Well, that was weird!

Junebug

Junebug

JAFO
I had a 2006 G35 to detail this past weekend. I got the car Saturday afternoon and washed, clayed (man did it need that!) and pulled it into the garage for a long night of buffing. Since Uno v4 is not in my arsenal yet, I was doing my MF pad combo of M105 and v3. The hood cleaned up nicely, it's a silver car by the way. I worked my way up to the top and noticed a smell. This wasn't the propane heater, or the tex-mex lunch I ate hours before, no, this was like plastic burning-***?? I looked at my pad and the center looked puffy, not flat.....o.....k....upon touching it it was really hot. OK, swap pad (now, I had cleaned the pad after every pass with compressed air) I try to pull the pad off, the MF separates from the foam and felt, the felt was like super glued in the middle, and an area the size of a silver dollar on my LC backing plate was melted. Holy smokes Batman, I left the door open and Mr. Murphy had sneaked in! The backing plate was toast, besides the melted velcro, there's a piece of felt the size of a nickle still attached. OK, I see some of you saying, JB, you weren't using the super de duper made for MF pads backing plate from Megs? No, I wasn't, but I do have one and went and got it after the LC meltdown. Back to polishing the top, this is the weird part, I make passes front to back, left to right, each time it's like I'm mowing the grass or plowing land, it's leaving buffing trails! I mean the kind that you CAN'T wipe off, clean off, or cuss off! BIG ***!!!, Damn you Murphy, I'm not in the mood for this. I get a flat white LC pad, Menz FFII and it cleans the top to perfection in 1 pass. I went back to MF and switched up to D300/M105, seemed to work the best on this car. I didn't have anymore weird places like the top either. Car finished down nicely, and owner was very happy.



Now, maybe ya'll are wondering like I was about the top, my wife swears the car had to have been repainted caused at just the right angle in the sun, the paint from the drivers side rear door was a shade darker. Maybe the top was a respray? Maybe it was Murphy or an early Halloween gift from the detailing gods? I don't know, but it sure did rock my world. Just wanted to share this and see if anybody has a theory why.
 
what size backing plate and pad?



I ask becasue for awhile there I swore that using a 6" backing plate with 5.5 pads was the ticket. I found cutting to be a bit more effective because you could really put pressure on the whole pad all the way to the edge with the KBM without risking tearing up the pads. Obviously there was a big risk with the backing plate hitting stuff though.



The problem however was that all of the pads would get really hot and do exactly what you describe in the middle of the pad, melting the backing material and part of the backing plate even at times.



Because of that I went back to the standard 5" plate with 5.5" pads and no problems since.
 
Weird! On the GG pc, speed 4 is the highest you want to go in the future. I am on BP #3. Who knows how many pads I had trouble with. At least i get replacement from the local supplier.
 
The LC backing plate was a 5" one, with Megs 5.5" MF pads. I noticed the Megs BP fits closer to the PC (I have a PCXP) - I found this out when I was holding it with my left hand, using compressed air to blow out the pad and the spinning caused a nasty little friction burn on my thumb - actually, the knuckle at the base that sticks out when you bend it.
 
Is it possible this is heat transfer from the motor through the plate? Sounds like in Audi's case the bigger backing plate allowed for more friction, which would have caused the motor to work more and heat up. I can't imagine enough heat being caused by the pad on the paint to melt the backing plate without burning the paint as well.
 
I don't think it was heat transfer from the motor, and when I say "melted the backing plate" - I'm talking about the velcro finger like things that hook onto the felt of the pad. I know, I know, PICTURES WOULD HELP, yep, got it. Just don't have a decent way of getting that done.



And, not planning on calling LC or Megs, 25 bucks ain't gonna break me. I'll just be more observant next time.
 
I didn't read what buffer you were using, but I have noticed a silver dollar sized brown outlined circle on the back of my lc ht pads (they have a white colored velcro) used on my flex. I've never gotten anything like that with years of using a pc (non xp) at speed 6 almost exclusively.
 
My pads sure do get warm and I only use an older original PC7424 so I could see the XP or GG DA melting some backing plates if you run them long enough
 
I have yet to torch a BP, and up until a couple weeks ago have never ever melted a pad, even with the abuse I put them through. THe pads I did kill were the 1st batch of MF DA Megs pads, but they were just center delam that happened not while polishing but while cleaning(which was so much more annoying). No serious heat either.
 
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