The chunks you see flying out is called,
pilling
Think of a "pill", like an asprin. These chunks are a collection of excess product rolling into a ball called a pill. It's usually a sign of using too much product and/or using too much product and not cleaning your pad.
After buffing a section of paint you need to take a nylon brush and scrape off the gunk on the face of the pad.
I wrote an article about this in 2010 - 6 years ago. It's also in all my how-to books.
Why it's important to clean your pads often...
When you're buffing out a car it's important to clean your pads often. By cleaning your pad often you will work faster and you will enable your pad and product to work more effectively. Be sure to have both clean terry cloth towels on hand and also a nylon pad cleaning brush. It's also a good idea to have plenty of pads so as a pad becomes wet with product you can switch over to a clean dry pad. Dry pads work better than wet pads.
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,
- You increase your chances of leaving micro-marring in the paint.
- 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.
- You can used compressed air to blow off residue.
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
How to clean your pad with a nylon brush
Here's how to clean a pad with a nylon brush.
NOTE: you do this with the polisher turned OFF.
