Detailing a beater! - 1972 Buick Riviera Boattail - Review: Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads

[Mike Phillips]

Detailing a beater! - 1972 Buick Riviera Boattail - Review: Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads


I work on new cars, old cars, customs, classis, muscle cars, streetrods, exotics and daily drivers... but my favorite type of cars to buff out are beaters! You know, cars that for the most part have been given up on and are dilapidated and a lot of the time, one gas tank away from the salvage yard.


1972 Buick Riviera Boattail Beater!





This is a true barn find
I was discovered in a barn and put up for sale on eBay and long story short it found it's way here at Autogeek and my natural reaction after looking at it was to wash it and buff it out.


Here's what storing a car in a barn for around 20 years can do to the paint...







Yes... that's called texture





And this is called rust










Review: Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads

Our good friends and sponsor of our TV show Competition Ready just introduced these new pads primarily for the FLEX 3401 and rotary buffers.

Since I was going to buff out this car anyway I decided to test out the more aggressive pads in this new line including the first three pads on the left hand side,

Force Hybrid Blue Wool Pad, Force Hybrid Grey Pad and Force Hybrid Orange Pad




Here's my review

The grey cutting pad is stiff. Like really stiff and hard. The foam is sharp and it's a fast cutting pad. For this type of buffing, that is using a one-step cleaner/wax it was too stiff to work the rough, textured paint.

The blue wool pad is fluffy. I think this pad would work well for neglected clearcoat paints but on this old rough single stage paint it was cutting it well but not leaving the gloss I was looking for out of doing only one-step.

The orange cutting pad was perfect. This pad offers more flexibility than the grey pad and more stiffness than the wool pad and it felt good churning and turning the HD Speed over this severely neglected paint.







More pads are better
I only had a single sample of each pad so after buffing out the front clip using the three new Force Hybrid pads I then switched over to the normal 6.5" Hybrid Blue Foam Cutting pads to finish the car. In a lot of my posts you see me recommending that when doing any compounding, polishing or when using one-step cleaner/waxes, to use lots of pads. The reason why is because when using foam pads, the foam will become wet with product and when this happens performance falls off. So you get better results and can work faster by switching to a fresh pad often. For this car I used 9 pads altogether.





And here's the results using only a one-step cleaner/wax and then punishing the FLEX 3401 aka the BEAST!



























Yeah... it's not perfect but it's the best it's ever going to get. See my article here,


"Taking your car's paint to it's maximum potential"




The new pads?

They're great. When you finally wear out your normal pads you turn and churn on the FLEX 3401 or a rotary buffer, switch over to these.



On Autogeek.com


Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads - 6.5"


Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads - 5.5 inch


Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads - 3.5 inch

[dragan75]

Nice beatiful car and collor

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[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Here's some info on each pad


Lake Country Force Hybrid Foam Pads








And the one-step cleaner/wax I used was


3D HD Speed - 32 ounce





Also available in 16 ounce


3D HD Speed - 16 ounce

[BadgerRivFan]

Beater? You're killing me Mike! LOL...

Great car! The '71-'73 Boattail Riv's are truly "love 'em or hate 'em" cars. Not a lot of gray area with this body style as far as how people feel about them. My first Riv was a '73 GS. I love the boattails and it's great to see an original car like this one preserved. Make sure the owner joins the Riviera Owners Association!

[adamgayton81]

Not too shabby Mike! Looks pretty good for what it was.


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[Mike Phillips]

Nice beatiful car and collor

The color is interesting. In person it looks like a Jolly Rancher Sour Apple

Beater? You're killing me Mike! LOL...

Great car! The '71-'73 Boattail Riv's are truly "love 'em or hate 'em" cars. Not a lot of gray area with this body style as far as how people feel about them. My first Riv was a '73 GS. I love the boattails and it's great to see an original car like this one preserved. Make sure the owner joins the Riviera Owners Association!

I'll share the link to this thread with the owner.

Not too shabby Mike! Looks pretty good for what it was.

Thanks, I agree. Especially when besides washing the heck out of her the only other thing I did was go around it ONE TIME with the BEAST, some primarily foam pads and an AIO

[damaged442]

Love those Riv boattails!! I will own one eventually! Great car with very unique styling!!

Excellent work again, sir!

[dragan75]

The color is interesting. In person it looks like a Jolly Rancher Sour Apple








I'll share the link to this thread with the owner.






Thanks, I agree. Especially when besides washing the heck out of her the only other thing I did was go around it ONE TIME with the BEAST, some primarily foam pads and an AIO

I was thinkthat is green like english like jaguar or rover? I like old american cars they have soul today to much plastic...for me

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[Mike Phillips]

I was thinkthat is green like english like jaguar or rover?

The pictures of the car make it look darker than it looks in person, it's actually a brighter green, looks like a candy green.

I like old american cars they have soul today to much plastic...for me

I agree. That's one of the reason I drive old Chevy trucks. Paint and chrome. No plastic.

[Klasse Act]

The car came out great for what it is!

What state is that car from?