth towel or two that you can use to clean your pads on the fly.
Brushes work good if you’re using a rotary buffer but the only way you can use one with DA Polisher is to turn the polisher off, hold the polisher and pad in such a way that the pad won’t spin and then rub the brush over the face of the pad to scrape off the residue.
While this works, it means turning the polisher off, (now you're not buffing out the car, remember the
time issue?) and grabbing your brush and then brushing the pad. Nothing wrong with this but when you consider how long it already takes to do the cleaning step, (about 4-6 hours for an average size car and that’s if your good at this
and if you work fast and don’t take any breaks. So stopping the polisher and using a brush to clean the pad works but it’s not as fast or effective as using a terry cloth towel.
The whole idea and success behind the
cleaning your pad on the fly technique is in that it allows you to clean your pad quickly, (that’s the
on the fly part), and then
quickly get back to work.
Again, buffing out an entire car using a dual action polisher from start to finish is an all day job. There is no time for lollygagging. If you lollygag or take long breaks, you either won’t get the job done in one day or you’ll sacrifice doing a quality job during the
cleaning step in order to get to the
waxing step so you can put the car back into service. :dunno:
So let’s take a look at how-to clean your pad on the fly
Cleaning your pad on the fly is where you take a terry cloth towel, usually a medium size hand towel works best, you fold it in two and then simply hold the towel against the face of the pad and then turn the polisher on and use your hand that’s holding the towel to push the towel into the foam. This will act to draw any excess liquid
out of the foam and any excess residue
off of the face of the pad.
This is me using the
Clean your Pad on the Fly Technique to clean my pad on the fly as we removed the oxidation off this
Neon.
:xyxthumbs:
