Home made small pads (well sorta)

P

Preachers Sheets

New member
Ok, so I have 8 pads for the rotary that I barely use:



4 Meguiars soft buff w-7000 cutting pad

4 #m perfect-it plus polishing pad 05738



Long story short, the are HUGE, it's hard (for me at least, likely not others) to detail any car with alot of curves. I dont have alot of cash to blow now on 8 new pads so I decided to cut 2 of each up to make 6 inch pads. They look like they came out really well. The only thing I noticed that may be an issue is the new outside edge of the pads and I trimmed that so it wont really touch the paint.



I'm going to use them tomorrow, I'll let you know if they made detailing easier.



I'm trying to save up for a Mytee II extractor so I want to do a few jobs with this machine over the winter and keep the cash aside.



































 
Actually this is a topic I had been thinking about the last few weeks. I mostly used 4" pads, but some pads don't come in a 4" size, so I was curious if there was a method to cut down pads for this usage. Let us know how they work



I guess my initial concerns would be, can they stand up for will they just fall apart. Also would the cut edges actually mar or cause damage. How to cut them (compress them maybe and cut with a very sharp razor blade vs cutting them expanded).



I guess I would love to see how the pro companies cut or make theirs. Methods of cutting, shaving or even if they sand. Maybe I will do a few searches and see what I come up with.



anyway thanks for the experiment.



chris
 
cshorey - It's not that bad at all. I dont even compress the pads. What I do is put the backing plate on dead center (got to make sure it's dead center). Then I just trim around the backing plate using the plate as a cooker cutter/stencil. I keep the top half of the scissors flush up against the side of the backing plate so each cut is perfect and the pad is wider at the top or bottom. From there just look at the pad and if your uncomfortable with the outside bottom edge, just snip around it so on the 1% of the outside edge of the pad wont touch.



I should make a video and youtube it!!! I would feel like such a movie star.
 
FYI, razor blades cut foam pads like butter and allow for very clean cuts.



A while back I bought a garbage wen rotary from a pawn shop and it had a rubber backing plate to fit 7.5 inch pads. I cut that down with shears and now use it with 6.5 inch pads.



Good job of thinking outside of the box BTW!
 
I cut some Megs 8 inch pads down to 6 inches. I'd suggest taking the sharp edge of the front of the pad and trimming it at a 45 degree angle to allow it to float over edges easier.
 
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