I love my new Flex 3401

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skipper1

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I've used it twice now. First time just putting wax on my car, it's new so no big deal.

Thursday, I did a car that looked good from a distance but on closer inspection I could tell it had been wrecked. After a little investigation, it had been wrecked several times and had a brother-in-law paint job. Some of it had clear coat, some of it didn't. I'm really sore right now from buffing.

Here's my question about the Flex. Because most of the paint wasn't factory, I found myself putting a lot of pressure on the Flex while compounding with UC and Lake Country Cyan pad. When using a Flex 3401, should you be using a lot of pressure, or should you pretty much just let the flex do its job with a little pressure and just guide it? I really don't know and would appreciate some guidance from the more experienced.

I can already tell that on a regular car with clear coat and swirls, this will be a piece of cake and be enjoyable to use.

Happy New Year to all the great people on this forum.
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My view would be that extra heavy pressure isn't good for the car or the Flex. The proper combination of compound and pad will allow you to use the weight of the machine (w/maybe a little pressure) to do the job. You'll only need to guide the machine.
 
Were you using more pressure than you would with the PC skipper? Glad to see you got another vehicle to try and that you're getting used to it! :)
 
My other buffer is a G110v2 and yes, I was using more pressure. I guess 2 of the reasons were that I was just testing to see if I could get the Flex to bog down (it didn't) and the other was that the paint was just so horrible I thought I'd try and correct something that was in-correctable. You know, small drips of paint, some orange peel, just an overall bad paint job where it had been repainted.

You do have to be careful or the Flex will take you for a ride.
 
Yeah, the Flex will definitely take you for a walk. One thing to note, when you really apply the pressure to the Flex, feel the paint after it...it'll be seriously hot. Just be careful around the edges when you're applying that type of pressure or doing that on a bumper. I could see burning an edge or body line using that kind of pressure.
 
I'll definitely be backing off in the future per you & VR8's suggestion.

I talked to Dewayne at Auto Geek the other day inquiring about the Edge adapter for the Flex and it is dead in the water. However, he did say that someone else is in the process of making a smaller backing plate for the Flex. He didn't get into any details, but at least there is hope for using smaller pads with the Flex.
 
Do you guys know if I can use 5.5 LC pads with the FLEX? or is too risky??
 
You can if you're careful. I think there are numerous folks here that have done that. The other thing I've seen done is shaving down the backing plate a little. There's a thread on that too.
 
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