Rotary polisher jumping...

[mats]

I polished my boat today using a rotary, Menzernas marine one step polish and Lake country cutting wool pad. The first couple of sections went fine, but quite soon the pad started jumping and became very hard to control. Not only did it jump but it got stuck on the surface and jerked violently. The only way to get it smooth was to angle it a bit to get access to wool that had no polish on it. I regurarly used a towel and a spur to clean it but it didnt help.

Is it so that a wool pad has a very short life span befire cleaning, so that polishing a boat would mean having &-6 wool pads available?

 

[Paul A.]

I avoid that condition by swapping out wool pads more often than foam pads. I find wool pads and too much product cause that for me. I clean my wool pad after every single section but still find they accumulate product and probably paint quicker and therefore grab a fresh pad faster, especially on boats.

The few boats I have done have been even worse than vehicle paint. It seems they tend to expose dead gelcoat and lots of it. My tool of choice, like you, has been my rotary for the fastest cut and work time. But that means a LOT of product and paint builds up. As soon as I get "the jumps" I stop and retire that wool pad.

Once I've cut down all the crap and refine the gloss with my Flex 3401 and foam pads it goes much easier.

A good rule of thumb for me is to double the number of wool pads I might use on a vehicle. if I might use 6-8 on a severely neglected car I'll plan for 12-16 on a boat. Two reasons...lots of crap to remove and most likely more surface area to work.

 

[tomsteve]

it reads like it could be too much product on the wool pad.
i have a spur i used to clean and break up my wool pad occasionally.