Used the rotary for the first time today

Ralliart16

New member
Makita 9227 with EDGE 8" wool pads and EDGE 8" Foam Pads.



The finish was HAMMERED...never been polished. Trunk lid, so obviously a lot of items got set on it which put a lot of deep scratches. I started off "mild" with an orange pad and Megs #83.. and this did almost nothing to the heavy scratches. I then went to Green wool w/ Megs #84.. little improvement, but still not hitting hard on the deep scratches. I then went as aggressive as possible, black wool with Megs #85. Few passes leveled the scratches noticeably.



After the black wool and 85 i did:

-Green wool and 83

-Orange Foam and 83

-White Foam and 83

-White Foam and 80



Overall went pretty smoothly. Didn't really have any skipping issues, except when the product was dried up. I found using a "slight" angle made the rotary a lot easier to maneuver.



I did burn an edge though :wall I didn't notice it til' I finished and was doing the final wipe down. Its very slight, about 1" long at the very corner and maybe 1/16" wide. This was probably because I found it very hard to hit the tight edges with the 8" pad without going at a heavy angle. No big deal though, this car is my parents old car and has seen better days.. as you can see in the 2nd to last picture reflection, the roof has severe clear coat failure. Will get a repaint in the future.



Any tips on my process? Any steps I can cut out or better pad combinations to use? The main thing I wasn't sure about is how many passes to do on each pad.. or just how low to take the rpms on the edges. Do you want the finish to get slightly warm? When I was being too careful the finish wouldn't develop ANY heat.. so I figured this meant i wasn't getting any correction. So I slowed it enough and took the rpms to where I the surface was a tad warm, but not hot. This was about 1500+ or so RPMS



BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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I think you have too many steps, 3 would be better, hevy cut, light cut, then polish.



I used my Makita first time recently, used yellow wool and OC, the green pad w/ OP(to remove the swirls. When I 1st did the green/OP it still left some marks, working longer w/ more rpm at 1st cleaned it up nicely.



Basically there are allways varibles but I think w/ more time under your belt that you'll be using 3 steps most.
 
3 steps is too much I think



I usually use 2 steps MAX. I may do another IF the car needs it.



I like to pyramid the polishing steps. Spread at 600rpm - polish at 1200-1800rpms(depends how aggressive the polish I am working on). I think drop the RPMS down to 900 to burnish the paint and try to minimize holograms.
 
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