Rupes vs other Dual Action Polishers

Rsurfer said:
Awesome looking ride. Since your car is in such great condition why would you need a Flex..Why not use a 4" pad on a GG6?
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Not in such great condition anymore after getting hit on the driver side and repainted...

Besides i really didn't like the Griots because of the vibration.
 
I have a Rupes 15 and this machine is amazing. Once you get the correct polishes and compounds there is no stopping you. It's a small investment. My Rupes paid for itself the first day I had it three times over.
 
Rsurfer said:
Awesome looking ride. Since your car is in such great condition why would you need a Flex..Why not use a 4" pad on a GG6?
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the GG6 is awesome and i would always want one traditional style DA like this and you can't go wrong with the power and warranty it provides. with the pads/products out these days, there isn't much you can't do with it...
 
I have a flex rupes gg6 and I'm a novice

I think if I would've bought the flex first I wouldn't have bought the rupes

I like the flex it just seems like it cuts and finishes better even though it's heavier and leaves you more fatigued..I'm #teamflex

I may not be using the rupes correctly, but I don't like how the pad stops spinning ( may not have done the washer-mod correctly) but I do love the throw

I just use my gg6 for the three in pads
 
I'm not sure where you all are getting this tremendous cut with the Flex 3401. On hard paint, I can get much better cut with Meg's MF pads and a GG6, compared to any foam pad I've used on the 3401. MF pads work terribly on the 3401, IME. I need to try LC PFW pads on the Flex.
 
Ah. What a shame. I did not dig any further, as I do not own a Rupes. I hope I did not waste too much if your time.
 
anonymoususer said:
The Rupes Bigfoot 15 is an awesome machine. However i'm one of the few people where the Rupes will NOT work well for me. My vehicle has large concave panels and the Rupes stops spinning every time i hit those areas. It's pretty frustrating. Convex panels are a breeze though.



The middle of the door area, between the headlight and hood, and D pillar are difficult areas for me.

I'm looking to trade my Rupes 15 for a Flex 3401. :xyxthumbs:
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That's what I posted after the first entire car I bufed out here, see the third paragraph in the first post.


Rupes Polisher Time Lapse Video - 1955 Ford Crown Victoria



Found it hard to maintain pad rotation when we buffed the 1949 Chevy 5-Window truck here,


1949 Chevy 5-Window Pickup Extreme Makeover - Pictures & Videos


Look how curvy the fenders are...

1949_Chevy_Truck_081.jpg


1949_Chevy_Truck_082.jpg



I did the initial test spot on the above truck using the Rupes 21 you see in Roshan's hands here, but if you look through the aboe thread you'll see almost everyone was using a Flex 3401. The paint on this truck was hard and pad rotation was a must.

1949_Chevy_Truck_064.jpg


1949_Chevy_Truck_065.jpg







Evan.J said:
There is a knockoff of the Rupes out already. Saw it on Facebook a couple weeks ago.
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I saw the same picture on someone's FB page.


:)
 
6 of the guys attending my detailing boot camp class are members of this forum, I've asked the rest of the class to register with our forum.

This weekend they will all have the chance to use both the Rupes 15 and 21 Bigfoot polishers and the Rupes pads and polishes on this car,

Boot Camp Demo Cars!

1965 Dodge Coronet with a 426 Hemi Engine. The paint is completely swirled out with holograms from the misuse of a rotary buffer.

1965_Dodge_Coronet_001.jpg




I will be asking them to post their experiences to this thread...

Pictures: Detailing Boot Camp Class - September 28th & 29th 2013


So stay tuned and check the above thread out next week after the class.


:)
 
Having several buffers is a great way to stay ahead of the game. @$350 for the Flex and Rupes I figured it wouldn't hurt to own both. Here in Hawaii we have horrible hard water and the sprinklers keep paint correction our number one seller.
 
People keep saying that these Tools are expensive, but when you compare to other Tools they are not that bad. Some steam machines sell for 1000s of dollars, same for hot water extractors. So 400$ while it's not cheap is still a small investment.

Great thing about polishers is that half of the expense for using them is the combination of electrical extension, pads and liquids and those can be used on any model polisher you have so as I said, it ain't that bad.

My goal is to have 4 polishers, this will very likelly change when the new models start coming out after SEMA, but for now:

1 Flex 3401 with 5.5 inch pads for correction on very hard paint

1 Rupes Bigfoot 21es with 5.5 inch pads for most vehicles

1 Meguiar's G110V2RC with 3 inch pads for spot correction and small area correction (would buy a Griot 6 inch instead if I did not have the Meg already, learned it was twice the power for 20$ less too late)

1 Griot Garage 3" mini polisher for areas nothing else will fit in

Someone was talking about the fact everyone is coming out with large throw polishers after the succes Rupes had with the Bigfoot, so my dream would be to see a forced action with large throw this year... that would be awesome ;) Would probably use a 6.5 inch pad on that to speed up the process.
 
Calendyr said:
People keep saying that these Tools are expensive,
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Here's a quote from you, I got this from some JIT Training at Hewlett-Packard years ago...


Quality never cost money... it makes money...


Calendyr said:
so my dream would be to see a forced action with large throw this year... that would be awesome ;) Would probably use a 6.5 inch pad on that to speed up the process.
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Might work really well... might accentuate the "grabby" aspect of forced rotation/oscillation tools with at least some pad/product combos.

No one will know till someone tries...


:)
 
Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
Here's a quote from you, I got this from some JIT Training at Hewlett-Packard years ago...


Quality never cost money... it makes money...





Might work really well... might accentuate the "grabby" aspect of forced rotation/oscillation tools with at least some pad/product combos.

No one will know till someone tries...


:)
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Well product evolution never stops, I am sure they can find a way to improve over all 3 of the current offers (rotary/forced action/DA).

You guys will be Lucky to be the first to see it at SEMA ;)

And yes quality is something to thrive for both in terms of services and products.
 
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