Review: RUPES NEW D-A COARSE Foam Pads - Boat Polishing

[Mike Phillips]

Review: RUPES NEW D-A COARSE Foam Pads - Boat Polishing



For the last few years I switched my boat detailing classes over to the original RUPES blue coarse foam cutting pads - for polishing.

Why?

Because marine gelcoats don't like soft foam polishing pads for the polishing step. When doing a multiple step boat correction process, after the compounding step, if you use a SOFT foam polishing or finishing pad, it seems to almost dull the results created by the compounding step. So years a go I started experimenting with SHARPER, Harder more COARSE foam pad. What I found is gelcoat, again in the context of doing a multiple-step restoration process, reacts better to dry, sharp coarse foam pads for final polishing than soft foam pads.

Besides showing the RUPES coarse blue foam pads for polishing in my boat detailing classes I've also shared this in my boat detailing book as well as with all the local boat detailers. The results from this are a lot of happy people because they have found a process that works to get the gelcoat back to factory new appearance and actually better than factory new appearance.


Bad news

Once RUPES announced they were introducing a new line of foam pads and discontinuing the original blue coarse foam pads, I've had people reaching out to me asking if the new blue coarse foam pads work as good as the original blue coarse foam pads. I also know by talking to people and reading comments online about this topic that people have been stocking up on the original blue coarse foam pad while they can still get them. This morning, while assembling some new pads for the pictures you'll see below - the largest, that is the 180mm or 7" blue coarse foam pads are completely out of stock. As though there's been a run on this pad.


The good news
The good news is - the new foam formula RUPES has introduced for the new blue coarse foam pad is still sharp and coarse and works just as well and possibly better than the original blue coarse foam pad.


Real world testing

I may be the first guy to use the new blue coarse foam pad on gelcoat, or at least the first guy to photo-document it when this last weekend I used the new RUPES D-A blue coarse foam pads for the polishing step after first machine sanding and then machine compounding a 23' Formula Center Console. I benchmarked the new blue coarse foam pad against the original BigFoot blue coarse foam pads and cannot see any visible difference in the finish results. This is great news because creating a show car finish on gelcoat is a lot more difficult than doing the same on car paint. Gelcoat just reacts differently because it's chemical composition is very different than clearcoat paint. In fact, gelcoat is closer in chemical make-up to old single stage paints because the pigment is IN the resin you're actually touching or more specifically your products and pads are touching. That is to say, there is no clear layer over gelcoat.


So fear not, while a staple in the boat detailing world for machine polishing for show car results is going away - the new kid on the block is more than able to take it's place.


Here's a few pictures of the pads being discontinued and the new kids on the block.


From left to right,

Mille pads, BigFoot pads and the new D-A pads for use with ALL RUPES orbital polishers.





From the horizontal point of view you can see how THIN the Mille pads are, the TAPER of the BigFoot pads and the new CONTOUR profile of the new RUPES D-A Foam pads.





This new contour profile design is actual PATENTED by RUPES.





The original BigFoot pads use a TAPER design

These pads were for use with the BigFoot 21, 15, Duetto, Mini and Nano tools.





The Mille pads are very thin and in my opinion and experience with gear-driven polishers - too thin.
(Now that they're being discontinued so could be I'm vindicated)





Close-up of Pore Structure

Let's take a close-up look at what makes the NEW RUPES D-A blue coarse foam cutting pads different from the originals.




Closer...





More closer...






Really close!

It's easy to see the NEW RUPES D-A blue foam cutting pad uses the same style of cell wall structure it's just a lot smaller.





For context, I present a Push-Pin











On Autogeek.com


All RUPES products




ALL the new RUPES foam pads should be on the AG store site in the next day or so. I saw pallets of them arrive into the warehouse yesterday.






And of course, "YES" these blue pads work great on car paint when you need to do paint correction.

[Mike Phillips]

More info...


Here's the write-up I did for the boat we detailed over the weekend with a few pictures from the gelcoat polishing step....

Review: 3D Ceramic Coating on a Marine Gelcoat Boat



Machine polishing - Hologram removal

Wool pads with compounds applied using a direct-drive, single rotation tools, aka the rotary polisher leaves hologram scratches. That's a known fact. Doesn't matter what brand of tool, pad or product you use. So the goal of the next step is to remove the hologram scratches to create a perfectly smooth hologram-free finish.

To ensure uniform results (because there was a LOT of sanding and buffing involved), Royce and I would switch from bow to stern though the process - this way no matter what our own personal styles were for running our polishers - the odds would be greater that every square millimeter of gel-coat was thoroughly sanded, compounded and polished and this means uniform end results.






Boat Detailing Classes

I teach a LOT of technique in my boat detailing classes. I only teach it once a year and it's always in February. Get this, 50% of the people that take this class are boat owners, that is boat enthusiasts, NOT Boat Detailers. So just because you don't detail boats for dollars doesn't mean you shouldn't attend the class. And if you are a boat detailer or want to add boat detailing to your car detailing business - then get signed-up. My car detailing and boat detailing classes are the MOST HANDS-ON classes on Planet Earth and also the most photo-documented for the longest time. You cannot find car and boat detailing classes anywhere that are photo-documented as well or as for long as my classes. And they all show the same thing - people on their feet working and learning by doing, not sitting in chairs.








Gelcoat don't like soft, mushy pads for polishing

This is the NEW RUPES D-A Coarse Blue Foam Cutting Pad and it works just as great as the first generation BigFoot blue coarse pads, which by the way are being discontinued.






These are the pads from just ONE side of the boat. The small pads were from buffing around the graphics on the back of the boat using the RUPES Nano Long Neck.







As you can see, buffing pads will load up with the product you're using and this tends to SOFTEN the pads. Soft wet pads do not perform the same as clean dry pads. You lose the "polishing action".





So have plenty of foam pads on hand for the polishing step. You cannot wash and rinse foam pads thinking you can then go back to work with the pad because even though it may be clean it will still be WET.

[The Guz]

Thanks Mike for showing the differences between these pads. One of the things that I did not like about the original blue pads was the amount of sling and dust it would throw based on the foam structure. Don't get me wrong the old blue pads did cut well.

[Mike Phillips]

Thanks Mike for showing the differences between these pads. One of the things that I did not like about the original blue pads was the amount of sling and dust it would throw based on the foam structure.

Copy that. I think it was in part due to the LARGE cell structure. My guess is if you and I both know about this characteristic the fine folks at RUPES also know about this characteristic via the plethora of feedback in the way of comments on all social media platforms and they took this feedback and came out with a new foam pad. And one of the changes is the smaller pore structure, which is why I took this photos.


It's easy to see the NEW RUPES D-A blue foam cutting pad uses the same style of cell wall structure it's just a lot smaller.

Don't get me wrong the old blue pads did cut well.

As well as finish down really nice to considering how sharp, coarse and aggressive they are.


From 2014, I wrote this shorty after the 2013 SEMA show...


Mind Blowing - Rupes Blue Foam Cutting Pad and Zephir Gloss Coarse Gel Compound


Something that was absolutely mind blowing at SEMA was demonstrating the RUPES Duetto with the RUPES COARSE blue foam cutting pad on a BLACK demonstration panel.


The paint was flawless and looked like we just removed a show car wax.


Did this over and over and over and over again for 4 day in a row, thousands of eyeballs watching under incredibly bright lights. Here's a picture or the RUPES Duetto with their coarse, blue foam cutting pad and our black demo panel.




Anyone watching we would first have them FEEL a clean, blue Rupes foam cutting pad. They would always say,

WOW!



Because it feels so aggressive and scratchy. Then I would do the demo, wipe off the residue and voilà --> a show car finish. How can a pad so course and sharp finish out so nice on black paint?

It's MIND BLOWING.


Can I get a witness? We had plenty of forum members stop by the booth and watch the demo.

[Mike Phillips]

The new RUPES pads, compounds and products are now in stock at Autogeek.

AND it's ON SALE!


The NEW RUPES PADS and PRODUCTS





Good stuff!

[Markymapo]

I still have about 5 of the original Blue (unopened) and 10 used. Looks like I need to get some of the newer version for polishing up the Cobalt when it comes out for winter storage(1 month left in the season as the docks come out around the lake up here in NE PA, so sad)

[John U]

Order placed for the new "Yeller" and White D-A's