The rotary with a top grade finish polish produces a show quality shine.
I agree, the gloss, clarity and overall finish produced by a rotary buffer is historically hard to beat. DA pads and products can come very close and then by the time you apply a quality wax, paint sealant or coating the results to the human eye are for the most part equal.
The problem with finishing out with ONLY a rotary buffer is the direct drive rotating action of the pad against the paint tends to impart a scratch pattern called rotary buffer swirls, holograms or buffer trails.
Lots of forum people claim to always be able to finish out 100% swirl free but I never read or see how they prove it. Just talk about it. Plus proving it is more complicated than most people know. You need a dark color as swirls, especially light swirls are hard to see on light colors. You need to chemically strip the finish to remove any polishing oils, fillers or carrying agents left by the last polishing step. Stripping the paint risks dulling it back down again and takes time just to prove you can do what you claim you can do. Point being is I always read about people that claim they can do it 100% of the time on every car they work on but I never see well documented write-up with pictures to prove it.
In your experience is there a polish that works with an orbital that absolutely equals the best rotary system?.
The Menzerna finishing polishes on a soft polishing pad on a DA Polisher will create a crystal clear finish without imparting any swirls. Kind of the best of both worlds.
I haven't tried every polish on the market, but the ones i have tried were pretty milky compared to the very old perfect-it/rotary. I'm trying to use your experience to save me time, money and clear-coat, but perhaps you haven't done these side by sides?.
I've used many products on the market, not all. Doing side-by-side testing is very time consuming and you have to know ahead of time exactly what you're looking for or testing for. Now throw in a huge variable like different paint systems. that's going to change everything.
Even i know that polishes are developed for a specific surface speed and heat (at least 3M mentioned heat to me).
All my life I've always read or head someone say that heat is required to break down abrasives? I've read it over and over and over again. I've never heard or read this from a chemist that makes the products. But anyone that disagrees is completely free to continue believing heat is neccassary and buff as hot as they like. I'm just trying undo the decades of confusion over the
heat is necessary topic.
What breaks down a diminishing abrasive is pressure... over time... heat is not good for clear coat paints. If you're working with abrasives that don't break down then heat still isn't good for the clear coat layer of paint.
Perfect-it for example is useless with a PC.
3M's Perfect-it line is targeted at body shops where the primary tool is the rotary buffer so it only makes sense they formulate their products for rotary buffers. Now that they own Meguiar's they can let Meguiar's go after all the other tools and products and pads for them.
When i researched this some time ago, no one made a product to be used with the slow speed orbitals. Has that changed i hope?
The below article addresses the topic of
slow speed orbitals... we call them wax spreaders...
The Traditional Orbital Buffer aka The Wax Spreader
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The article the above link goes to pretty much shares what you can do with these old school tools. DA Polishers and tools like the Flex 3401 I would not classify as
slow speed orbitals.
If you want to try something besides 3M body shop products then check out some of the finishing polishes in the Menzerna Line. Super Intensive polish is a medium polish and a very versatile polish you can use with a rotary or a DA Polisher. PO85RD is a favorite finishing polish that you can also use with a rotary or a DA Polisher.
Both have time-proven track records and huge fan bases.
