I made a boo boo

[jeff21234]

Ok so in order to improve you have to admit your mistakes. I used a rotary buffer for the very first time. On my black 2010 chevy avalanche. Guess what happened? Lol. I used a harbor freight variable speed rotary buffer with their orange foam pad and meguires ultimate compound.
OK Let's start from the beginning
Washed truck with microfiber mitt and meguires gold class wash.
Then used meguires clay bar and man o man the junk that think took off was incredible.
Now smooth as a babies bottom I went to the rotary buffer. I stayed at a low to medium low speed with medium am movements. It all looked great but it was slightly overcast. When the sun came out I was horrified! I now am the proud owner of the avagram or the hololanche whichever you prefer.
So what now? Do I really uc by hand? Should I buy a da?
Sell the truck?
I have ultimate polish and nxt 2.0 standing by.
Thanks in advance for help and advice.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: I made a boo boo

The good news here is that you haven't done any permanent damage to your Avalanche, you've learned something, and you're being really honest with yourself. All positives as far as we're concerned. Holograms are really easy to create on black paint, especially during the cutting process. That's OK, as long as you aren't creating really horrific holograms, and you don't just stop at that point. In your case, the HF Orange cutting pad and our Ultimate Compound should not be your stopping point. That combo will indeed work wonders removing the swirls and other defects you wanted to remove but, as you've discovered first hand, it often trades those defects for it's own.

Here's what we would recommend at this point for you: Do a second application of Ultimate Compound, but get yourself a softer pad - if you're going to stick with HF then get their black finishing pad, set the buffer to slowest speed setting available, and work that UC in areas no larger than about 2' x 2', use just the weight of the tool, keep the pad as flat against the paint as possible, and move slowly over the paint in a cross hatch pattern. That should remove the majority of the holograms, but if the paint is really soft it might not get rid of them all. Technique is everything here, and as soon as you start getting up on the edge of the pad, especially with any speed in the tool and even fairly fast arm movements, you'll be creating rotary buffer swirls. Keep that pad flat, set the tool to a very slow speed, move slowly and you'll be waaay ahead of the game.

It might seem odd that we're recommending UC for this second step, but here's why. You have Ultimate Polish on hand, but it's not really rated for rotary use (neither is UC, technically, but we know from experience that it actually works very well in that application) and UP is also very, very mild. Those holograms could be fairly deep, and UP might not have the grunt to remove them. UC coupled with a very soft pad should offer more defect removal ability with limited rotary swirl creation. Without having worked on this exact vehicle it's hard to say definitively that this is the solution, especially considering your novice status with the rotary.

Of course, you could just go back to HF and buy one of their DA buffers (although, of course, we'd really rather you pick up one of ours instead!!) and use the HF Blue polishing pad with it and UC, speed 5 on the DA.

Which option you ultimately choose will of course be based on your budget, available time, and just how badly you want to master the rotary buffer.

[jeff21234]

Thanks so much

I really appreciate the in depth help and advice. I only picked up the gf stud cause they were close by and cheap. I'm thinking about just picking up a good da maybe even the meguires! I'll take some pics of what I have now and the finished project as soon as I get enough break in the rain. The upside to all this rain is you can't ser the holograms.

[Jarhead0754]

Rotary really is for experienced. I would prefer a rotary as its faster than da but yet the da is so much more user friendly. I suggest the meguiars da as I really love mine. Also the mf pads are awesome with it as well from what I see. But eventually I would like to move to a rotary and have access to both that and a da. U never know what the condition will call for so it's nice to have both. But I'll wait till I can get to Cali and have mr stoops teach me the advanced class.

[jeff21234]

update

Sorry for the delay. I took Michael's advice and I went with the harbor Freight da and the blue pad using the Ultimate Compound. I was a little concerned that I still saw some hologram marks but then I just wiped harder and realize that those second set of marks which I just didn't wipe off the residue completely. the truck looks fantastic now. thank you for all the help

[Daniel Kinder]

Re: I made a boo boo

Glad you fixed it, but do you have any pics?

I also have a HF DA and highly recommend a 5'' meguiars backing plate with the 5.5 inch pads to give some what more balance to this DA. One of the reasons I still use my 7424XP more over the HF DA is after hours of use with the HF DA my arms, hands and fingers feels numb/tingle, were as with the 7424 it doesn't.

There's a couple more things floating around on the internet stated that with changing out the balancer to the one for the 5'' is better plus changing out the grease to the HD grease (forgot which type and/or name) but I don't have either of the 2 last on mine but will be replacing the for the 5'' weight to see if in fact it does work and maybe the grease as well because this machine does have alot more power then the 7424XP when put under pressure!

[Blueline]

Re: I made a boo boo

Read, learn, practice, and then try. I love rookies.