Machine polishers...?

[The_Edge]

Good thing? Bad thing?

I know they used to be frowned upon but that was a long time back. Worth a look nowadays? .... just wondered....

[JulianHJ]

Random orbital polishers are popular in certain circles; try the Bodywork and Detailing forum, or for proper nerdiness get over to DetailingWorld.

They apparently need a bit of caution and practice, in order to avoid cutting right through the lacquer.

[The_Edge]

Loskey said:

Very good if you know what your doing.

So maybe the question is, for an enthusiast, worth getting into? Or not worth the potential issues it could bring?

Happy to read the manual and do the groundwork...

[JulianHJ]

Over on DW I've read posts from chaps who've gone down the scappy, had a door off a crash-damaged car, rubbed a load of grit into an otherwise sound panel, then practiced with the polisher to get it looking good again. It's how I'd approach it if I did decide to take the plunge.

[m44kts]

It takes quite a bit to burn through the paint, really isn't as daunting as people make out. As said, practice on an old panel first, I did some practice on a faded red bonnet and got it like new again.

All I did was just buy some decent 3m pads and start with some basic compound like Meguiars ultimate compound from Halfords and work your way up from there.

[Six Fiend]

You'll need:

To read up on detailingworld - talk to people who know what they're doing and learn from them.
Common sense
Patience - never rush
Practice - I had a whole ropey Ka to play with Failing that a scrappy panel is a great move!
A credit card and a visit to cleanyourcar.co.uk or similar...

I use a DAS-6, have had some great results with time and patience.

[Magic919]

I've got a few of them and think they are great. You'd need to be an idiot to burn through a panel. Short course on using one is an option.

[Blue Oval84]

It really is quite difficult to burn through paint.

I'm a total amateur but managed reasonable results on my friend's Tigra-

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.p...

As said above, read Detailingworld, there are some good tutorial articles, and then go steady. I moved onto a rotary pretty quickly as I found it much easier than random orbital.

[iPlod999]

Have a search for Junkman 2000 on YouTube.

Here is his video for machine polishing for beginners.

http://youtu.be/h_0nr6XPEHM

I have not had bad results on my 21 year old Pug.

[z06tim]

I didn't know about junkman2000's youtube vids. I would recommend this chap. He is a prolific poster on digital vettes and has written many good "how to" guides for his C5.

[pugfan]

Basically you need to be cautious with them so as to not burn through the paint, but from my experience you have to be going really roughly to do this. The idea of practising on an old wing or door is a great one.

The Meguiar's dual orbital polisher would be a good starting point as it is pretty much impossible to completely ruin paint work using them and then working up to a fully blown machine polisher.

It's definitely worth getting into as it can save you money in the long run for fixing some scratches on the car etc yourself.