Whool vs foam pads - painted plastics

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gvds

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I'm having both a rotary (Makita 9227CB) and a DA for my car. I'm still doubting what's the best for painted plastic bumpers (and other pieces these days - including front-fenders on my X5 eg). By testing on some panels I've noticed that with the rotary and a relatively small polishing-pad (ex W8204) it's still dangerous and goes pretty fast to burn through the paint on edges/body lines.
Is it better to use a whool-pad (ex W4003) as they tend to generate less heat on the surface (as the fibers are more loose) ? Or is that still risky and better trying to correct defects with the dual-action & cutting/polishing pad ? I know the correct answer is it depends what you want to do and what you need to correct, but let's say I'm trying to remove sanding-marks from 2000 gritt (trying to get rid of some of the orange-peel on my car). Then the order could be:
1) Whool & rotary (with M105 to remove the sanding marks)
2) Foam polishing pad & DA (with M205 to bring it to high gloss)
Not sure if this is the safest/best route that will bring the results ... Any advise appreciated.
Thanks
/GV
 
It's been my experience that painted plastic panels/bumpers tend to not dissipate heat as well as painted metal panels. When paint becomes hot, it may tend to get soft. Spinning an aggressive pad (wool or foam) on paint softened by heat has got me in trouble a few times in that the paint had burned or simply was abraded so deeply that it required a lot of extra work to polish out. Things turned out to look good in the end but I am absolutely sure that way more paint had to be removed than was necessary. Had I been using a polishing pad from the start with a "let the product do the work" approach things would have and do work out better. My vote is no wool pads on painted plastic bumper covers or mirror housings.

This is my experience not my opinion.
 
This is exactly why I dislike the soft start feature and exactly why I love my Dynabrade. The Dyna has a tremendous amount of torque and you can feather the trigger to just slowly spin the pad so you don't generate heat. Heat is the enemy with plastic. Wool pads will generate less heat than foam will but of course you will need to go over the area again with wool anyway, albeit with a less aggressive (and heat generating) combo. HERE is a link where you can see how I handled a badly scratched up plastic bumper. Hope that helps.
 
richy said:
This is exactly why I dislike the soft start feature and exactly why I love my Dynabrade. The Dyna has a tremendous amount of torque and you can feather the trigger to just slowly spin the pad so you don't generate heat. Heat is the enemy with plastic. Wool pads will generate less heat than foam will but of course you will need to go over the area again with wool anyway, albeit with a less aggressive (and heat generating) combo. HERE is a link where you can see how I handled a badly scratched up plastic bumper. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Great job on that one Richy. I bet the owner was floored!
 
richy said:
This is exactly why I dislike the soft start feature and exactly why I love my Dynabrade. The Dyna has a tremendous amount of torque and you can feather the trigger to just slowly spin the pad so you don't generate heat. Heat is the enemy with plastic. Wool pads will generate less heat than foam will but of course you will need to go over the area again with wool anyway, albeit with a less aggressive (and heat generating) combo. HERE is a link where you can see how I handled a badly scratched up plastic bumper. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...


WOW!. That was fantastic write-up. Nice work.
:dblthumb2:
 
Thanks to the people who shared their experience above :thankyousign: .
Hopefully few more can explain their way of working - I'll be trying them out :)

And Richy, great write-up on the 530i detail.
 
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