Completely green on machine polishing :)

Jomax

Jomax

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Joined today, after hand polishing for 6yrs I'm done. I own a black f-350 dually crewcab longbed(it's a long job detailing completely) that has scratches, some that will never come out, swirls, and some light oxidation on the roof( Arizona is not kind to Paint). I also have a toy hauler that has fiberglass sides and has some oxidation. Lastly my parents have a black excursion that I'll be taking care of and I'm sure family will want me to do their cars once they see how mine turn out. My question is what polisher would suite me the best and what kind of chemicals, pads, soap, towels, chemicals, wash mitts, etc. Thanks in advance for anyone that helps!
 
The toy hauler with gel coat sides will turn out best with a rotary polisher with wool pad/compound followed by rotary with foam pad/polish. Being a newbie and completely green concerning machine polishing I wouldn't normally recommend jumping right into a rotary polisher but with the size of your toys and the fact that the truck has scratches that will never come out, you may just have the perfect vehicles to learn on a rotary.

At a minimum I'd think that you should have a Flex 3401 because a traditional DA like the Porter Cable, Griot's Garage or the Meguiar's G110V2 will do absolutely nothing for the oxidized gel coat on your toy hauler if the oxidation is anything more than just very very light oxidation. If the toy hauler has bad oxidation, a multi-step approach using a Flex 3401 forced rotation polisher will likely tackle it but not like a rotary will.

The 3401 will make pretty easy work of the truck and the family members cars without the risk of burning the paint and you won't have the frustration of figuring out the right technique to keep the pad rotating like on a PC style dual action polisher.

If money is no big problem I'd suggest a rotary (even a cheapo) for the toy hauler and a 3401 for the truck and other vehicles. Keep on reading and asking questions here and you'll get it figured out. Some of what I have typed may be a bit confusing as a green horn so If you have any questions feel free to ask.
 
I was thinking of getting the flex you mentioned. Money is a concern, but i believe in buying the right tool once. I even think i can get away with just the Flex for even the Toy hauler, but what do i know :). A question i have is are Absorbers, the ones from autozone bad to use for drying the truck?? On using a rotary first on my truck ill pass :) Its got some scratches, but i think i can try to touch them up. its a 12year old truck but over all for a DD/Tow rig/ work truck, i still get compliments on how it looks( when you see if far away it looks flawless, got to love black for that:xyxthumbs:
 
The absorbers if used lightly won't likely cause an issue as long as the paint is really clean to start with and you use a light touch like dabbing the water up or dragging just the weight of the absorber across the paint (I like to fully wet it then wring the water out first). In the truck's current condition it would be no problem however, once you've done a multiple step paint correction to get the paint finished near flawless nearly anything will cause marring on perfectly finished black paint.

As for the toy hauler using the 3401, if you keep your work area at or less than 2 square feet, full machine speed and a real slow arm speed with the right compound you should have no problem getting really nice results. You'll have to play around with some different compound/pad combos. I have done a lot of gel coat buses with my 3401 and find that a white polishing pad with Mothers heavy Duty Rubbing Compound works well for removing the oxidation but it takes a lot of work time in a small area to achieve the results. Gel coat is super tough stuff and doesn't correct quickly like auto paint does. I think you'd be making a wise decision to get the Flex 3401. It is a bulldozer of a machine with an excellent build quality. It can handle anything you can dish out to it. You can practically stand on it and you won't even slow down the pad rotation so it really gets the work done in a hurry and at only 480 RPM it is pretty hard to burn paint with it. It spins 480 times and strokes back and forth 9600 times (4800 full orbits) in a minute so you can cut through paint with it but you'd have to be pushing on it really hard to get it to burn paint.
 
So with gel coat I can use some f the hardest compounds? Any reason you choose the white to say the orange or even A yellow pad?
 
Jomax said:
Joined today, after hand polishing for 6yrs I'm done. I own a black f-350 dually crewcab longbed(it's a long job detailing completely) that has scratches, some that will never come out, swirls, and some light oxidation on the roof( Arizona is not kind to Paint). I also have a toy hauler that has fiberglass sides and has some oxidation. Lastly my parents have a black excursion that I'll be taking care of and I'm sure family will want me to do their cars once they see how mine turn out. My question is what polisher would suite me the best and what kind of chemicals, pads, soap, towels, chemicals, wash mitts, etc. Thanks in advance for anyone that helps!
Click to expand...



Six years is a long time for hand polishing .. it took me one hand polish to buy a DA.

Go Flex as he said.

And yes :welcome:
 
And by not buying a polisher, I only hand polished it once a year :/
 
Can I use wool pads on a flex 3401 when buffing gelcoat?
 
Looking at polishers that would suit me I'm down to griots or a flex. Are flex's hard to learn? Btw what are you guys doing with buffing small areas like A pillars etc?
 
Jomax said:
Looking at polishers that would suit me I'm down to griots or a flex. Are flex's hard to learn? Btw what are you guys doing with buffing small areas like A pillars etc?
Click to expand...


I don't think Flex is hard to learn.


As for small areas, you need 4" pads for such places.



:buffing:
 
Jomax said:
Looking at polishers that would suit me I'm down to griots or a flex. Are flex's hard to learn? Btw what are you guys doing with buffing small areas like A pillars etc?
Click to expand...

My flex 3403 with extender and 3.5 in pad...it's all here in mikes videos

2e6aed6f.jpg
 
glen e said:
My flex 3403 with extender and 3.5 in pad...it's all here in mikes videos

2e6aed6f.jpg
Click to expand...
Would something like that work on the 3401? Not ready for a rotary polisher :)
 
Bump :)


Sent from my iPhone using
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2000 Black DRW F-350
2012 pearl white Focus
 
LC is just about to release their 4" backing plate to be used with 4" pads(??!?).

The pic above is 3.5" pad, so answer is no, it wouldn't work with 3401.
 
Sounds good, can't wait for the 4in pad to come out. For small places I'll probably buy the GG 3in


Sent from my iPhone using
TapTalk
2000 Black DRW F-350
2012 pearl white Focus
 
Jomax said:
So with gel coat I can use some f the hardest compounds?
Click to expand...
Yes you can use rocks in a bottle on it but you'll have to follow that with something finer. I like the Mothers HD rubbing compound because it has a bit of working time and isn't quite as gritty as 3M super duty so there is less steps afterward to get it real glossy. With some colors the Mothers HD rubbing compound can be followed with a wax or AIO.

Any reason you choose the white to say the orange or even A yellow pad?
Click to expand...

Yes, the white pad is more dense foam than the orange and especially the yellow so the product stays more so between the pad and the gel coat. The cutting ability of a foam cutting pad has nothing for hard gel coat. When working on gel coat, the product combined with the action of the machine does the work so you'll want the product to be against the paint and not all soaked up into the large cells of a yellow foam cutting pad or even the orange light cutting pad. The Hydro tech pads closed cell design would be ideal for this but I find that they disintegrate to rapidly for use on gel coat.

Ideally wool pad on a rotary will do the best on gel coat but we've already determined that you won't be buying a rotary so I'm suggesting what I find that works the best with a 3401.
 
what pads do you guys think I'll need??? The truck has scratches, swirls,etc. focus has very minor imperfections.
 
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