BlkSapphire
New member
Posting this because my arms are tired and because I'd like feedback from people who've done this before. Would especially like to know if I said anything wrong or dumb.
All I really wanted to do was remove some mild dealer swirls from my new BMW, but then I got the idea I'd practice on my '95 first, and now $1000 and 4 weeks later here I am with a rotary and a 5.5" orange pad, polishing SIP into the '95's paint. This paint has never been corrected in 13 years and though it looks good, it is covered with scratches, random in orientation and quite variable in depth - probably 10 of them are down to primer, another 10,000 of them are not. I believe the board calls these RIDS.
The HF rotary is variable. The 7" backing pad seems a little optimistic; I don't see this thing driving much more surface area than the 5.5" pad. Working with a rotary is less bad than everyone makes it out to be.
First of all, it's just not that dangerous. If you have any wit at all, you will run the buffer over the paint and then touch the paint where the buffer was just sitting, until you get the idea of how much heat you are producing. Very hot? You are generating too much heat. Body temperature? It's fine. I just decided that I was not going to leave the buffer in one place for more than a couple tenths of a second - always moving - and the paint never did seem to warm up over 110 or 120 degrees.
Second of all, SIP is forgiving. It is made of abrasives sitting in a Vaseline-like lubricant. Warm it up and the lubricant starts to move smooth and easy as the abrasive reduces. This is ideal. Warm it up too much and the lubricant evaporates too quick and you are left with swirls of white clumpy abrasive. This is also bad. Polish lightly and the abrasive reduces before the lubricant goes away, leaving a clear film of lube with totally-reduced abrasive in it. It is easy once you get the hang of it. The hard part is using the right amount of SIP for the area you're polishing, and not taking on too much area at once.
There is a place on my paint where a bird pooped so I really bore down with the SIP there, using all the weight of the rotary plus a little more. I was half afraid the paint would burn. Instead, nearly all the scratch marks in that area went away. It really improved the paint considerably. So it is sort of a learning process to get comfortable with your tool and learn what it does.
Compared to the Porter Cable, in my hands I find that the rotary takes about 10% as much effort, slings 10% as much polish, is about 10% as obnoxious on the hands (vibration), and removes about 5 times as many scratches with the same polish and pad. It also is nearly 3 times as expensive. It's not clear to me exactly why people are so jazzed about the PC.
All I really wanted to do was remove some mild dealer swirls from my new BMW, but then I got the idea I'd practice on my '95 first, and now $1000 and 4 weeks later here I am with a rotary and a 5.5" orange pad, polishing SIP into the '95's paint. This paint has never been corrected in 13 years and though it looks good, it is covered with scratches, random in orientation and quite variable in depth - probably 10 of them are down to primer, another 10,000 of them are not. I believe the board calls these RIDS.
The HF rotary is variable. The 7" backing pad seems a little optimistic; I don't see this thing driving much more surface area than the 5.5" pad. Working with a rotary is less bad than everyone makes it out to be.
First of all, it's just not that dangerous. If you have any wit at all, you will run the buffer over the paint and then touch the paint where the buffer was just sitting, until you get the idea of how much heat you are producing. Very hot? You are generating too much heat. Body temperature? It's fine. I just decided that I was not going to leave the buffer in one place for more than a couple tenths of a second - always moving - and the paint never did seem to warm up over 110 or 120 degrees.
Second of all, SIP is forgiving. It is made of abrasives sitting in a Vaseline-like lubricant. Warm it up and the lubricant starts to move smooth and easy as the abrasive reduces. This is ideal. Warm it up too much and the lubricant evaporates too quick and you are left with swirls of white clumpy abrasive. This is also bad. Polish lightly and the abrasive reduces before the lubricant goes away, leaving a clear film of lube with totally-reduced abrasive in it. It is easy once you get the hang of it. The hard part is using the right amount of SIP for the area you're polishing, and not taking on too much area at once.
There is a place on my paint where a bird pooped so I really bore down with the SIP there, using all the weight of the rotary plus a little more. I was half afraid the paint would burn. Instead, nearly all the scratch marks in that area went away. It really improved the paint considerably. So it is sort of a learning process to get comfortable with your tool and learn what it does.
Compared to the Porter Cable, in my hands I find that the rotary takes about 10% as much effort, slings 10% as much polish, is about 10% as obnoxious on the hands (vibration), and removes about 5 times as many scratches with the same polish and pad. It also is nearly 3 times as expensive. It's not clear to me exactly why people are so jazzed about the PC.
