When getting into polishing your car for the first time, polishing & buffing pad types are often overlooked. We typically think about all the times we waxed and polished our car by hand. This typically involved washing the car, applying a polish and wax and calling it a day. As we move up from random orbital polishers to dual action or rotary polishers important questions are asked like “what is the difference between buffing and polishing pads?” Or, “what are the different types of polishing pads?” It is important to understand that there are a variety of pad types each with a specific role. The difference in these polishing pad types help to get us that professional polished look we are all after.
POLISHING PAD FASTENING STYLES
There are two types of polishing pad fastening styles depending on your polisher:
- Slip on style polishing pad
- This type of polishing pad fits on your polisher like a sock. Most of the cheaper, beginner, random orbital polishers feature this style of buffing pad fastener. Typically the random orbital polishers will have a foam style backing piece that your polishing pads will slip over and attach to.
- Hook and loop pads
- This style is what most polishers have as you graduate up from the beginner polisher types. Most polishers that are dual action and rotary will be of this design including the popular Porter Cable 7424XP, Flex polishers, Rupes polishers, Torq polishers, Meguiar’s G3500 DA polishers, Makita and Dewalt polishers.
POLISHING PAD MATERIALS
One question we hear a lot is “what are the different colour buffing pads for?” There are many polishing pad types that you can get for your polisher if you are using the hook and loop fastening setup. It is both extremely important as well as beneficial for you to match the type of polishing pad to the type of polish / wax you are using.
FOAM & HEX-LOGIC PADS
These buffing pads are easily identifiable by the hexagonal raised pattern they feature across the entire surface of the polishing pad. They are made with a durable high quality foam. Since there are many companies that make this style pad, my below reference in colour and type is based off of the quantum hex-logic pads carried by chemical guys.
Yellow Heavy Cut Polishing Pad
This pad is the most aggressive of the hex-logic polishing pads. It is best to use this pad to apply heavy cutting compounds or polishes in an effort to remove severe oxidation, swirls and or scratches on your cars finish. If using this pad you must step your way back down to the less aggressive pads.
Orange Medium To Heavy Cutting Polishing Pad
The second most aggressive hex-logic pad. Use with high cutting polishing compounds to remove scratches from your cars finish. Being a fairly aggressive pad, you must work your way down with less aggressive pads and polishes after using this for paint correction.
Green Heavy Polishing Pad
- Use this pad with your less aggressive polishes to remove swirls and scuffs in your cars finish. For those that don’t have scratches in their car that they have had to use a rubbing compound on to remove. This is pad is ideal for using a swirl remover to get out swirl marks.
White Medium To Light Polishing Pad
This pad is great for applying pre-wax cleaners and many finishing polishes.
Blue Polishing Pad
This pad is great for applying all glazes and ultra fine polishes. It will deliver a super fine finish. I will typically use my Nufinish polish with this pad before moving to my finishing pads for wax
Black Finishing Polishing Pad
This pad features no cutting capabilities and is perfect for applying waxes, sealants and glazes.
Red Ultra Fine Finish Polishing Pad
This pad features no cutting capabilities and is perfect for applying high end waxes and sealants.
Closed Cell Foam Pads
The types of foam buffing pads are not hex logic. They contain pockets of closed foam that prevent product from soaking into them. This helps reduce product waste
WOOL POLISHING PADS
Just as it sounds, these pads feature a wool finish surface used to polish your car. They are an aggressive style pad that allow for a lot of cutting power to remove scratches and oxidization in your cars finish.
Uro-Wool Pads
Featuring a non twisted wool knitting. This technology eliminates wool fiber lint that typically comes off of a traditional wool buffing pad. With the lack of interface between wool fibers and the backing material, the polisher is able to move in a more directed manner on the paint surface. This means cutting down on paint correction time and cycles.
Traditional Wool Pads
Wool polishing pads are the most aggressive cutting capabilities in this category. These buffing pads are generally made out of 100% wool that has been twisted into hundreds of strands. These pads also tend to cake up with compound quicker. In addition, they also transfer more heat from the polisher to the paint surface than their foam counterparts. For this reason, we don’t recommend a beginner use these pads.
Hybrid Wool Pads
Just as they sound, these pads are partially wool and partially a synthetic material. Depending on the ratio of wool to synthetic material you will generally get a slightly less aggressive pad that does not cake up with compound as easily.
MICROFIBER PADS
These are constructed just like your microfiber clothes, many strands of synthetic material woven together to form a dense surface. Microfiber polishing pads are popular in the market and come in just about every size imaginable. These are great for cutting to fix moderate scratches and paint corrections. For best results always finish with a foam pad.
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