live4ever said:
I'm curious if people use the supersoft (light gray) pad for your ETS/EC sanders, and if so, in what applications do you find it particularly useful?
I tend to use the interface pads on either the regular or hard pad when I'm sanding an irregular surface or want the sander to be a little more "forgiving," but wondering if there's a difference between the two approaches that I'm not understanding.
The soft pads don't flatten or dig in as much.
For example say you are sanding a large panel and it has very thin veneer. There are going to be spots that are ever slightly high and low. Nothing you will notice and nothing that prevent us from using the panel as it so gradual and generally it just cant be detected by looking at it.
A hard pad it going to sand through those high spots so you get a panel where you burn though veneer in only some areas. If you can not figure out why a flat piece of plywood got burned through in only some areas you probably have a pad that is too hard, its flattening the work and digging through as opposed to riding on top of the material.
A soft pad will ride on top of the surface and follow those subtle contours. The only way you could over sand through the veneer with a soft or super soft pad is apply way to much pressure and that is by design. If you find you need to use what seems like a huge amount of pressure to sand something you probably have a pad that is too soft for the application. Try to sand out bad defects with a soft pad sometime and you will quickly see what I mean. If the defects are bad enough you may not be able to sand them out at all. It may not be that cheap sander has little power, it may be the pad is too soft.
Using pads is simlar to how we use sandpaper. Think of a flat piece of wood. We use 40-100 grit to shape the wood or take defects out. A hard pad does the same, it will change the shape of the wood(most time to flatten) or hog out enough material to get those defects. Then we use 120 and up sandpaper to get those little scratches out of the material. We use the finer grits when we no longer want to remove damage or change the shape or thickness of the material. At this point we just want the sander ride on top of the material removing the light imperfections left by the previous sanding, this is where a softer pad can be used. The soft pads are more forgiving and far less likely to gouge the work. If you are sanding something and keep gouging certain areas use the soft pad.
I only use the hardest pads, but I dont finish my work either. I only have to get my final stuff to 100 grit max. For me getting things shaped flat with no imperfections is the most important part. Others may already get the material in that state to begin with so they may never need a hard pad at all.
