Polisher broke give me your opinion on brands.

[William_Wallace]

I have a few other polishers PC, GG6, forced rotation flex knock off by SPTA, duetto, makita rotary and the down Shurhold 21.

The SPTA knock off flex I bought for around $150 and it has around 100 hours and since it’s a Chinese counterfeit I expect that to go down at some point and that will get discarded. Once that happens I will buy a name brand forced rotation I will most likely get makita because they are about $100 dollars cheaper. It come standard with 5 inch plate, and 5mm throw compared to 8mm throw by flex.

Thanks for all comments!

 

[felixthecat]

Speaking of the next stimulus, my pick would be the one that got away.... Rupes Mille. (hopefully not for long)
I have this Malibu paint that loves to hold on to any and all swirls, especially deep ones.

The Mille, is possible a great smooth machine, but then I`d be thinking `bout a 3401, which is built like a tank & can take a pounding, throw a 5`` pb on & use any 5.5`` pads.... possibly even a used one. The only basic tools that most manufactures don`t have besides Rupes are the Ibrid & the duetto.... The duetto would be the one I`d go w/ as I like the p/c size & w/ a 12mm throw as well as having that rupes smoothness......

 

[Oneheadlite]

Flex uses forced-rotation with smaller (8mm) throw to do correction. The Rupes and other free-spinning DAs use throw to do more correction, which is why 15 and 21 mm machines are popular for correcting large areas on SUVs, RVs, etc. But plenty of people use 8/9mm DAs for correction though it takes longer than forced rotation or longer throw machines. The key with free spinning is proper usage and to make sure you put a line on the backing plate so you can verify it continues to spin. You’ll also want to use it near full-speed on a free-spinning machine to make sure it has the most power available.

I guess I was a little vague with my post. I`m aware of the ins and outs of how the machines work - I meant I thought I remembered specifically the Makita (and I thought the Mille as well) came to the market (as short throw direct drives with the ability to do a free spinning mode) that people were disappointed with their free-spinning mode. Again, it`s been a while since it came out so it`s a little fuzzy; but I thought it originally seemed like a great machine to do fast correction in direct drive mode, then switch to free spinning for polishing. But in practice the free spinning mode was prone to stalling. BUT: Pretty sure the direct drive mode gets praise for being nice and smooth. Mainly I brought it up so OP was aware that while it does both modes, it may not excel at each.

EDIT: During my lunch break I tried to do some searching on the sister site as I think I was more active over there when the Makita came out. Was a bit hard to sift through as it seemed like a lot of the threads with the Makita in it turned into back and forth conversations regarding long throw vs forced rotation. I did find a handful of mentions of the free spinning mode being easier to stall, with (as is how the internet works) a couple mentions of no issue.

Side note - As is common practice, my free spinning backing plates have always been marked. I will say on my G9 I don`t find myself using 5 and 6 as often as I did on my previous GG6 as it has no issues maintaining rotation. Maybe I`m over-cautious, but I scaled the speed back as I didn`t want to put unnecessary heat into the pads. I wouldn`t hesitate recommending a G9 if someone wanted a shorter throw free spinning machine.

 

[dgage]

I don’t know about the Makita machine but the Rupes Mille is a forced-rotation polisher but is often passed over for the Flex due to 5mm vs 8mm throw.

 

[William_Wallace]

@oneheadlight I also heard that too about the Da mode being a poor performer on the switchable forced rotation machines.

I have other power tool that are makita and I got hooked on the brand. Makita is also cheaper and comes set up with 5 inch backing plate. It also seems smoother since it’s not as tall as the flex. I don’t know if the 5mm vs 8mm is smoother or cuts more I would think it would be smoother at the smaller 5mm throw and be easier on my joints. I don’t think the cutting would be different on soft paint. But maybe real hard material like stone the flex would do it work a little quicker with the larger action.


Im mail the machine out tomorrow came to $74 with tax and I have to pay shipping but they put a new set of brushes in and either fix the machine or give a new one fingers crossed.