1st time rotary questions?

[MrC]

I tried out my new Makita with 80 and 7.5 VC polishing pad on my hood. I started @1500 with no pressure and worked a 2x2 area. When I was finished I noticed buffer swirls/holograms. The original swirl marks were still visible. I continued the same process and was able to minimize the original swirls but the buffer swirls were still very noticable. I tried a different product (SSR 2.5), pad (VC 7.5 Cutting), pressure, motions (back forth /side to side), speeds, and positions (flat/slight angle) but couldn't get rid of them. I did everything that the meguiar video said to do but it just wasn't going away. I gave up and went back over the hood with my trusty PC, 80, and a polishing pad and the buffer swirls were gone.

Am I aways going to get buffer swirls/holograms with the rotary or is my technique in need of improvement? Are the buffer swirls gone after hitting it with the PC or are they going to be visible after a few washes? And how do stop the splatter with a VC pad?

Thanks

[Jeff Burrows]

I would make sure that your paint is fully clean from contaminants. I would use the Meguiars Quick clay detailing system so you don't have any con. that will cause interferance with the buffing pad. I also would make the pad slightly damp to make the pad move easier over the surface. Dont load the pad to quickly, by setting the #80 on the pad and then dabbing it over the paint surface before doing it will make it more evenly. Also keep in mind that different paint types cause different results eg. clear coat, lauquer, etc. See if you can start a l slower speed and let the buffer do the work by not letting move so rapidly accross the surface. Then you can add more speed to help apply evenly. I hope this helps so try what I have said and always double check with Mike Phillips! Good luck! Jeff burrows
P.S. Always keep the pad as flat as possible!

[Tanat198]

MrC
I can tell you from my direct experience with rotary that it takes a lot of time to learn the proper use of it. I recently purchase a Makita rotary. The same thing happened to me, holograms. I tried over and over again. Finally, I gave up. No matter what I did, I still got holograms. So I turned to PC and couldn't be happier. Nowaday, I keep my rotary for severe scratches and dull paints for other cars only. But personally, I feel rotary can achieve a higher satisfaction. Most of the time you can eliminate all the scraches from the car. You can use PC to take care of the holograms later. Your car will be in excellent condition again.
You can try and ask someone to show you a proper way of using it.
Good luck and enjoy.

[zey]

I purchased my Makita rotary last Thursday and I've used that machine 3 times since then. I never practice on any junk hood and straight to my car. I started with 600-900rpm (1 - 2) speed using W-8006 polishing pad. The pressure of the machine on the finish is the weight of it and #83 never give me any problems on hologram/swirls. All I got is very very mild swirls and #80 removed all of it leaving perfect finish. Remember, if you're a newbie, it's better to go slow...cheers!

[Mike Phillips]

The SSR 2.5 is pretty aggressive, I have never had much luck with it to leave a swirl free finish with any pad.

Reduce the potential
Equal pressure applied evenly over the entire working area of the pad helps to insure an even polishing action over the entire surface. Flat pad technology helps with this, anytime you move away from equal pressure evenly applied over the entire working area of the pad, you increase the potential for swirls because you increase the pressure unevenly over the work area of the pad and its contact pressure with the surface.

Besides those two things, read these two threads...

I would recommend reading the below two threads in the Hot Topics because they discuss in detail working what can and what cannot be done with a rotary buffer as far as creating a swirl free finish.

Need HELP! - How to avoid holograms?

How to avoid swirls and holograms?

In the end, in order to guarantee a completely swirl free finish on a dark colored paint in bright lights, you're going to need to re-polish each panel either by hand or with a dual action polisher to insure any swirls induced by the direct drive circular contact between your pad and the paint is removed.

That, or use a coating or two of wax to insure any remaining holograms or swirls are eliminated.

Read the above two threads however, there is a lot of good information in them that would not be efficient to try to re-post into this thread.

Mike