Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 7
The Pencil Trick - What is a bead of product when using a rotary buffer?
I was speaking with Mike aka smack aka Mike@DedicatedPerfection about a bead of product this morning and describing how I use a plain, ordinary pencil in my detailing classes to teach people how much product to lay down when laying down a bead or strip of product.
While on the phone I could not locate the picture but using the right key words with Google images I found it....
So here's the deal with the lingo in our industry....
When you hear someone say they are going to pick up their bead of product or they're going to lay down a bead of product what they mean is they're going to pour a strip of product, usually a compound or polish onto a panel and then using the 10 @ 10 Technique they will "pick it up" with the buffing pad on their buffer.
The Pencil Trick - How much product to lay down?
A good general rule of thumb is to use a new wood pencil like I show in the picture above as a reference for how much product to apply when compounding or polishing with a rotary buffer. This is assuming you're using a 7" or larger buffing pad. Adjust according to pad size.
I don't know where the word "bead" came from it's just the term I've always used and remember being used since I became involved in this industry. Perhaps an old-timer body shop guy knows?
The word bead can be used interchangeably with the word strip but for some reason the word bead is the commonly used term.
And that's the rest of the story....
I was speaking with Mike aka smack aka Mike@DedicatedPerfection about a bead of product this morning and describing how I use a plain, ordinary pencil in my detailing classes to teach people how much product to lay down when laying down a bead or strip of product.
While on the phone I could not locate the picture but using the right key words with Google images I found it....
So here's the deal with the lingo in our industry....
When you hear someone say they are going to pick up their bead of product or they're going to lay down a bead of product what they mean is they're going to pour a strip of product, usually a compound or polish onto a panel and then using the 10 @ 10 Technique they will "pick it up" with the buffing pad on their buffer.
The Pencil Trick - How much product to lay down?
A good general rule of thumb is to use a new wood pencil like I show in the picture above as a reference for how much product to apply when compounding or polishing with a rotary buffer. This is assuming you're using a 7" or larger buffing pad. Adjust according to pad size.
I don't know where the word "bead" came from it's just the term I've always used and remember being used since I became involved in this industry. Perhaps an old-timer body shop guy knows?
The word bead can be used interchangeably with the word strip but for some reason the word bead is the commonly used term.
And that's the rest of the story....
rops: