Over the last few years, more and more brands have ventured into the microfiber pad market. Last spring Lake Country jumped into the market with their Microfiber Cutting Pad and HDO Heavy Cutting Fiber Pad. We are going to look at a few of the differences between these two pads, beyond the obvious the obvious visual difference.
Lake Country offers both of these pads in several size options making them quite versatile for use with various machines and size backing plates.
- Microfiber Cutting Pad size options: 1.5″, 2.25″, 3.25″, 5.25″ and 6.25″.
- HDO Heavy Fiber Cutting Pad size options: 3″, 5″ and 6″.
At first glance the pads look quite similar beyond the obvious that the HDO has a hole in the center, however, they are actually quite different beyond that. All sizes of the HDO pads were designed with a 70 degree bevel (shown on the left above) while the Microfiber Cutting pad has a straight cut much like most of the other pads on the market. Even though the foam appears to be very similar, the foam backing on the HDO is quite a bit denser resulting in a firmer pad. The HDO pads were designed to hold up of the abuse of being used with large throw polishers such as the Rupes or Griot’s THE BOSS machines.
This is a closer view of the Microfiber Cutting pad, which I actually preferred out of the 2 offerings. These pads are quite a bit more firm then Meguiar’s microfiber pads and seem to hold up to heavy use with my Rupes 15 and 21 machines. The foam does not seem to break down or fail under heavy pressure, which is common on some other brands of microfiber pads.
Closer view of the HDO pad and the beveled edge. The beveled edge along with the hole in the center, designed to reduce heat caused during use with the large throw machines are the two most notifiable differences between the pads. I was not overly impressed with these pads however after trying them with various different products.
Personally, after having used both style pads on various jobs, I can’t say that I greatly prefer one over the other when it comes to overall performance.