What should I be AFRAID of using the rotary?

After watching Nica's :worship2: first two rotary videos I have gained enough confidence that I bought a Makita rotary.. but after watching his last three videos I have kinda become a little more fearful of the rotary. Mainly because at one point he mentioned something to the effect that the LC orange pad is much more dangerous around edges and transitions then the 3M pads he uses. I already own every color CCS LC Pad in the 6.5 and 4 inch size.. so I plan to stay with that. I have tried about five different lines of polishes and Optimum is the only one that I have found managable in the Florida Heat.

Although I am fearful of the rotary.. I am also brave/stupid enough to go ahead and try it out.

I have read just about every guide and post I can find but still would like some advice for how I plan to use the rotary specifically.

As I have been looking through all of the ShowNShine posts I see car after car with painted plastic and curves everywhere... how does all this get polished??? I have read posts about guys melting painted plastic bumpers and things like that.

I grabbed the first pic in a ShowNShine post and highlighted areas that I would be concerned about on my own vehicle..


A.) Whats the rule with polishing plastic bumpers?
B.) For the pillar I planned on using 4 inch pads.. is a rotary safe to use here?
C/D.) If I were to assume this piece is metal.. how would you recommend I polish this?
E.) I would guess if a rotary cannot be used on plastic bumpers then it definitely cannot be used on plastic mirrors?
A video of these kinds of areas being polished would be awesome.. hint hint Nica..:whistle:

For my vehicle.. which is a black Nissan with light to moderate swirls..I have been told I have a moderately soft clear coat.. what combination pad and polish would you recommend? I can use LC CCS Yellow,Orange,Green,White,Black,Red.. and for Polishes I would like to stay with Optimum Compound and Optimum Polish. I can post pics of the swirls tommorow if needed... but I planned to start with a White LC pad and OP... then if thats not enough going to OP and an Orange pad.. or maybe going OC and a White pad.. What combinations should I try? And for speed I plan to keep it under 1500.. maybe try something around 1200.. any recommendation for a noob?

and finally.. I am so sick of the PC that I was wondering if it is possible to apply glazes and sealants with the rotary.. say with a black or red pad and the rotary on the lowest setting??? :banned:

Thank You for any advice you can give me!!

 

Heh, I was in the same position you were not too long ago. Hopefully my advice will suffice in answering your questions.

A. I personally haven't polished any plastic bumpers or pieces with the rotary. I usually just hit them with a 4" pad and the PC since that always seemed to work for me. I suspect that you could use a 4" pad and the rotary so long as your keep your RPMs really low (under 1000).

B. In this area, I use the rotary and/or the PC with 4" pads depending on the hardness of the car's paint. IMO, I think it's safe to use the rotary here but you just have to be VERY careful.

C/D. I would either polish with a 4" pad with a PC, rotary or even by hand. Again you have to be VERY careful even though it's not plastic.

E. I haven't used the rotary on plastic side mirrors either but rather the PC instead. It just seems easier for me and the results always come out really well.

Starting with a white LC pad and OP would actually be a pretty good start but personally I would rather use PFW with OP, PS, or SSR2.5 considering your vehicle MAY have a moderately soft clear coat.

As for your speed, you could go up to 1500 or so as long as you're really careful and always moving the rotary constantly. Every polish has a different behavior so you always have to take that into consideration. Having OP will make learning the rotary easier than learning with SIP.

Good luck!

 

First of all, you would be stupid NOT to learn how to use a rotary. Learning how to use a rotary opens up a whole new world of TRUE correction and perfection.

A. Plastic does not tolerate heat nearly as well as metal. Keep the speeds lower, move a little quicker, and dont apply as much pressure, you should be fine.

B. You can use the rotary there too, Id just lower the speed a little bit and of course tape everything around it.

C. Id pop the hood and probably hit that with the PC.

D. You probably dont need to go as aggressive on parts like that, as apposed to the rest of the door. Id tape that off if you're doing serious correction on the other parts. Otherwise, polishing that will be fine. Just make sure you work the polish correctly there too, and remove any polish that gets between the cracks.

E. Yep, you can use the rotary on mirrors once you get the hang of it. Just lower the RPMs a bit and use a 4" pad. But for now, Id just the PC on them to be safe.

Rotary is not that hard to learn, but you will burn paint eventually, thats the learning process. I would pick up some panels, metal and plastic. Use different types of pads and different sizes. Experiment with different techniques, speed, pressure, angles, movements, etc. Feel the paint with your hand to see how hot the paint is getting. If it gets real hot, let it cool down before making another pass. Also position the panels at different angles. And burn the paint on purpose, see what it takes to do it (feel the paint when you do it). Of course itll be different with every car and every combination, but at least you'll have an idea of what it takes.

Now dont go into this thinking you have to move the rotary around super fast. You can move it pretty damn slow and not burn the paint. Ive gotten the paint to where its very hot to the touch, sometimes its needed, but you need to know what you're doing. Practice, practice, practice.

1200- 1500 are good speeds for a beginner. And that CCS orange will probably walk, tug, and hop on you pretty good, so dont freak out when that happens. Stick with the PC for applying waxes, sealants, and glazes.

As for what to use on your car, start with the least aggressive combo and work your way up, simple as that.

Oh, and when you come to an edge or the top of a ridge, just back off on pressure a bit.

 

I like your advice better D&D.

 

Side mirrors are no problem with a rotary, just keep an eye on the temperature with your hand

Tape alot and stick below 1500 rpm
Front bumpers and A pillars are fine to do but keep polish product to 1500 to 2000 grit removal polishes on a front bar
Don't use foamed wool or any wool pads on front bar, probably orange to white pad at the most

 

Spot on D&D!

Keep the speed low and IMHO skip the orange pad and go with pfw for heavy correction.

 

all good advice.

i might add, for section C, along w/ opening the hood pop out the grills. that's what i did as they are only held in by clips. you could also pop off the front emblem, i was replacing mine anyhow but it snaps on and off also.

and about section D, it wasn't in bad shape so i taped the whole thing up and didn't even bother going at it w/ the buffer.

 

Great information everyone! Makes me wanna buy a rotary...again.

 

Thats exactly what I needed to know. Thanks Denzil and D&D. Also, I guess Haper is also Petrucci.. if so awesome job on the M3. :thumb: I just randomly picked a car that looked tricky to polish.

I work during the day and go to school at night.. so if I ever get a chance to try this I will post some pics. Hopefully they will be worthy enough to end up in the ShowNShine or maybe we will have to have a Hall of Shame Forum created or something.. will see.:shrug:

And I guess I need to buy some Purple foamed wool pads.. Off to do more research.:coffee:

Thanks again everyone.

 

Great information being shared by everyone here and all good points.

I use my Metabo on the entire vehicle, the only thing is that you just have to play around with the speed and pressure just like D&D and others have mentioned.

The only thing I can add is that instead of me typing a long winded response I'll just show you how I do it :giggle:

I've got several videos that I need to load and they are as follows:

• How to tape a vehicle
• How to polish a bumper/plastic in general
• How to polish side view mirrors

Well just a few things I've been working on but one thing to note, the vidoes I'm posting are just to share how I do things and are just guidelines. I mean how I do things is one way there are many ways so just keep an open mind to things that's all.

Any who if you'd like to see anything else feel free to ask and I'll do my best to make a video on the request.

 

Where can I see the videos op mentioned?

 

Here you go

Rotary videos - Detailing Bliss Forum

 

Hey Carlos, perhaps we should have some sort of thread where we can make formal requests from you to make specific detailing videos. :lol:

 

I purchased a few books and a video on detailing and all were out of date or just too vague and general to help me. I learned more from watching one of Nica's videos then I have anything else. Although there was some sort of Detailing convention in St. Petersburg, FL last year that I probably should have gone to.

One of these online retailers should pay you to put together a DVD.. from what I have read it sounds like you have everything for the video production aspect. I know I would purchased it after seeing the ones you have made so far. "Any who" I'm not trying to pressure you into anything.

But I am very thankful for the ones you have made Nica.:worship2:

 

Well to be honest I've enjoyed doing the videos so much that I've been working on getting a producer to make a DVD for me...I've got all the components to do the DVD I just need a good producer to put it all together for me...the other thing is that I'm not a big fan of the special effects, I do like a small amount of special effects but not so much...any who just things I've been working on in the background along with the other goodies I got coming for Detailing Bliss members :thumb:

I too have purchased a bunch of videos online and hard copy’s (meaning physically ordering DVD's) and they are so out dated like Strs90 says that that's what got me thinking "What would I include in a DVD?" So I jotted ides down and before I knew it I filled a page and said to my self “Well look at that, I’ve got enough material to do a full DVD” at this point the light when on :thumb:

Well Mike (Calgarydetail) doesn’t know it yet but he's going to help :whistle: he's got connections to a producer so he will take care of that end and I'm currently looking at purchasing a high-end came for me to record my self and then have the producer put it all together with minor special effects and that will give me my own DVD…sounds easy but it's quite time consuming…oh and the other thing is that I'm a little camera shy :shakehead: It's weird watching your self or hearing my self self, I critic my self way to much...my wife says I'm worse then a girl (no disrespect intended).

Well the DVD idea is still in the works but it will be completed very soon but in the mean wile I'll be loading a few things I've been working on. But the there will be a bunch of other ideas that I’m saving for the DVD :whistle:

The intention is and always will be to help other loose the fear of the rotary, I remember when I first started, I didn’t’ know what to do let alone where to start so that’s how the video passion began, sorry for all the rambling just sharing that’s all.

 

I have only used my 3401 twice. I watched your video and have only used the 3403 since. It gave me enough info in those short vids to get me going. Anyone want a 3401:whistle:

Thanx Carlos :thumb:

 

When I took public speaking as an undergrad we had to tape our speeches and then directly after the speech the whole class would watch and critic them. Very uncomfortable to have 30 students tell you how much you suck. :gasp:

The DVD things sounds great.. I really hope that it works out.. I will definintely be one of the first in line to buy it.

 

Yea I had to go through the same thing during school, thing is my job is basically dealing with public and you'd think that it wouldn't be a big deal making a video but I think I Just get exited when talking about detailing and well I start rambling on and on. But this project is all about helping others and having fun with it so I'm sure it will be fun as it's something I'm looking forward on putting together. If the curent videos have been helpfull hope what I'm working will be just as helpfull if not better, so I'm taking a stab at it :thumb:

Thank you for the support, very much appreciated.

 

That's a good idea Denzil, um...how about the suggestion section a thread can be started there and what ever is suggested I will do my best to make a good quality video :thumb:

 

Man, I had to do the same thing. During our speech everyone would write down the stuff we did good, and stuff we needed to improve on. Then we had to read all the comments out loud in front of the class. Luckily we got to watch the video by ourselves though.