Finishing Pads

Mostly the name on the packet. Foam pads are graded by density, and the soft end of that scale gets called finishing, polishing, glazing, jewelling or waxing depending on the brand. What matters is where a given pad sits. A finishing pad has a little cut, enough to refine after a heavier step and clear light haze with a finishing polish. A glazing or waxing pad is softer again, with no real cut, and is for spreading protection. Colour codes don't carry across brands, so read the pad's own description rather than assuming red means the same thing on a ShineMate as it does on a Lake Country.

If you're building a set, one finishing pad and one softer waxing pad per machine size covers nearly everything. The pad stacks bundle them with the cutting and intermediate grades.

Usually it's the only pad you need. A well kept daily driver with wash marks and a bit of dullness doesn't need a cutting step, a finishing pad with an intermediate or finishing compound removes the light stuff and adds the gloss in one go. Start there. If the defects don't shift on a test section, step the pad up to an intermediate before you step the compound up, because the pad change is the gentler one.

Where you must use one is after a cutting or microfibre step. Those leave a uniform haze, sometimes holograms on a rotary, and a finishing pad with a fine polish is what takes that out. Skipping it is why corrected paint sometimes looks worse under the sun than it did before.

Three usual reasons. The pad's loaded with residue from the previous step, so it's not the finishing pad doing the work, it's the compound stuck in it. Spur it or swap to a clean one, and never use a pad that's had cutting compound in it for finishing. The compound's wrong, a heavy cut compound on a soft pad won't break down properly and smears. Match a finishing pad to a finishing polish. Or the paint's soft, and even a soft pad at speed is marring it, in which case drop the machine speed, lighten the pressure and try a softer pad still, the ultra fine or glazing grade.

Wipe with a panel wipe before you judge it. Polish oils fill fine marring and hide it until the first wash, so what looks finished under the compound often isn't. Our pad cleaning collection covers keeping the pad itself clean.

It depends on the machine and how soft the paint is, and the picks at the top of the page show what's popular and what we reach for. Broadly, a mid density finishing pad like the ShineMate Black Diamond Red or a Lake Country black is the everyday one, enough bite to refine and soft enough to finish. The Koch Chemie Micro Cut pads sit slightly firmer and suit harder German paint where a very soft pad stalls. The ultra soft and glazing pads, grey ShineMate, Lake Country red and gold, Rupes white, are for the softest paint and for spreading product rather than polishing.

Get two of whatever you pick. Finishing is the step where a clean pad matters most, and swapping to a fresh one halfway through the car is cheaper than doing a panel twice.