Tried mirror polishing with a wool pad instead of foam last week

I've been doing bumper repairs for about 8 years now and always used foam pads for the final polish. Last week at a shop in Nashville I ran out of foam so I grabbed a wool pad just to finish a 2018 silver Accord. The difference was night and day honestly, took half the time and the reflection was way deeper. I still had to follow up with a finer compound but the base cut was so much quicker. Has anyone else switched to wool for certain jobs or am I late to this?

2 comments

2 Comments

richard_hall27d ago

Hang on, I gotta push back a little. I've tried wool on a few bumpers and it just left micro marring that I had to buff out all over again. Maybe you got lucky with that particular clear coat on the Accord, but I've seen wool dig into softer paints like on some Nissan builds and it's a nightmare. Plus, that heat buildup can cook the clear if you're not careful, I learned that the hard way. I'm not saying foam is perfect but wool feels like overkill for a daily driver bumper repair.

ben43627d ago

Oh man, I actually saw a forum post recently where a guy tested wool on a bunch of different OEM clear coats and the Nissan stuff was way softer than the Honda stuff! He said the heat from wool was basically cooking the clear on the Nissan panels. So your experience totally lines up with what I remember reading.