Backing plates and pads for a Meguairs DA

[Romach]

Hi all,

Hoping you can advise me.

I am in Scotland and find a lot of great stuff from AG is not available here! Its a pain in the butt!

I got a meguairs 220 ( same as 110) DA and pads maroon, black and yellow.

I have 7 inch pads and was wondering what other pads and plates you would recommend.

Can I add a porter carpet brush and if do what ones?


I tend to use blackfire polish or wolfgang, but am open to advise on trying new products.

I moved from claybars to nanoskin and wow what an evolution!

Regards,

Ronan

[BobbyG]

Hi Ronan,

All of the Porter Cable "style" dual action polishers incorporate the same mounting thread, 5/16-24, and this includes the Meguiar's machine. Personally, I prefer the 5" pads on these machines to improve the machines overall efficiency and performance.

Any attachment using the standard 5/16-24 thread will fit including the carpet brushes.

The Porter Cable 7424xp

• Porter Cable 7424xp
• Lake Country Backing Plate
• Lake Country Flat Pads
• Meguiar's DA Microfiber Correction Kit

Foam Pads

Yellow Cutting Foam - Use this pad to apply compounds or polishes to remove severe oxidation, swirls, and scratches. It is the most aggressive and should only be used on oxidized and older finishes. Always follow this pad with an orange or white pad and a fine polish to refine the paint until it is smooth.

Orange Light Cutting Foam - Firm, high density foam for scratch and defect removal. Use this pad with polishes and swirl removers. It’s an all-around pad that will work on most light to moderate imperfections.

White Polishing Foam - Less dense foam formula for the application of waxes, micro-fine polishes and sealants. This pad has very light cutting power so it’s perfect for pre-wax cleaners.

Gray Finishing Foam Pad - Composition is firm enough to withstand added pressure during final finishing to remove buffer swirls. It has no cut and will apply thin, even coats of waxes, sealants, and glazes.

Blue Finessing Foam – Pad has soft composition for applying glaze, finishing polish, sealants, and liquid waxes. Flat pad provides full contact with paint surface to minimize the pressure applied by the user.

[Romach]

Thanks BobbyG! Much appreciated!

[Christopher.Brown]

I would definitely switch ASAP the 5" pads as Bobby G said because:

With any pad, the further away the edge of the pad is from the center-point the less pressure and support it will have. Think about trying to support a regular piece of paper with 2 hands. Should be easy enough to keep it relatively straight. Now increase the paper to double the size, its a bit harder to stabilize right?

Also, on a properly used machine, the pressure is concentrated in the center to provide adequate and even pressure to the entire pad face. So the further away from center the more then pressure is dispersed and therefore lost at the outermost edges of the pad.

The larger the pad the more power the machine will have to generate in order to adequately move the pad under working conditions. Basically, the more mass an object has the more force needed to move it right? This is why volkswagen bug engines arent powering semi trucks.

So by shrinking the pad from the enormous 7" to the much smaller 5" you will see greater speed, increased rotation, and will notice newfound ease in providing all surfaces of the pad with EVEN pressure.

[Mike Phillips]

So by shrinking the pad from the enormous 7" to the much smaller 5" you will see greater speed, increased rotation, and will notice newfound ease in providing all surfaces of the pad with EVEN pressure.

Exactly. I cover this in my how-to book, it's really simple. See pages 76 and 77.

Here's a phrase I coined years ago....

Thin is in....


When it comes to the Porter Cable style tool, so this would include the Porter Cable, Griot's Garage and Meguiar's dual action polishers as well as all the knock-offs of the Porter Cable, a thinner pad will rotate under pressure much better than a thicker pad.

Want proof?

Just look at how thin the Meguiar's Xtra Cut Microfiber pads are, they are about 1/8th of an inch thin.

This microfiber pad and the matching compound are intended to do a very good job of replacing the work in the detailing industry traditionally performed by a rotary buffer. This means squeezing every bit of correction ability possible out of a Porter Cable or in this example a Meguiar's DA polisher. And this is in part done by making the Xtra cut pad thin so the tool can maintain pad rotation/oscillation for heavy correction work.


Almost 4 years ago when the Hydro-Tech pads were introduced I wrote this article and in it are high resolution pictures showing the dramatic difference between traditional foam buffing pads for DA polishers and the TREND (all the way back then), for new pads moving into the future.

Thin is in...