Gear Driven Holograms

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Ronin47

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So I’ve read here that Mike Phillips and a few others state that a forced rotation or gear driven will not finish as well as a long throw and on a few threads I disagreed as I was unable to tell a difference in finish between the two. However recently I had a dark blue Golf R which was corrected with both a 3401 and Mille where under Scangrip lighting the paint was close on perfect. However when taking it out into the sun both sides of the car had a hint of holograms, why I state hint is as it was not as pronounced as rotary holograms.

The car was moved back inside and repolished with the same pad/compound combo on a 21 MKII on a hologram affected area with the rest of the vehicle given a milder pad/combo treatment as it was corrected anyways. This was done to see if the initial pad/polosh combo would instill holograms again and of course the milder combo to treat the hologram/corrected areas. When pulled out into the sun the paint was absolutely stunning, the clarity was what it should have been initially. At the time of doing all this I was more into the actual paint correction than taking pictures and documenting, so no pictures unfortunately. I’m not saying that gear drivens can’t finish close on perfect as I have done so more times than I can count. What I am saying is that on certain paints they can finish less than desirable, so yeah Mike Phillips was right, long throws do finish better on the whole.
 
The 12mm duetto is the perfect throw as far as I'm concerned. It has 50% more polishing power then the 8mm but it's not big enough to get bogged down easy like the 15mm. I imagine it's impossible to get any rotation on a curved contoured panel with a 21mm throw.
 
fightnews said:
The 12mm duetto is the perfect throw as far as I'm concerned. It has 50% more polishing power then the 8mm but it's not big enough to get bogged down easy like the 15mm. I imagine it's impossible to get any rotation on a curved contoured panel with a 21mm throw.
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You have it the other way around. I have the Duetto, Mini, 15ES, 15MKII and 21 MKII and the larger the throw the less the stall as the longer sling shot effect aids in rotation. But we digress, the topic is on the finish being better on the longer the throw as the spent product moves further away on the polishing section. So the longer the throw the better the rotaton, the better the finish and the better the correction.
 
Machine does not matter it's skill and materials. If you know your tools and have the technique you should be able to do whatever you want with the paint. Just because it's a smaller hammer does not mean it can't drive the nails.
 
Ronin47 said:
You have it the other way around. I have the Duetto, Mini, 15ES, 15MKII and 21 MKII and the larger the throw the less the stall as the longer sling shot effect aids in rotation. But we digress, the topic is on the finish being better on the longer the throw as the spent product moves further away on the polishing section. So the longer the throw the better the rotaton, the better the finish and the better the correction.
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Sounds good and maybe true on a perfectly flat panel but 100% wrong on any type of curved, raised, contoured panel. A 12mm throw stalls way less then a 15. That's a fact
 
Would it be the same thing with a 8mm free spinning DA as the 3401vrg? Or is it the gear driven polisher that does it? Can the reason be that the longthrow polishers has a more gentle oscillation on the surface? As the oscillation curve/pattern is more stretched out.
 
SWETM said:
Would it be the same thing with a 8mm free spinning DA as the 3401vrg? Or is it the gear driven polisher that does it? Can the reason be that the longthrow polishers has a more gentle oscillation on the surface? As the oscillation curve/pattern is more stretched out.
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It doesn’t have anything to do with 8mm more the force rotation. The Mille is 5mm and was just as guilty as the 3401’s 8mm.You are correct on the longer the throw being more stretched out yielding a better finish.
 
Ronin47 said:
So I’ve read here that Mike Phillips and a few others state that a forced rotation or gear driven will not finish as well as a long throw
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Actually, what I've said is close.... what I've said is gear driven orbitals don't always finish as nice as any free spinning orbital, be they short throw or long throw, and I've only noticed it on softer paints.



I first noticed this and stated it in December of 2012 in this thread

Christmas Detail - Ferrari P4 - Move over Rudolf

Ferrari_P4_Detailed_by_Mike_Phillips_001.jpg



Here's the process I used,

Mike Phillips said:
The paint is Rosso Corsa Red in single stage and when I arrived and inspected the paint every inch of it was completely swirled out. I restored the paint using the following 5 steps.

  1. Wiped car clean using Detailers Waterless Wash.
  2. Clayed the paint using Pinnacle Ultra Poly Clay.
  3. Machine polished the paint using Wolfgang Total Swirl Remover/Flex 3401/LC 6.5" Flat White Polishing Pad.
  4. Machine polished the paint using Wolfgang Finishing Glaze/Meguiar's G110v2/LC 5.5" Flat White Polishing Pad
  5. Machine waxed the paint using Wolfgang Fuzion/Meguiar's G110v2/LC 5.5" Flat Blue Finishing Pad.
Click to expand...




Here's my reply to a question in posts #31 and #32


Here's the question...

Crazy Amos said:
What made you decide to finish out with the GV110 vs the Flex? Pad size selection or the non forced rotation maybe?
Click to expand...



Here's my answer...

Mike Phillips said:
Good question...

I find on softer paints like this car has that the PC style with a Fine Cut Polish finishes out nicer than with the more powerful Flex 3401. The paint on this car was incredibly soft. I only did my test spot using the Flex 3401 and end-results were acceptable, I did the PC step just to "make sure".

I also machine applied the wax using the PC.
Click to expand...


I've noticed this same thing with the RUPES Mille at the RUPES class I taught with Jason Rose here back in December. I have not used the Makita PO5000C enough to have seen this characteristic with it yet as I have not buffed out a wide spectrum of cars/car paint with this tool yet.



Ronin47 said:
I’m not saying that gear drivens can’t finish close on perfect as I have done so more times than I can count.

What I am saying is that on certain paints they can finish less than desirable, so yeah Mike Phillips was right, long throws do finish better on the whole.
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And again, just to make sure everyone that reads this into the future is aware of my exact opinion and experience and that is, what I have seen on darker, softer paints is that any free spinning orbital will tend to finish out nicer and more perfect than any gear-driven orbital using the same pad and product.

I would say from experience that the nicest looking finish I've ever seen has been when I finish out with a 21mm free spinning orbital with an ultra soft foam finishing pad and an ultra fine cut polish.


The above all said, I also believe from experience that wax is the great equalizer. See what I wrote about this topic on in post #29 of this thread,


Battery Time - FLEX Cordless Polishers - Real World Detail by Mike Phillips at Autogeek - Post #29


You can substitute the word synthetic paint sealant or ceramic paint coating for the word "wax". Sometimes I use the word wax as a generic term to mean a product used as the final step to seal the paint.


:)
 
Also...

The pic of the Ferrari in my above post was the before.... here's the after...

Ferrari_P4_After.jpg


Ferrari_P4_Detailed_by_Mike_Phillips_007.jpg


Ferrari_P4_Detailed_by_Mike_Phillips_008.jpg



:buffing:
 
inDetail said:
Machine does not matter it's skill and materials. If you know your tools and have the technique you should be able to do whatever you want with the paint.

Just because it's a smaller hammer does not mean it can't drive the nails.
Click to expand...


Yeah.... I'd have to respectfully disagree.

I've buffed out a lot of cars and by this I mean a lot of "paint systems" using a lot of different tools, pads and products and I'm pretty keen about inspecting my work and I know what I've seen over the years.

I think it's rare that an "issue" can be isolated to a single source, but it can happen. In most situations, it's a combination of one of these,

  1. Abrasive technology
  2. Pad choice
  3. Tool choice
  4. Paint
  5. Technique


But with testing, and using controls, it is possible to isolate a single factor.


Just my experience....


:)
 
Ronin47 said:
Appreciate the input Mike.
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Just sharing what I've seen...

Don't always like stating what some could see as a negative aspect about different types of tools but need to be true to myself.

Plus - There's always the right tool for the job. This is why when someone asks me,


Which tools should I get?


I offer to re-phrase it to read,


Which tools should I get first?



:)
 
Could you say where a free spinning DA would bogg down the speed. The gear driven polisher is holding up the speed and stress the paint in some way to induse buffer trails/micro marring. On sensetive paints. Maybe there is some other termonology to describe it better. I'm just thinking out loud and find it intresting to discuss what it can be.

The finish and before and after pictures is awesome Mike!
 
SWETM said:
Could you say where a free spinning DA would bogg down the speed. The gear driven polisher is holding up the speed and stress the paint in some way to induse buffer trails/micro marring. On sensetive paints. Maybe there is some other termonology to describe it better. I'm just thinking out loud and find it intresting to discuss what it can be.

The finish and before and after pictures is awesome Mike!
Click to expand...

With gear driven and rotary the pattern is fixed, with free float orbitals the pattern is “random”.
 
As I understand it the orbit is fixed at say 21mm and is gear driven orbital. Then orbital movement makes the free/float mounted backing plate spinning with different speeds. Speeds depends on the gear driven speed to the orbital and what pads and abrasive and the surface you polishing what friction it got. And that is the dual action movement. Of course it gets a random pattern but that depends on what speed the backing plate is spinning with. For an example if the polisher is set to speed 4 the backing plate is spinning with 3000rpm in free air. When you put it on a flat surface it's going down to 2000rpm and when you come to a curve it's getting harder to spinn and maybe only 1000rpm. But the orbital oscillation remaining the same if not the speed setting changes or it has a future that compensate the speed to be the same.

Sorry for the the long text but my english is not my first language. So I try to keep up what you mean. Maybe it's what you are saying but with fewer words lol
 
SWETM said:
Could you say where a free spinning DA would bogg down the speed.
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Yes and especially with LONG stroke free spinning orbital polishers because the long orbit stroke creates a situation where the pad can have leverage over the reciprocating components as well as the counterweight. In fact, I've been thinking about writing an article about this topic.


SWETM said:
The gear driven polisher is holding up the speed and stress the paint in some way to induse buffer trails/micro marring. On sensetive paints.
Click to expand...

What you wrote above I think also makes sense. It's a situation where sometimes more isn't always better, as in more power.


SWETM said:
The finish and before and after pictures is awesome Mike!
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Thank you. The curves on the Ferrari make it a pain to buff out and that's why I corrected with gear-driven. The soft paint made it hard to finish out so that's why I finished out with free spinning.

I did the entire job from start to finish in under 6 hours and charged $600.00 so about $100.00 per hour.


:)
 
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