Help w/ PC, first use today

K

kleraudio

New member
Hello everyone,

First off I love this thing, I practiced on the hood of my brothers car and it turned out pretty well. Im gonna post some pics in another post in the click and brag section.



Well heres my question: I have read that you need to apply a considerate amount of pressure when tryin to remove swirls. I used the orange medium cut pad from Sonus DAS and PB SSR 2.5. I spread the product at 3 then pumped it up to 6 and started working the polish, moving the PC about an inch a second. When i applied pressure to the pad at speed 6 it seemed to stop spinning, is this normal? Do i want the pad to spin? I used a pretty decent amount of pressure on this thing, the defects were corrected on the hood (swirls mostly, some light scratches) but Im not sure if my technique was flawed? can someone give me some insight please?



secondly, i switched to the green polishing pad by Sonus DAS and SSR1 . The slightest pressure caused this pad to stop turning and it felt as though my backing plate might be coming down right against the paint with just a little foam in between the paint and my backing plate. The green pad is rather soft, when you guys are using this type of pad with a light polish, do you use much pressure? should i make sure the pad is spinning w/ foam this soft?



Thanks for the help everyone, I have done a search but didnt find what i was looking for.



Im finishing up the rest of the car tomorrow morning. I wish it could stay sunny all day long :mad:



Jim
 
Just be glad you had sun today! Anyway pressure is very subjective. I do not need to apply much pressure when polishing out swrils, too much pressure just stops some of the random orbit action. But it is hard to stop this thing. It just takes practice and experience to see how much pessure you need to apply to efectively break down the polish. Which is the more important thing to consider. I don't use any of the SSR's but not much pressure is needed when I use Menzerna or Optimum.
 
zippy, is your pad spinning the whole time your polishing? Mine stops spinning cuz of the pressure im putting on, but somehow it fixed the defects...



Jim
 
A lot of pressure is good - to an extent, more pressure = more agressive. It isn't like a rotary where you are going to leave swirls if you apply too much pressure. You'd have to apply over 40 pounds of pressure before you slowed the machine action down significantly. The fact that the pad stops spinning is fine - it is the back and forth action that does the work, not the spinning of the pad like a rotary. You can lighten up the pressure on the last pass, but really isn't necessary if you are finishing with SSR1 (this polish is very very mild with almost no cut). I too prefer the Menzerna or Optimum polishes over the Poorboys.
 
Hey rag, i really dont think there was back and forth action, how do i know if its going back and forth even after the pad stops spinning, this thing goes so fast its hard for me to tell? also, how bout when im finishing w/ ssr1 on a really soft foam pad, (green from Sonus DAS) do you put much pressure on this, it seems that the backing plate gets pretty close to the paint?



Thanks



Jim
 
as long as there is foam between the BP and the paint, you're fine.





Don't overthink this whole PC buffing thing... You've been worried about it for a couple of days now. It really isn't as difficult as you're making it out to be :D
 
The spinning action is very easy to stop, the machine is still oscillating even when the pad isn't spinning. I don't usually use as much pressure when I'm using something light like SSR1 (maybe I should?). One technique I like to use when using something like SSR2.5 is to lighten up on the pressure at the end, and let the pad spin, that seems to bring out more clarity/gloss, although that could be my imagination.
 
setec, thats what i did today, I let up pressure toward the end, the pad started to spin, and it turned out really nice!



Jim
 
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