How to pair polishes & pads?

[nubaseal]

Are polishing pads for polishes and compounding pads for compounds or is there any overlap?

I have Optimum Polish II and all three LC HT pads. Can I use the same polish with all three pads - Cyan for deeper corrections, Tangerine for polishing and crimson to finish? I don't want to use a more aggressive polish as the paint is medium hard and the defects are moderate.

[Setec Astronomy]

The aggressiveness of the approach is based on a combination of the pad and the liquid. That being said, it would be silly to use a finishing polish on a cutting pad, where the pad is capable of more cut than the polish, and equally silly to use a compound on a finishing pad, which is too soft to "support" the abrasives in the compound.

So if we group pads and chemicals into cutting/compound, medium, and finishing. As a guideline I'd say you can move one step up or down, if that makes sense. So you could use a compound on a polishing pad, but not a finishing pad.

In your example, if you want to use your OPII by stepping down to a compounding pad, or up to a finishing pad, that should be fine. Something to think about is that for instance, cyan/OPII might be more aggressive than tangerine/Optimum Compound, but I'm just guessing on that, I'm not even sure I have a cyan pad, if I do I don't remember using it.

As an aside, I'm not sure why you are squeamish about using a "compound"; today's compounds such as M105, Optimum Compound, and Menzerna FG400/Wolfgang Uber finish very well.

[builthatch]

there is tons of overlap. this is precisely why i always sing the praises of the Hyper Twins. not only do they work forever...and with no dust, but you have the ultimate flexibility as the compound can finish up like a polish on most paints, depending on the pad...and the polish can cut like a compound, depending on the pad. once you get the combos down they can take a step out of the process and make life easier. what determines the combo for me is the paint type and damage severity. the outer ends of the paint and damage spectrum are pretty standard - hard paint with a lot of defects? cutting pad with compound (given the material thickness supports such an approach). soft paint with minimal defects? no cut pad with polish. but in-between there are a million variables so you just have to experiment with the least aggressive method that seems like it'd work, use that as a baseline, keep checking your work and then go from there. the goal obv is to remove the least amount of clear while getting as much of the defects out as necessary in the shortest time.

[nubaseal]

Thanks. I just finished my Optimum Hyper Compound and compared to M105 I just loved it. Long work time, no dust, stays clear so you can gauge the correction being achieved and easy to wipe off. Then I decided to try their polish and somebody told me their non spray able polishes work better than the sprays so I picked up polish II instead of Hyper polish. But I guess they're all pretty much the same.

I am working on a panel that gets a lot of micro marring on a daily driver so wanted to avoid the compound.