5" and 6" Backing Plates on 6.5" pads (Pictures to show safety margin)

[TheGLL]

Exactly! If you take a look at the stock pad that comes n the box with the PC-7424XP, the 5 inch plate, 6.5 inch pad combo most closely resembles the stock setup for maximum safety.

Once you are comfortable with the machine and confident in your ability, feel free to try other plate/pad combos.

Great, thanks for the information.

[Mike Phillips]

***Update***

I just went out into the AGTG and tested out both the 5" and the 6" backing plates on 3 different 6.5" CCS pads, these included the orange cutting pad, the white polishing pad and the gray/black finishing pads and both backing plates worked perfectly fine with these size pads.

Here's something important to consider...

The cutting and polishing pads use foam that are quite a bit denser or stiffer than any of the finishing foam pad formulas and this makes a big difference in how the size of a backing plate works with the pad as does the SPEED SETTING.

With foam cutting and polishing pads you're going to be at the higher speed settings, typically 4.0 to 6.0 with most people primarily using 5.0 to 6.0

Because the foam is stiffer for these pads then at these speed settings the smaller backing plate still works just fine with more safety margin around the outside of the pad where there's no backing plate.

Foam finishing pads should be used on the lower speed settings because if you're using a soft, foam finishing pad you should be done with the work steps or the correction steps and applying either a non-abrasive glaze or polish or a finishing wax, thus you don't need the high speeds and should be using the 3.0 to 4.0 speed settings.

At these speeds with the softer, less stiff foam pad formulas, again, the smaller 5" backing plates work just fine.

[TheGLL]

^^ Thanks for the update.

[Tesla]

This seems confusing and contradictory to me.

[Mike Phillips]

This seems confusing and contradictory to me.

Please elaborate?

I thought what I wrote made perfect sense, especially after just going out and running the two polishers with identical backing plates with all the different pads mentioned at the listed recommended speed settings.

Everything looked, felt and worked normal and perfect. Actually would have taken a video but couldn't peel away a warm body to run the camera.

I'm going to look into a remote for the T1i

[Rsurfer]

I think the problem with a 5" bp and the 6.5" pads are mainly with the PC7424 and not with the newer XP. The older pc just doesn't have the power to spin a 6.5" pad with a 5" bp or a 6" bp.

[D_Nyholm]

I didn't realize this thread was still going on. I am going to have to take a quick video of what happens when I use the 6.5" white pad (not low profile) on a porter cable 7424 at speed 6 so you can show me what I am doing wrong. It is honestly unuseable. I can slow it down, but then it won't break down the polish for a LONG time. Hopefully i can get a quick vid up this weekend to show you.

Thanks

[Mike Phillips]

I didn't realize this thread was still going on. I am going to have to take a quick video of what happens when I use the 6.5" white pad (not low profile) on a porter cable 7424 at speed 6 so you can show me what I am doing wrong. It is honestly unuseable.

Speed 6 on any of the DA Polishers is pretty fast, you need to make sure you don't turn the polisher on until it's in contact with the paint at all times.

You're not holding this in the air and doing this are you?

[D_Nyholm]

Speed 6 on any of the DA Polishers is pretty fast, you need to make sure you don't turn the polisher on until it's in contact with the paint at all times.

You're not holding this in the air and doing this are you?

No Sir! I could have the polisher off, start it on while being on the paint and slowly turn it up. After about speed 4, the pad starts to get floppy, but 5-6, it is all over the place and unuseable.

[Mike Phillips]

***Update***

Here's 5" backing plates on 5.5" pads to show how they fit. Shown are the Meguiar's W67DA and the Edge DA 500 on 5.5" Hydro-Tech pads and 5.5" CCS pads

5.5" Hydro-Tech pads



5.5" CCS pads