is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

[spyghost]

hi,

i don't have any machines and i work purely by hand. now i feel the need of getting a machine since i am now maintaining two 4-door sedans and one 9-seater van.

its really hard to maintain all three with just pure hand so i'll definitely be needing a machine.

question now is, if i will be getting a rotary, would it be enough or do i still need a da?

it appears to me that rotary does things fast when properly done, but still needs a da follow up. so far, based on the pictures and examples that i see, rotaries leave light swirls that needs to be further corrected by a da. just correct me here if i am wrong.

another dillema that i am having is that da is not readily available in my country. i got to have it shipped just for me to have one. rotaries such as makita, dewalt, and bosch are abundant here and spare parts are readily available. in addition all electrical outlets here are 220v so i'll be needing a transformer for a pc, udm, or megs. this is one of the reasons why i being led towards buying a rotary rather than a da.

[SHYNEMAN123]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

Hi there do you have access to a good compressed air supply ?
like 5 hp 60 gal or higher = to 10 cfm @ 70 psi

[Markus Kleis]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

A skilled rotary user can *usually* finish down hologram and swirl free via rotary. But if you have no experience, I wouldn't suggest starting machine buffing via rotary.

At the same time, if you are in a crunch, you could always try to find some old panels and practice with the rotary and see if you are capable and confident enough to try it on your own vehicles. You could start with very safe combos and avoid aggressive product combinations as well to reduce the change of harming the paint.

All in all, though, starting with a rotary could prove to be a tall task.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

Any holograms or swirls left behind by a rotary are a function of the liquid and pad combination used and, most importantly, the skill of the user. While heavy correction with a wool pad and strong compound will often leave some buffer trails behind, a finishing polish with the appropriate pad - in skilled hands - can leave a virtually perfect finish. Still, until one becomes proficient in rotary use it's probably not a bad idea to follow with a D/A.

You mention that your power is 220v - Meguiar's G220 Dual Action Polisher is the 220v version of our G110 and should be available to you through a local/regional Meguiar's distributor.

[spyghost]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

You mention that your power is 220v - Meguiar's G220 Dual Action Polisher is the 220v version of our G110 and should be available to you through a local/regional Meguiar's distributor.

Hi,

I've just talked to the local distributor here in the Philippines. According to them, they do not sell any Meg DA Polisher. Is there something wrong with the local distributor here?

[seech]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

spyghost. Its quite common not to be able to find the DA in countries outside the US. In Malaysia the DA is available but very expensive. More expensive than a rotary in fact. What most of us do over here is to use the Bosch Random Orbit Buffer (ROB). You need to get one with variable speed. In Malaysia the model is GEX-270AE. It works very well but because the throw is shorter than the DA it cannot correct as much but most use it to finish after rotary.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

Also, when you talk about swirl free you need to define how you're going to test for this. If you're going to finish with the rotary buffer and then apply a wax or paint sealant and the car never leaves the garage and then inspect it, it will likely look swirl free.

If you're going to chemically strip the paint after the last rotary step and then pull the car out into bright sunlight, like at noon in August in Arizona, you will likely see at a minimum, light holograms or rotary buffer swirls. I only point this out because there are a lot of D.O. online detailers and they like to dissect everything a person types to the 9th degree so sometimes you have to be very specific in how you test for your results as well as your specific goals and method of attaining them. Well... maybe not you but someone that types about this usually does.

Besides all that keep in mind that paints are different. Yup.. hard to believe but it's true. Some paints are very polishable, that means it's easy to remove defects out of them and they polish up so nice and easy.

On the other hand, some paints are not as polishable or workable, for paints like these... first you won't know it till you actually start doing some testing. Second, if you are working on a paint that is difficult to achieve a flawless finish on then it may not be about you, your choice of pads, chemicals or tools. It's about the paint.

I'm not one that's big on chemically stripping but do believe to check my results by doing a Test Spot on everything I buff. If I can verify my results with my test spot I know I can duplicate the process I used for the test spot over the rest of the car and get the same results assuming the entire car has the same type of paint. That's not always the case. Last time I buffed the Joker Truck it had HOK on the front and whatever the body shop down the road from the Fab shop was spraying for clear on the bed.

I did my Test Spot on the hood of this car and noticed real quick when I started buffing the trunk lid that it had single stage paint instead of a basecoat/clearcoat finish like the rest of the car.

1956 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud - Clearcoat finish except the Trunk Lid which has single stage paint.




Here's what my buffing pad looked like after buffing the trunk lid.



The car still came out okay, but it did have two types of paint on it.
(Photo taken in front of Bob Hopes first house in Palm Springs, California)






It's pretty common to find people aiming for show car finishes on daily drivers and for most people, (not all, just check out the paint on Michael Stoops cars for example), that's not a reasonable expectation. Instead, shoot for "very good" results and then enjoy the car and move on with life and also continue to maintain the results you achieved.

Buffing out entire cars using a rotary buffer is at a minimum a two-step approach followed by applying a wax or paint sealant, so if you include everything you're looking at,

• Washing and drying
• Claying and wiping clean
• Test spot and dial in a proven system
• Taping off trim and components.
• First RB Step - Aggressive Compounding. I sometimes call this the chopping step because it's usually the step where you're aggressively buffing out the paint to remove the majority of defects or chopping on the paint, if you've ever chopped up a couple of cords of wood that's the "work" analogy as it's the major work step and will take the most time.
• Second RB Step - Finish Polishing, using a foam polishing pad and hopefully a light cleaner/polish to further refine the results from the first step. If you're going to stop with any cleaning or polishing steps after this step then at this point the paint must be flawless or meet your expectations. (That can be two different things).
• Apply your choice of wax or paint sealant. If you're not using a DA style polisher then you're either going to do this by hand or with the rotary buffer. I've only applied wax with a rotary buffer one time in my entire life and it that was a one-step cleaner/wax on a used car for a dealership for which they were paying $30.00 after that I decided I only wanted to do multi-step buff-outs on special interest cars.
• Remove tape
• Wipe wax off car
• Clean up

I've never claimed to be fast at this craft and something like that usually takes me about 12 to 14 hours depending upon how bad the paint is to start with, how easily or difficult it's buffing out and of course, how large the car is.

If all of the above is for an Astro Van or a Ford Taurus, or a Kia Sedona, I'm not sure what the point would be especially if the car is a daily driver as it's just going back into use as a daily driver and will get swirled and scratches via normal wear n tear. I'm not bashing on these types of cars but there's a huge difference between daily drivers and something that would fall into the category of "Special Interest".

If the car is a street rod, or a classic, or some other special interest car that will either spend a lot of time in the garage or be VERY well taken care of by the owner, then it's probably worth it.

The point being, don't get caught up into putting show car finishes on daily drivers, instead do a great job of removing most of the swirls and scratches, the light or shallow stuff and then seal it up really well and after that wash it carefully and re-apply your favorite wax often.

For this, a DA style polisher is more than enough and you don't have to worry about swirls.

There's actually 2, 3 maybe 4 good threads on this subject in the Hot Topics forum group.

[Eddie6th]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

Wow Mike...what a write up.

I have a point I would like to mention as you use it as a method,so to speak.

We don't all have great facilities,but enthusiasm for detailing keeps a lot of us going. Obviously,defects need to be seen. Due to current circumstances I have no choice but to work 'blind'. It works well for me. If one small section worked well after inspection,then the rest of the car should be the same. (I mean swirls by this as the general condition all over). RIDS,I took care of seperatly at a later stage. My car turned out well, and I reckon I achieved about 80%. I'm happy with this as it's a daily driver.
Of course,I would prefer to have a garage with plenty of room and good lighting.

My best way to see defects is a halogen street lamp at night,that sits above my driveway.This is where I see everything. I can actually see better with this than the sun,with my color of car. But I can't buff at 10pm. So I work in the shade during the day and check later. I hope that explains what I mean.

It's not a great way to do this,but it does work.

Any suggestions?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

We don't all have great facilities,but enthusiasm for detailing keeps a lot of us going.

I hear you and a lot of my detailing work has been in less than great facilities. The Meguiar's Garage is great because it's well lit and clean but most of us don't have this kind of environment to work in, we only wish we had this kind of environment to work in.

When I look back at the below picture I think to myself I should have never sanded this car down with the idea of buffing it out and actually getting good results because I really couldn't see what I was doing, I had to work by experience and instinct and at that time cool little gadgets like the Brinkman Xenon Light weren't around.

This was the corner of the 3rd floor of a 4 level parking garage and the paint was as hard as any paint I've ever buffed, let alone sanded and buffed. The paint was actually 2 months old in this shot, well past the window of time where fresh paint is still soft.

Look how dark it is in the background?
The reason the side of the car is lit up in the picture is because the camera flash is going off, after the flash it was back to working in the dark. So sometimes you you don't have good lighting and just have to do your best and like you said, draw upon experience.

So I work in the shade during the day and check later. I hope that explains what I mean.

Any suggestions?

As for recommendations, it's really hard to beat the Brinkman Xenon Flashlight as 'helper' and it's completely affordable. I recently purchased 2 of these here in Florida a Pep Boys for $30.00

Just to give credit where credit is due, Joe Fernandez aka Superior Shine introduced me to this little jewel of a tool. Thanks Joe!

[Eddie6th]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

Thanks Mike

Your write ups give us more encouragment

Always something to learn from this.

The Brinkman is what I'll need to try and get. It's hard to find anything portable Xenon here. The 3M sungun is available but that's out of my price range. The Brinkman is ideal,10th of the cost can't be beat. I've seen peoples work with this gun during the day and it shows very well.

I'm sure the project you were doing turned out very well. Working in the dark....! Nice car.I hope there are some afters in your album.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

There are some "afters" in a huge box of 3.5" Floppy Discs, unmarked as I was using a Mavica FD91, FD93 or FD97 at that time, (I forget).

It's so painful to go through floppy discs looking for pictures... but someday...

[sontakke]

Re: is da polisher a mandatory procedure after every rotary?

Wow Mike! The rest of tenants in that parking garage must really loved you for them to put up with the sanding dust on their cars :-)

I am little bit miffed because I just had my van collision repaired and I am finding lots of paint dust and/or sanding dust on my van. I should have noticed that on delivery but I did not. The van was all polished up before going in the shop but now I will have to polish it again.

- Vikas