Foam pads all day ^ good advise. I have a Milwaukee nice variable speed. Doesn't matter what way you cut I put a very slight angle left or right what ever is comfortable when doing a hard cut, I lay the pad flat when removing say like in the glazing process. Another piece of advice is make sure you have the right pads you can't just go from a compound to fine polish as it will not take away the abrasion from the compound pad when doing black or dark colors I go from compound "depending on paint condition" to med, light, Polish in that order

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