Need help getting a med/heavy cut polish, and getting my products and pads sorted out!

[Jester7677]

The products, tools and cars I have are below for context. I'm a play it safe first mentality with the paint, but it's not working out on a few situations. Here are my questions:

1) Which Med/Heavy Polish to get? I like the speed of M205 with White or Orange pads for the lighter and easier spider webbing and making the paint glossy, but it does nothing for some of of the peskier lines. M105? M101? UC? I was thinking more toward UC but open for thoughts.

2) Pads and backing plate for Flex... As you can see below, for the Flex I have 6.5" CCS' but I wonder if I'm really missing something special by not changing up to a smaller backing plate and using Hybrids, Surfbuf or Microfiber. Thoughts? I think I'm fine with the pads for the PC as I'm using that for some of the tighter areas, which on the Audi is much of it. I do prefer using the Flex so going smaller on the backing plate is a thought.



Background

I primarily work on 3 cars, though I would like to get an occasional paid job. Those cars are...

2017 Audi TTS (Grey Metallic. Has a few stubborn spider web lines that M205 on any orange pad would not fix)
2014 Honda Civic (Grey Metallic. Has some Medium scratches masked by silicone from the used car dealer. Will probably have to Wet Sand with 3000 then polish)
2012 Honda Pilot (Silver. Has a few light scratches that M205 on Orange or White would not fix on 2 attempts)


The buffers I have are:

Flex 3401 VRG with standard backing plate and using 6.5" pads
PC with 3" backing plate and using 3.5' pads

Pads:

For use with Flex I have 6.5" Lake Country CCS Smart Pads.
1 Yellow
2 Orange
2 White

For use with PC I have 3.5" Lake Country ThinPro Foam Pad System
2 Orange
2 White
2 Dark Grey finishing pads

Product:
Light Polish: M205 (Enough to choke a horse, and I found it to work really well, so not changing this)
Med/Heavy Polish: NONE

[dcjredline]

Id recommend you do a search man. There are TONS of threads on what pads / polish / compounds. TONS.

[dlc95]

While finishing polishes can remove light damage, they're not intended to do major corrective work. They're designed to restore maximum gloss after compounding.

To ask a finishing polish to remove stubborn damage is to expect it to do something it was not designed to do. There are caveats though. M205 on a microfiber finishing pad is pretty potent...

Consider trying a heavy cut product like Ultimate Compound. For less cut, try M86 Solo Cut and Polish Cream. It was Meguiar's first SMAT abrasive product. It was part of a system that was based around a "one liquid, multiple pad" approach, capable of heavy correction, and final polishing.

Another option would be Menzerna MC2500. It's a medium cut polish that behaves almost like a compound and a finishing polish all in one bottle. It has more cut than the M205, and finishes about as well as M205. One of my all time favorite, time saving polishes.

[Mike Phillips]

The products, tools and cars I have are below for context. I'm a play it safe first mentality with the paint, but it's not working out on a few situations. Here are my questions:

1) Which Med/Heavy Polish to get?

I reviewed these two new twins recently and was impressed.


Jescar Correcting Compound and Micro Finishing Polish - Top Shelf Abrasive Technology






[QUOTE=Jester7677;1501693]

2) Pads and backing plate for Flex... As you can see below, for the Flex I have 6.5" CCS' but I wonder if I'm really missing something special by not changing up to a smaller backing plate and using Hybrids, Surfbuf or Microfiber.



Three words....


Turn and churn...


The FLEX 3401 will turn any pad and any product, it's not that finicky.


I've always used the 6.5" Hybrids for my own work and for my FLEX 3401 classes, even recommend them in my FLEX how-to book. The taper design has a function and the various pad offerings (foam formulas), cover everything you need to do.

That said, the FLEX 3401 will turn and churn any pad. I'd avoid fiber pads as with this tool they will micro-mar the paint. No big deal if you understand that and plan on doing a follow-up step with foam to remove the micro-marring.

[BudgetPlan1]

M101 and LC Force pads can do some heavy/medium lifting with not much trouble. A gray pad w 101 can really cut to the chase on severely donked paint. Usually use the 6" pads with stock backing plate for horizontal surfaces, switch to 4 3/8 plate with 5" pads for vertical. 6 pads per vehicle generally, mix of 5 & 6".

[Paul A.]

You have what may be 2 extremes on the paint hardness/softness scale too. Every Audi I've done has been at least medium to very hard and the few Honda's I've done have been on the soft end.

[Jester7677]

Ok went with...

Jescar Correcting Compound
Flex 4.5" Backing plate
Lake Country Force Hybrid 5.5" pads

Thanks!

[Paul A.]

Good choices.