Rotary

David703 said:
I just want to comment on what you said.... you said that you are going to get a few hoods to practice on..



Please be aware a hood is a good place to start, BUT, it doesnt prepare you for buffing on horizontal surfaces, curved surfaces, adjoining panels of different heights, around trim, moldings and door handles, a-pilars, b pilars, plastic bumpers, single stage, dual stage, hard CC, soft CC, etc...



Then when you use the rotory for specific corrections, it gets even more dangerous..such as trying to buff out a scratch etc..



I'm not saying that you said buffing hoods will make u an expert.. I'm just saying that buffing hoods will make you good at buffing hoods..

Be carefull and go slow...



and yes the Makita with its slow 600rpm starting speed, feathered trigger and great handle make it a winner!!

Isn't a hood a horizontal surface?
 
Accumulator said:
The Makita has a trigger whereas the Metabo has an on/off switch sorta like the one on a PC. The Metabo does a "soft start" thing that sora approximates feathering on a trigger, but it's not the same.



They're just *different* and it can be hard to say which one somebody's gonna like better. I switch back and forth between the two...one's nice for some jobs but the other seems better for others.









Do what works for you, but since I got my Flex 3401 the Makita and the Metabo both just sit on the shelf.





A lot of people, myself included, can't finish out 100% holgoram-free via rotary. And I've seen a lot of "hologram-free" cars that weren't when I really inspected them. If you can't pull the vehicle out into the sun, there's no way to tell if it has (light) holograms either...and I've had cases where the sun had to be at the exact right angle to catch very light holograms (the inspection required two people working together at just the right time of day). No way I'd risk such stuff so I always finish with a Flex/Cyclo/PC.








Even with wool pads and M105? Unless I'm using real rocks-in-a-bottle compounds, PFW pads with M105 cuts about as fast as anything I do via rotary. And I hear the Sur-buff pads are even more aggressive than that. By the time I take all the rotary-centric precautions and get rid of the holograms, I don't think the rotaries save me much, if *any* time (and I work primarily on hard clear).



The above isn't an anti-rotary rant, just some comments from somebody who has both types of machine (and both types of rotaries) and prefers the Flex.



I can second this entire post. This is exactly the same reason I find myself reaching for the FLEX XC 3401 VRG more and more these days.



At this point, my favorite rotary for most of my heavy work is the Metabo PE12-175, but finishing is just faster with the flex, everything considered.



You took the words right out of my mouth my friend.
 
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