I purchased the UDM and some edge pads a while back and finally got to use them during the weekend. I have never polished my car before and it really needed it. I have always washed and waxed during its 12 year life but it has been swirled greatly over its lifetime. I started to just work on the hood with some compound ( Opt. Hyp. Cpd. 50% / Opt. Pl 50%) on a green pad and really did not notice any difference, then I switched to a yellow pad and it was working but slowly. I then switched to an orange pad and really pressed down on the UDM while polishing at speed 6. This seemed to work the best. I knocked off about 80% of the swirls over 3 hours on my hood. It probably would have been only an hour and half if I started with the orange first. I'm trying to find what the cut of the orange pad is. I've seen pad descriptions for the yellow, green, blue, and white but nothing on the orange. Does anyone know whether that is best cutting foam or is there a better one from edge. I was suprised how much vibration the UDM puts out. My hands were tingling after the 3 hour session. I will probably purchase those mechanix gloves to soften the vibrations to my hands. How long must optimum be worked into the surface. I never could tell if I was done because it never dusted and never seemed to dissappear. I just went ahead and wiped down with a 50/50 iso-water solution after about 20 minutes of polishing. I might have used to much ( I know everyone says to use 3 pea sized drops per pad, but really, who for the first time follows that advice). I am very impressed with the optimum polish, it seemed to really bring out the clarity of the finish (just like when I bought it). So if anyone can advise me as to when you can tell when optimum is finished and needs reapplication and what edge 2k pads have the greatest cut I would appreciate it.:thx