What is it excatly that causes buffer trails? And how do you pro's work edges? And last but not least, what does RIDS stand for?
Oh man, I was totally expecting a pic of a Makita or DeWalt that was the size of a horse. Now that I've pulled my head outta my arse, I am interested in the answers to D2G's questions as well.
Buffer trails are usually caused by a dirty pad, high rpm with the rotary, an agressive polish, and a dry pad-wool or foam. You can either tape off the edges or just pratice and lighten up on the rotary when coming to an edge or not keeping the rotary near an edge for very long. I would suggest practicing with wool first to just get a feel for the rotary and then move on to your foam pads. The wool is easier to control.
Keeping the pad flat on the surface avoid tilting when your useing a hard backing plate. Hmmmm looks like AR said everything else i try to avoid or adjust if im geting trails.
Eh......my reply is going to be different from others, somewhat. Buffer trails or wheel marks (also called holograms) are not caused by dirty pads as much as they are micro-scratches caused by the rotary operator not properly finishing out their work. So let's say we are doing a paint correction and we start with a mild compound, say Menzerna SIP and an orange pad. We level down the marring and scratches but what's left behind are now micro-scratches which take on the appearance of a flowing ribbon within the paint. If we stop here, the paint may look shiny but buffer trails are present. The paint is, what I call, "open". So to lessen the swirls we need to step down the pad to say a medium polish pad and again SIP. We have now further lessened the swirls but most likely they are still there, just finer now. So now we move to a finer pad and also a finer polish. This step begins to "close" the paint. Think of it in terms of prepping and finishing out a furniture piece made of wood. You'll start with a coarse grit then work your way down to a fine grit which smooths over the wood. So the finer the pad and polish the fewer the swirls. You can scratch or mar the paint by hand but you can't put in buffer marks by hand. This is because your hand alone cannot generate the needed heat and friction to cause swirls. You buff edges by either lowering the RPM's on the rotary or by feathering the trigger as you buff up to the edge. Hope this helps, Anthony
Anthony I will agree with most of what you said but a dirty pad is going to cause holograms and or buffer trails. The dirty pad is going to scratch the surface and cause the holograms.
A foreign object, be it grit or dirt, caught in the foam (pad) will surely cause scratching but what it introduces into the paint is not a uniform swirl but rather a deeper series of marks within the lighter or finer swirls caused by the abrasive pad and/or product. So if you're using a 100ppi pad and a fine polish to burnish the paint and some foreign object is in the pad you wouldn't really see swirls so much as you would see this deep circular scratch. In order for dirt and such to cause swirls there would have to be a great number of them within the pad, not one or even a few for they would cause more scratches than swirls. Now a broken down and worn out pad will cause swirls also, even if it's a fine finishing pad. I usually toss my pads when they get some tears and such in them. Hope that clarifies it more from my end. Anthony
I am with you on this also, maybeI should have been a little clearer also. I should have said wool will cause the holograms when it gets dirty or gummed up. I should have clarified my statement, I always use wool and took it for granted people know that is what I am talking about.
Thats a totally different way to how I do it With todays diminishing abrasives, you never leave any micro scratches, swirls, buff marks or haze With the Menzerna line, worked from 600 to 1500( sometimes up to 1700) and then burnished at 1100, 900, 750, 600 or even 1100, 1000, 900, absolutely no marks should be present With powergloss and say yellow or black foam (edge) or yellow foam (Lake C) pads, done in the above way, there will be no marks left at all Holograms are caused by working say Menzerna a little too long and all the lubrication has dried up (parraffin oil and glycerin) and the diminishing abrasives have begun to turn into little balls or tiny strings at the same time Or the lubrication is still there but the polish has been worked too long and has gone stringy So just because the oils are still spreading, doesn't mean that the polish can be worked any more Scenario 1 The foam pad is dry and at the speed being used (especially when rotary is not slowed down at the end), it leaves those 3D lines in the direction you've moved the machine Scenario 2 The polish has turned into strings or balls and they have marked the finish along with the pad With Menzerna polishes, working time is between 40 seconds and 250 seconds Wool will always make the polish/compound work for a shorter time. Depends on temp/humidity, pad type, type of paint (solvent, waterbased, sticky clearcoat German and british paint usually give the best working time (especially spies hecker)
Holograms, ALL holograms, wheel marks, buffer trails, etc. are micro-scratches in the top coat of paint. It doesn't matter if you use wool, foam, vinyl chair coverings or sack cloth....Menzerna, 3M, Meguairs, Optimum or Oil Of Olay....they all consist of micro-scratches. The original question was asking how or what causes swirls, in a simple nut shell, they are micro-scratches. On that I'm sure we can all agree. The other areas are mainly subjective. Anthony
