Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 7
Tools for polishing paint by hand
If you want to compound, polish or wax your car by hand here's a few tools that will take some of the elbow grease out of the project.
Most of working by hand is just that... working. It's you rubbing some type of applicator pad over the paint using your arm and hand primarily but also your legs, back and shoulders as you support yourself for the process.
About 20 years ago our industry hit a tipping point where the average person moved from working by hand to working by machine, There are two general reasons for this,
1. Modern basecoat/clearcoat paints are so hard that it's really difficult to actually remove swirls and scratches for the average person by hand.
You can definitely improve the overall appearance of a neglected paint finish by hand but to try do what a machine can do for major correction work it's really both time and labor intensive.
2. Safe, easy to use and affordable dual action polishers enabled the average person to purchase a polisher and move from working by hand to working by machine.
At the same time these simple and easy to use dual action polishers became available the Internet was also introduced and with the help of how-to articles on forums like AutogeekOnline.net, DVDs available at places like Autogeek.com and videos on YouTube, with a little research and practice it's not that hard to figure out how to use tools like the Porter Cable 7424XP or the Griot's Garage 6" DA Polisher or the Meguiar's MT300.
That said, if you want to work by hand then consider some of the below tools that will make rubbing a compound, polish or wax over the body panels of your car easier and faster as well as making your hand more effective for the job at hand... no pun intended.
This first thin you see is a hand backing pad for Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads which are used to remove above surface bonded contaminants the way you would use detailing clay. The Nanoskin pads are normally attached to the backing plate of a dual action polisher but Nanoskin also offers these hand backing pads so you can use them by hand.
The cool thing about the Nanoskin hand backing pads is one side has velcro to hold pretty much any type of pad and the other side has an adjustable velcro strap to hold it on your hand. Thus you can apply pressure to the paint with a fairly large footprint or hand print when applying compounds, polishes and waxes.
The pictures kind of show you what I mean and the foam pads are 6.5" ThinPro pads. The white foam is "polishing" and the black pad is "finishing" so they are both very safe for use with just about any quality product for doing paint polishing and waxing.
Nanoskin also makes a small finger backing pad and pictures are the small 3" ThinPro foam pads.
Here's a few more tools to make working by hand easy...
Lexol offers a round applicator pad with a sleeve in it to place your hand.
Carrand offers this nifty plastic handle that grips microfiber pads. The kit includes two microfiber pads.
Meguiar's offers a 2-pack of really high quality microfiber pads but you have to grip thin with your hand or between your thumb and fingers while all the options I show above provide a tick easier way to hold and work your products.
All these are available at Autogeek.com
If you need help getting them simply call our Tech Hotline at,
1-800-869-3011
And any of our staff can help you locate just the right products and tools for your detailing project.
If you want to compound, polish or wax your car by hand here's a few tools that will take some of the elbow grease out of the project.
Most of working by hand is just that... working. It's you rubbing some type of applicator pad over the paint using your arm and hand primarily but also your legs, back and shoulders as you support yourself for the process.
About 20 years ago our industry hit a tipping point where the average person moved from working by hand to working by machine, There are two general reasons for this,
1. Modern basecoat/clearcoat paints are so hard that it's really difficult to actually remove swirls and scratches for the average person by hand.
You can definitely improve the overall appearance of a neglected paint finish by hand but to try do what a machine can do for major correction work it's really both time and labor intensive.
2. Safe, easy to use and affordable dual action polishers enabled the average person to purchase a polisher and move from working by hand to working by machine.
At the same time these simple and easy to use dual action polishers became available the Internet was also introduced and with the help of how-to articles on forums like AutogeekOnline.net, DVDs available at places like Autogeek.com and videos on YouTube, with a little research and practice it's not that hard to figure out how to use tools like the Porter Cable 7424XP or the Griot's Garage 6" DA Polisher or the Meguiar's MT300.
That said, if you want to work by hand then consider some of the below tools that will make rubbing a compound, polish or wax over the body panels of your car easier and faster as well as making your hand more effective for the job at hand... no pun intended.
This first thin you see is a hand backing pad for Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads which are used to remove above surface bonded contaminants the way you would use detailing clay. The Nanoskin pads are normally attached to the backing plate of a dual action polisher but Nanoskin also offers these hand backing pads so you can use them by hand.
The cool thing about the Nanoskin hand backing pads is one side has velcro to hold pretty much any type of pad and the other side has an adjustable velcro strap to hold it on your hand. Thus you can apply pressure to the paint with a fairly large footprint or hand print when applying compounds, polishes and waxes.
The pictures kind of show you what I mean and the foam pads are 6.5" ThinPro pads. The white foam is "polishing" and the black pad is "finishing" so they are both very safe for use with just about any quality product for doing paint polishing and waxing.
Nanoskin also makes a small finger backing pad and pictures are the small 3" ThinPro foam pads.
Here's a few more tools to make working by hand easy...
Lexol offers a round applicator pad with a sleeve in it to place your hand.
Carrand offers this nifty plastic handle that grips microfiber pads. The kit includes two microfiber pads.
Meguiar's offers a 2-pack of really high quality microfiber pads but you have to grip thin with your hand or between your thumb and fingers while all the options I show above provide a tick easier way to hold and work your products.
All these are available at Autogeek.com
If you need help getting them simply call our Tech Hotline at,
1-800-869-3011
And any of our staff can help you locate just the right products and tools for your detailing project.
