Rotary Finish Better than PC?

[Kickin Griffin]

I have always believed that owing to its random orbit nature that the PC would always finish down to a better finish than the rotary, but have been spending a lot of time recently on scrap panels perfecting my rotary techniques to the point of getting LSP ready finishes from them.

By means of comparison when I'd got happy with the Makita as a finishing tool as well as a defect removal tool, I tried it out on a solid red paint both with Menzerna Final Finish PO85RD.... The finish by PC was excellent, but I found the finish by rotary to be even better, making the PC finish seem like there was a very very very mild micromarring in it while the rotary finish was as clear as day...

Should this be the case? Should a rotary be able to finish down better than the PC?

[TH0001]

Don't know, I always have buffer trails when I use a rotary

[Kickin Griffin]

I kept the speed o nthe rotary down, woking pretty small areas quite thoroughly - 900rpm to finish. There were no tails or holograms, I had bright sunshine to check for these (as the Brinkmann doesn't show them up, and even the halogens can iss light hologramming). At the moment, on solid colours anyway, I can see myself using the rotary to get the best finish. I dont mind doing this, it just seems odd.

[gbackus]

The rotary will always leave a nicer finish than the PC. The tradeoff is the possiblity of buffer trails, but, as you noticed, the rotary will leave a crisp, clear, super bright look that a PC can not attain.

[Kickin Griffin]

On sitting back and thinking clearly about this and discussing it with a good friend who is also really into detailing, I now believe this to be down to the way both machines break the products down...

The PC - random motion and so breaks the polish down randomly, so with diminshing abbrassive polishes on the microscopic level there will be uneveness to the way the abbrassives are broken down resulting in a less clear finish.

The rotary - even motion, and so breaks the polish down more evenly and therefore gives a sharper finish.

It was likened to me as being miliar to Megs Unigrit (rotary) versus traditional sandpaper (PC). I have yet to get buffer tails from the roatry when using a finishing polish so long as I take my time so when the paint allows from now on I will be using the rotary as my finishing tool and the PC as a wax and glaze tool anf for thin soft paints.

[kboxer]

Do you have any pics of the work side by side?

[Kickin Griffin]

I had some pics on my mobile phone, but that was stolen on a cinema trip on Thursday. However, I'm keeping on working on this, and will be trying this out on a metallic red finish as I suspect the metallic flake masks any very slight micromarring by PC... Will for sure posts up the pics after this as will have mi digi-cam back by then.