PDC

O.K. - now that it has been officially released - any thoughts on Richard Griot's new BOSS (Best Of Show System) 15 and 21 mm polishers? Looks like the Rupes 15 and Rupes 21 in Red and Black casings...

I just HATE those felt-style fender well liners! Why not run the felt on the opposite side that faces the undercarriage for sound deadening and leave the wheel side smooth black plastic?

Just the 'jiggling' action of the PC style machine (Griot's) is enough to distribute the sealant (or wax) more thoroughly and evenly than if you were working by hand - even when the pad doesn't rotate. I seem to recall Adam recommending the PC for the original Super Machine Sealant because the forced rotation of the Flex put such a distinctive circular pattern down that even after wiping the product off, you could see halos or 'tiger striping' in certain light. Of course, it went away after the first bucket wash. That issue was not a concern with the PC 'jiggler' distributing the product. I believe that's one of the issues they addressed in developing the new Paint Sealant. I haven't noticed any halos or 'striping' using the 'new' paint sealant with my Flex on speed 1. Wipes off like a dream.

I have absolutely no doubt that Adam's Paint Correcting and Paint Finishing Polishes are beyond top notch. Before discovering Adam's, I went to the local Body Shop Supply Co. with my neighbor and - in addition to the Rotary machine I have - I bought the Quart Size Mild Cut Compound, Swirl Remover and Ultrafina with the color coded pads in White, Black and Baby Blue. I later picked up a Quart of the SCR (Scratch Resistant Clear) Finesse-It. So I am committed to using the fine products up before moving over to Adam's polishes and then likely losing interest in the 3-M stuff. But I think you would like those big, over-sized pads that provide some protection around the edges of the backing plate.

What a cool car! Callaway and Greenwood used to 'run the table' with that generation ov Vette. Phenomenal work on that paint.

The Rotary is a real heavy duty monster. Capable of the fastest paint correction and the potential for instantaneous damage. When learning how to use these things, working with the softest pad with plenty of extra pad material to extend beyond the edge of the backing plate is a great idea. 3-M makes color coded pads for their Finesse-It line of polishes that are the very large, over-sized ones for the Makita and DeWalt backing plates. The pads have a 'lip' or raised edge that covers the edge of the backing plate. Start with the baby blue pad and Ultrafina which is the softest pad and mildest polish to 'practice' and get a feel for the machine. The blue/ultrafina combo will not repair or correct most defects, BUT - the softness of the pad and lubricity of the Ultrafina product will provide a very comfortable 'feel' for the rotation of the machine. Adams finishing polish will provide the same effect. Try to find a vehicle that has Scratch Resistant Clear Coat or what some manufacturers call 'Ceramic' clear (Benz, BMW) as it is the hardest, and most resistant to damage. Start with the hood since it will be relatively flat and about waist high. Make sure the paint is washed and clayed and as smooth as possible. Mist the pad for extra lubricity with the Ultrafina. Run the rotary at a LOW speed to start. Do NOT push down - only apply the weight of the machine as 'pressure' and - in fact - use both hands to gently 'lift' together to control how much of the actual weight of tha machine is bearing down on the paint. As the pad spins, move smoothly forward the length of the hood from front to back toward the windshield - scoot half a pad width over - and move smoothly back to the front of the hood - scoot half a pad width over - move smoothly back toward the windshield. Continue this 'forward - back' motion overlapping about a half a pad width as you work across the hood. Now - Repeat the process starting on either the driver's or passenger's side working side to side across the hood rather than front to back. Use the same overlapping movement. Keep the pad moving at about the same speed all the time, being careful not to linger on any one spot longer than any other spot. Try to maintain the same pressure or weight of the machine as you work. Your arms will get tired. Take breaks. That is how my neighbor coached me through my vehicle the very first time with a rotary. Duplicating that technique on doors and other upright panels is not easy. Once I felt that I had the hang of it, I stepped up to the black foam pad with the 3-M Swirl Remover which is still a very soft pad and a very mild product. (many folks actually find they can use Swirl remover as a 'final' polish - the baby blue Ultrafina is Type-"A" overkill, which is why I like it so much). You will find that the Swirl Remover has a bit more 'drag' across the paint and does not 'glide' as easily as the Ultrafina did. Possibly true for Adams Correcting Polish as well. Same thing with the actual 3-M mild cut compound and white foam pad, it has more drag than the black pad and Swirl-Remover. SO - learn with the smoothest, slipperiest, least abrasive pad and polish combo just to develop your 'feel' for the machine and your technique. That's how the 'pros' did it for decades before the advent of the first Dual Action machine or the Flex. Even though I own a decent rotary, I have not had it out of the cabinet in years. I think the Flex and the DA do as thorough a job of correction with half the effort and half the risk of damage to the paint. As far as the Norton's that is a single cut product that is designed to diminish or break down as it is used. It also has different cut depending on whether you are using a coarse wool pad or the varying grades of foam pads that Norton sells with the Liquid Ice system. This requires tons of trial and error to figure out exactly how much cut the product provides with each type of pad at varying speed settings and exactly how long it takes for the product to break down or 'diminish' as you are using it. Really tough to gauge correctly the first time through. That's why I like dedicated cut polishes like the 3-M or Adams, along with specific pads for each product. Makes it alot easier to get it right.

AHHHH-HA!!! Dealership - the snooty Euro Dealership has a wash bay with the rotating drums. The ML was in for a simple oil service during the winter and they 'washed' it for us. Never again. In fact, I have made a sign using my printer on 8 1/2 x 11 paper that says in all capital block letters: DO NOT WASH and I will tape it on the dash whenever we have future service. Genuinely unbelievable that they still use this Robo-Bay on all the Benz, Porsche, Land-Rover and Jag stuff they sell - unless the intent is to manufacture need for spring detailing service!!!!

You're hired!

Excellent, excellent job. SO many more intricate surfaces and contours to identify and keep track of on a vintage vehicle like this. Wow!

Yeah. I'm pretty stumped as well. I am going to pay really close attention from now on. I am still using up the Quart sized 3-M polishes that I bought so long ago so this was done with my FLEX and 3-M SRC (Scratch Resistant Clear) polish with an orange Lake County pad to start and a white pad to finish. Then it was all Adam's, Baby with Glaze and 2 thin coats of the new formula Paint Sealant. To those who asked, I LOVE the stinger pipe-light. It is rechargeable and has 'smart charge' so it will never fatigue the ni-cad cell. And it just shines forever between charges. My brother gave it to me as a gift with a similar rechargeable std flashlight with a krypton bulb. You could practically hold either one out the window at night and drive with no headlights. Makes defects literally leap off of the paint - even on silver, which is a real hard color to read.

That's one that I am pondering myself. I am pretty particular about my vehicles. Here are a few pics of my pre-winter detail on the wifemobile: Here in Kansas City, they throw salt like you just cannot believe. At the slightest hint of a flake, the salt trucks are out in force. And now, they are tossing that gawd-awful mix of salt and GRAVEL. It is just horrible. So I think just buzzing down the road all winter is sort of like living in the country and driving on gravel roads, but worse. I have NEVER taken this car through anything but a 'touchless' car-wash. Because on a few occasions, you just really wanna get the underbody blasted and it is just too darn cold to do it on your driveway. As long as the car isn't 'filthy' I think that is O.K. But I can imagine that when you have a pretty good layer of snirt (snow-dirt) along with that salt/gravel mix plastered along the sides of the car and than blast it with a high-pressure stream of water, it just gets ground in. Might be time to find a decent 2000-2005 Z-71 Tahoe with about 100k miles as a dedicated snow truck. Here are a couple more after glaze and sealant this weekend: Next on the 'to-do' list are those 73's you see patiently waiting on the lift in the background. Time for the annual spring pre-cruise-season-full-meal-deal-detail.

Well, it was Spring Spa Day for the wife's ML after a dreadful winter. First up was a wash with Microfiber Revitalizer. Hey, if it can dissolve all the wax build-up off your MF towels, why not let it dissolve the wax and sealant off the paint? Then it was time for a wash with Deep Wheel Cleaner and a final wash with Adam's Shampoo. The clay. Here is my 'Cruel Master' - an LED Pipe Light. Here is what the paint looked like. Ouch. Here we are after the first stage of correction. And this is after 2 stages of correction. And this is with one coat of Adams Glaze and a top-coat of Adam's Sealant Could not be more pleased with the results on a Black car that sees year round duty.

Hi Brad - welcome to the forum. You are gonna have the paint on that truck looking 'paint-booth-wet' in no time. You did many things right here: Norton Ice is a very highly regarded, commercial product that you will see in body shops. Same goes for the Dewalt Rotary - commercial grade body-shop tool. You didn't do anything wrong by identifying and gravitating toward the professional-grade products. Hey, if the full time pros at the local body shop use it, it makes total sense to say 'this myst be the stuff to use.' You also obviously spent a TON of time rasslin' that heavy torque monster rotary around a full size pickup WITH a flourescent light. That means you are really into this and made a substantial investment of hours, sweat, and probably a sore back the next day. The Rotary polisher is a bear. I have a neighbor who is an artist with thse things. I offered to help him detail his Black Escalade a few summers ago and watched him gingerly 'finesse' the paint with this monster rotary. The paint on that escalade looked spray-booth-wet when he was done. He used the 3M Light Cut Compound, Swirl Remover, and Ultra-Fina with the color-matched 3-M Pads. He then 'coached' me through my own vehicle with the rotary one panel at a time. It takes hours and hours of practice to get it right and one little hiccup can be disasterous. I offered to detail my folks Cadillac after getting my own rotary, pads and polisher. All went well til I got to the rear plastic bumper. I burned thru the paint and ended up treating my folks to an all-expense paid trip to the dealership body shop for a strip and re-spray of the bumper. The manager was SO cool about it. He knew how bad I felt and said 'there isn't one tech in this shop who hasn't done the exact same thing at least once if not twice.' He said any time a car commes in for a full re-paint, they assign the 2 newest body guys the job of full polish and detail on the existing paint before it gets stripped. That's how they learn and improve. SO - I think you need a nice Dual Action (DA) polisher like the Porter Cable, the current iteration of Griot's polisher, or even the new Rupes. There is no direct conection between the pad and the motor with these units. You can literally grab ahold of the pad while its running (though not 'recommended') to stop the movement. This gives you a HUGE margin of safety when polishing. That doesn't mean you don't need to be careful, you just have a far wider safety margin while experimenting with different speeds, pads, products, etc. And thats really all this is, trial and error. The FLEX is a direct drive like the DeWalt Rotary, BUT the post that the pad attaches to moves as it spins so it is a true 'dual action' machine. The direct drive gives you considerably more 'power' for correction, but at the cost of a lil' less 'safety margin' since it is constantly spinning as it moves around. The cool thing about the 3-M polishes and Adam's Polishes is that they all have a specified 'cut' as opposed to the Norton Liquid Ice which is a single stage polish (realitively heavy cut) that is 'controlled' by the coarseness or softness of the pad and the speed of the polisher. Also, Norton's is a 'diminishing' polish in that it is supposed to break down into finer and finer polish as it is worked. So if you get a panel almost perferct, but need a touch more polish, you are adding full cut polish to a panel that has already beed worked, potentially introducing more of the very same swirls and holograms that you just struggled to correct. That's why the Norton/DeWalt combo is SO hard to get 'right' - it isn't just a matter of physical 'technique' with the tool - its also knowing exactly what speed to use with each pad for precisely how long as the cut of the product diminishes. You can avoid this learning curve with dedicated polishes and pads like Adams and a DA machine or maybe the FLEX. Don't feel bad and don't get discouraged. Every near perfect car you see at a car show is the result of countless less-impressive results and even a few 'oops' moments along the way. Order either the PC kit or the Flex kit from Adams, watch all the tutorial vids, and get out there and have some FUN! Too bad we don't live closer, I am just heading out to the the spring 'Spa Day' treatment on the wife's BLACK SUV that gets all the slop duty during the winter months. You could bring that truck over and we would make a day of it.

Can I have a GT3? Please??

I am so impressed with the most recent iteration of the Liquid Paint Sealant that I actually ran with it as a stand alone product on my Garage Queen last spring. First, I completed a thorough "Type-A-I-Need-A-Therapist" correction ant slathered on a smooth, even coat of LPS. Added a second coat the next morning (car never left the garage between coats). It gave me the most unbelievable finish I have ever seen. Noticably 'slipperier' than a natural wax. Practically repels dust. Laid a coat of glaze on top by hand the day of a significant car show, and the paint looked positively luminescent. This year I will probably skip correction altogether. Wash, clay, LPS, and add glaze when you really want to make an impression. To each his own, but I'm all done trying products. Adams LPS is it.

O.K. I'm pretty late to this party. But I had just purchased a gallon of Adam's previous formula Detail Spray when they officially released the New(er) version. And I couldn't bring myself to give away, dispose of or otherwise waste the gallon of original formula. I also knew better than to break into the new stuff or I just might not have the discipline to use up the gallon of original. Well, I just finished up the gallon of original detail Spray and rinsed / cleaned the sprayer and refilled with the New Formula. And I know why this stuff caused such a stir. This stuff is absolutely awesome. It just seems 'slipperier' and 'lighter' than the previous formula. And it wipes off quickly and easily with zero streaking. I noticed the previous formula seemed a little 'heavier' for lack of a better term and would leave streaks if applied too generously. I also found the previous formula was more prone to streaking as you got to the end of the car and your Microfiber towel was getting damp. Not so with the new formula. It is so slick, that just a fine mist does the trick and it finishes out streak free like glass. I LOVE IT!

And I might go ahead and grab one of the "current" generation Griot's units. I knew they increased the throw, but I didn't know they also upgraded the motor. That makes perfect sense to me. I have watched YouTube detailing clips of people correcting with the newer Griot's with before and after shots and I was like "how???" Now I know! I would really like to try one out. If you are working an older or vintage car with more delicate paint, the Griot's or a PC would give a much appreciated margin of safety. The real step up in correction with the flex comes from the direct connection between the backing plate and the motor. And that transfers a lot of energy onto the paint. And we all know exactly what happens if the corner of the pad gets too close to a tight spot by a mirror or door jamb. A nice DA really is a must if you need to work lots of different cars with lots of different finishes.

Unbelievable results. I have heard that referred to as the 'melted licorice' look. Awesome.

Based on the results I achieve with my Flex, I am going to respectfully back down from my earlier self deprecating suggestion that maybe I didn't know how to use the Griot's DA. I had tried all manner of speed settings, pressure, pads, and products with my Griot's polisher. All with ZERO correction progress on SRC / ceramic clear coat finishes a-la Mercedes Benz. Credit where due, I did get a pretty nice result for a friend's car with an old-school enamel type repaint using the Griot's DA. Also, I do have one of the ORIGINAL versions with - I believe - a whopping 5mm throw. I think his current version throws 7mm: less than 1/2 the 'smaller' Rupes unit that 'only' has a 15mm throw... Anybody out there want to try to really 'remove' swirls and spider-webbing on a ceramic finish Benz with a Griot's DA, be my guest. If you have some super-secret 'technique' to make that work, well hats off and power to ya. I'll keep my Flex thank you. And I have a hunch that ol' St. Nick just might drop off a Rupes Bigfoot 21mm on Christmas Morning.

P.S. I will pay more for a better product and support local business every day of the week.

My first detailing machine was a Griot's Polisher. The ONLY reason I use it now is for applying glaze, wax and sealant. I don't know if I am just not using it right, but I cannot achieve ANY paint correction with it no matter how fast I set the speed, no matter how much pressure I do or do not apply and no matter what product I use. Before I discovered the fluorescent 'heartbreaker' light, I spent a full 6 hr day detailing my wifes' ML and when I saw it in the sun, all those toweling marks just glared and laughed at me. That was the day I ordered my FLEX and I have never looked back. Black is still a lifestyle, not a color and ceramic SRCs are a chore copared to more traditional paints, but I can get her ML to look like it just rolled out of the paint booth with the FLEX. The Griot's was almost as effective for correction as an old-fashioned feather duster.

Not trying to argue - many VERY experienced retailers on these forums. But the results I get with the new formula paint sealant are so amazing that I have decided not to replace my near empty tub of Americana. I LOVE the extra durability, slickness, and dust/dirt 'repellant' qualities of the sealant. Also, water seems to 'sheet' off of sealant rather than sit and 'bead' like on carnauba wax. I honestly am not able to identify the 'warmer' quality or added 'depth' that many attribute to carnauba. Maybe those qualities are more readily apparent on traditional single stage paints as opposed to these modern ceramic or scratch resistant factory finishes? I am just SO sold on this new sealant - and I feel as though I have tried them ALL with varying/disappointing results. Adams new sealant is darn near like adding an extra layer of clear coat! Maintain with waterless wash and detail spray and reinforce with an occasional application of quick sealant. Nirvana for a modern SRC factory finish. And I was NOT paid for this endorsement!!!

P.S. Chris - love your lift! Are we crazy, or what!!!

I have not - but I am eager to make the switch. Just using up the tail end of my 3M polishes which I have always been pleased with. Then I am making the switch!

Ran into this thread - now I cant get a damn thing done for the rest of the day. And to think, my wife actually thinks I use this here computer thingy to waste my time looking at pictures of silly old naked girls. Although I love ALL cars - and I am especially proud of the fact that U.S. car makers are producing new cars like the Camaro, Mustang and Challenger, I am just a die hard late 60s early 70 muscle car fanatic. This car is so beautiful. The paint looks like you could dip your finger into it. GREAT job detailing this car.