The Guz

I would save Dawn for the dishes and use a strip wash or polish. 
 
 
I would do this as well. 
 
 
Another good idea. 

Why not just do the paint sealant on each panel after you correct? It doesn't take any longer than doing buttery wax. And then if you wanted to, you could do a second coat over the whole car when you finish.

Coatings don't need to be topped to begin with.  Guard & Gloss plays well with most coatings.  Reflex is technically a sealant on steroids and not a coating.  Gloss Coat can be topped with your favorite wax. 

Your tool is 100% covered by the factory warranty still. Send me a direct email:
 
dylanv@rupesusa.com
 
I'll arrange to get the tool to us, inspected, repaired or replaced free of charge.

Get the Rupes LHR15 Mark II. But the G15 is a good machine as well.  The Rupes has more power and runs very smooth.

Next time try hitting the tires with APC to do the brunt of the work.  Then follow up with a few passes of tire & rubber cleaner.  It will save you a lot more product. 

Next time try hitting the tires with APC to do the brunt of the work.  Then follow up with a few passes of tire & rubber cleaner.  It will save you a lot more product. 

Also note that white is not going to pop like a darker colored vehicle. My 02 Camaro SS is white and it won't have that pop. But if you keep it clean it will have that bright look to it instead of the dingy look.

IMO, it's not the same since DVK left.

Forget adding soap to the pad.  Add 1 oz into about 2 gallons of water.  Blast a stream of water into the bucket.  You will have enough suds to last the entire wash.   

Finished correcting and coating this 2015 Impala LTZ
 

Coming from a background in professional detailing and now working for a company that is engaged entirely in surface restoration theres just a couple of things to consider:

The more aggressive the operation the more stress is placed on the pad - heavy correction work beats up pads, so your compounding phases will eat up pads rather quickly, so if you have some pretty serious defects to work on have lots of spare pads.
 
The more aggressive the operation the more residue management you have to contend with - as you are doing heavy correction work your pad is being loaded up not only with compound, but the byproduct of abrasive actions (clear coat and paint). To remove deep defects you need to remove more material, the more material you remove the more your pad loads up, the more your pad is loaded the less effective it is. Its considered best practices to replace those pads more frequently during the heavy cutting phases.
 
Keep those 2 things in mind as you decide how many pads to have on hand. At a MINIMUM no one should have fewer than 2 of every pad just out of common sense. If you drop a pad or a pad comes apart you need to have a backup at a minimum to keep going. If you are planning heavy correction work (i.e. - our first full paint correction) I recommend at least 4 pads for your cutting phases so you can at least divide the car into 1/4 chunks and work it that way.

For your finishing work you are doing much less aggressive work, and removing far less material, so 2 pads for your finishing is generally enough. Also consider though - you will do fine polishing work more often as a touchup exercise (at least you should) so if thats the case then having a couple of spares on hand isn't a bad idea either.

The one place I think you can generally get away with 1 or 2 pads is your LSP steps (glazes, waxes, sealants) - its not cutting any material so you have no residue management to deal with, the action is low stress on the pad so no issues there, and in the worst case you can jump to hand application if you lose a pad in the process (not an option in the cutting and finishing phases).
 
My 2 pennies worth - that and $6 will get you a latte at Starbucks. Cheers!
 
 
-DvK
 

I would do a rinseless wash. 

Left a small spot in this first pic to show what I was dealing with.
 

 

 

Nice review. 
 
A quick tip for the others worried about using up this product to quickly,  Use APC and let that do the initial heavy lifting.  Come back with tire & rubber to clean up behind it. 
 
I do something similar with other products that I use to clean tires..

Nice review. 
 
A quick tip for the others worried about using up this product to quickly,  Use APC and let that do the initial heavy lifting.  Come back with tire & rubber to clean up behind it. 
 
I do something similar with other products that I use to clean tires..

Technically your pro detailer is correct.  Coatings don't really need to be topped with a wax or sealant. 
 
Could you top?  Sure you can.  Doing so will alter it's hydrophobic properties with that of the topper.
 
Coatings were made for the exact reason you depicted.  Easier to wash and clean.  It's a good thing that nothing sticks to it.  That is just letting you know that it is doing what it is supposed to do. 
 
Another thing to think about is how quick would a wax or sealant shed off the coating now that you have seen it's properties. 
 
If it were me I would just wash it and just use detail spray as a drying aid. 

Technically your pro detailer is correct.  Coatings don't really need to be topped with a wax or sealant. 
 
Could you top?  Sure you can.  Doing so will alter it's hydrophobic properties with that of the topper.
 
Coatings were made for the exact reason you depicted.  Easier to wash and clean.  It's a good thing that nothing sticks to it.  That is just letting you know that it is doing what it is supposed to do. 
 
Another thing to think about is how quick would a wax or sealant shed off the coating now that you have seen it's properties. 
 
If it were me I would just wash it and just use detail spray as a drying aid. 

But that's only to prime the pad.  After that it is very little product.  The fibers should all be covered in product. 

Here is part of a write-up I did around Christmas.  I have found this is the best way to 'butter' (or 'prime') a pad.  MF pads require this approach, as due pads used with a Rupes (or other long throw polisher).. 
 
Tip #6
When using Microfiber pads they should be primed with polish before using.  I use a popsicle (or craft) stick for this.  The stick gets the polish more evenly disbursed than you finger will!

 

 

This subject comes up a lot lately, and personally after logging many hours with both versions my loyalty is with the short neck. The polisher is easier to control in awkward applications (which are common when using the nano in the areas its best suited for). Both versions are identical in height from pad face to the spindle lock, so no advantage for the long there, but it does have reach - so picture trying to polish into the barrel of a wheel with the wheel still on the car, but thats a rather odd scenario.

If its my money I'd buy short and I've probably logged more hours with this thing than anyone in the US aside from my coworkers. Early on I would have leaned towards long as well - but that additional length, while an advantage of reach, does so with some loss of precision (if that makes sense)

I prefer to have lots of pads.  I can swap out to a new pad after a few panels and not worry about cleaning the pad on the fly to use one pad around the entire car.  Pads load up with spent product and paint residue (aka clear coat). 
 
The thing is to work clean to achieve the best results.  You could probably get by with 4 orange and 4 white pads. 

Get yourself some more white pads.  One is not enough.  Same goes with the microfiber pad.  It is hard to say if you will need the microfiber pads without doing a test spot.

<stretches>
<cracks knuckles>
<prepares to type>


 
 
 
Not at all true - pairing the BigFoot polishers up with the right pad/polish combo and its perfectly capable of ripping out sanding marks up to 1500 on most paints. The only real advantage a forced rotation machine is going to give you is no stall on deep curves or contours, but thats a issue we addressed with the mark II. In terms of correcting power I'd happily race anyone heads up on a panel Flex v. BigFoot and show that there is virtually no difference in the correction speed/capability. There are a multitude of advantages to a free spinning random orbital polisher, but we can get more into that later in this discussion.
 
 
Not necessarily - orbit size has more to do with distance traveled and how that correlates to correcting power, not necessarily area covered. It does 'sweep' a wider area though, so there is that added benefit of coverage, but its not the primary advantage of the system.
 
 
 
 
The 15 is intended as a detailing tool, the 21 is intended more in body shops and applications where you're focused on sanding marks all day. In terms of correcting power the 15 and 21 are very close - while the 21 does have the larger orbit (more distance traveled in the same amount of time) the 15 makes up the gap in a higher top speed - and as I've covered in videos before the smaller pad will increase cutting power.

The answer to 'what tool should I get' is actually on the tool itself - the LHR15's have the word "DETAILING" printed in gold script right on the head. The LHR21's do not.

This is not to say you can't/shouldn't use the 21 for detailing, just that the 15 in our 'official factory opinion' is the better detailing tool.
 
 
The lateral stresses a large orbit tools put on foam pads is intense... imagine what happens as a pad is smashed between paint and a plate and is then thrust back and forth 250% of the distance any of your current tools? Even with the original version you could very quickly shorten pad life with bad technique and the incorrect type of foam will also have issues.
 
Our factory foams are a rigid material designed to maximize energy transfer and minimize lateral deflection.

We recommend the Mark II tools to run in the middle speed ranges (3-4) which is what they're optimized for, but when you encounter a surface with a deep curve/contour or a scratch in an isolated area you simply ramp up to max speed for that zone and then slow back down for the regular work. Its really quite logical b/c traditionally you run all tools at max speed, but what happens when that isn't enough? You can't go to speed 7 or 8... this makes the tool more versatile.
 
 
I would steer you towards the Mark II tools if you're trying to replace your flex - the increased power is going to give you a tool that is more in line with what you're used to for correcting power.
 
 
It'll be a year ago in August. No hard feelings on this side. I love this new position and I get to work along side and with some of the most talented detailers and brilliant minds in our industry. Truly a dream job. Not to mention the travel benefits of working for an Italian based company - I leave for Rome at the end of the month
 
 
Again - by design and also a large percentage of user error.
 
 
Bingo! We still have a lot of education to get into the market on how to properly use the tools - while the US is very active in terms of detailing we also have a lot of ham-fisted operators who apply "porter cable" style technique to a tool that demands a completely different approach.
 
 
As explained above - and I'll add the analogy to explain your question: 

Why have a car capable of going 160mph if it doesn't need to be used at that? You might as well get a 2 cylinder car that maxes out at 60mph.
 
Just like the need to have more hp in a car to get up to freeway speed or passing speed its necessary to have a tool that operates at the mid-point as 'normal' and then has higher speeds when they're needed.

As I touched on above - what do you do now when the max speed on your polisher isn't enough? You can't turn the dial to 7. You end up trying more aggressive pads and compounds or more passes. What if all you needed to do was ramp up the speed to fix that spot then you could (without even shutting the machine off) slow back down to normal speed and continue with the average work? Thats the concept - its passing slow moving cars on the highway. Punching it to get around them and then going back to cruising speed.

If you read all those posts about folks tearing up pads is because they are not using proper technique and using too much speed.  The Mark II has more power and does not need to be used at speed 5 or 6. 
 
The other issue is that there is too much downward pressure being used with the tool.  It doesn't need it.  The weight of the machine is all that is needed. 
 
The other issue is that some polishes contain solvents that will eat the pads.  This pertains to Rupes pads. 
 
The Mark II is a great machine.  People are quick to freak out when they are the ones not using it correctly.