polishing advice sought

[diitto]

Hi... I earlier reported three light scratches (cant' feel them with a gentle fingernail swipe) on my 2012 Corvette that I unfortunately made worse by trying some very light hand polishing right on the three scratches... That resulted in doing nothing to the scratches but it did create three finger shaped swirl marks around each scratch...

 

So I went out last weekend and bought a 7424xp Porter Cable orbital polisher... I also bought and have now received the FOCUS 4 inch polishing kit from Adam's with both the Porter Cable backing plate and I also bought the rotary drill backing plate... I've watched the Adams' videos (all of them I think) twice now and will likely do so again...

 

I bought the 4 inch system rather than the 6 3/4 inch system because the area where these are is on the rear of the car between the tail lights and very near the Corvette cross flag emblem... I will tape that off first...

 

I am so hoping I will be able to improve this, to at least get rid of the swirls which are more visible now than the scratches (either can only be seen in just the right light) with the orbital polisher and I am going to start conservative by starting with the orange and then going to the white, forgoing the coarser green at least for a first attempt...

 

Also, assuming the jpg I attached shows up, the area is between the two arrow heads and is in an area where there is no sharp crease but instead a gentle bend in the way that back panel is built...

 

Can anyone offer me any tips beyond what I've already watched in all the videos about how best to proceed so I can at least get rid of the swirl if not the scratches also... Do I have any chance of removing the light scrathes with the orbital or will that only be possible with a rotary drill???

 

Any feedback would be much appreciated... My main goal is to improve but a second main goal is to DO NO HARM... Thoughts???? thanks... bob..

[Team Adam's]

That area is easy enough to polish simply b/c the pad will contour to a spot like that, its a gradual curve not a hard edge.

 

The biggest difficulty with that area is going to be the fact that it flexes so much being hallow plastic. On most any other part of the car the panels are rigid enough to allow you to put downward pressure on the pad to polish effectively. On that area it flexes so much that the panel almost retreats from the pads.

 

Its hard to say if the PC will do the job since I can't see the scratches, but always start with the least aggressive approach first. Be prepared to do a few passes working slowly to get results. If after a couple passes there isn't improvement then proceed to try the drill.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Dylan@Adams

[diitto]

OK, now I really need help... A bit ago I got out the Porter Cable (PC) 7424xp for the first time, installed the PC backplate for the 4 inch FOCUS pads I just bought and then stuck the orange pad on the back plate...

 

It's been my understanding that the Porter Cable IS NOT a rotary polisher but is instead purely a random orbital polisher... I just turned it on and tested it against my hand... At speed 5, where the videos I watched suggest the bulk of the polishing be done, not only is this device randomly moving here and there but also it's spinning like crazy, at least that's what I think I see... On speed 1 it appears I can come close to stopping the pad from rotating if I press very hard into my hand but on speed 5, first I seem not to be able to stop it from rotating at all, no matter how hard I press, and when I press hard it begins to get hot on my hand...

 

When I watch the videos of the guys polishing at speed 5 or even 6, it appears that the PC is barely rotating at all and if I recall in one of the videos, the narrator even tells you that you sort of know you have the correct pressure when the polisher is barely rotating...

 

But what I see tells me the pad is rotating like crazy... When I shut it off and watch the counter weight inside I see it spin to a stop and it appears to be coming down from quite a rotational speed...

 

So help me out... Is the Porter Cable running the 4 inch pads really spinning as well as randomly vibrating??? I'm confused... Please help... thanks... bob..

[Team Adam's]

Bob.... the videos you watched apply to the full sized pads. You need to be referencing the appropriate video for the process. Making matters easier its even on the same part of the same model car. Hows that for specific? LOL

 

Porter Cable Polishing with 4" Pads

[DaveVY]

Hi!

 

Two items:

 

1) With the 4" pads, don't exceed speed 4. I only use speed 5-6 with the large pads. If you use speed 5-6 with the 4" focus pad the pad has spun off on me a couple times.

 

2) The PC is a orbiting machine. The orbiting action will naturally cause a spinning action, this is normal and ok. Pressure will cause the spinning action to slow, stop or even reverse spin.

 

[diitto]

Bob.... the videos you watched apply to the full sized pads. You need to be referencing the appropriate video for the process. Making matters easier its even on the same part of the same model car. Hows that for specific? LOL

 

Porter Cable Polishing with 4" Pads

 

Hi Dylan... Yes, I have seen that video and yes, you are correct, when he swings beneath the corvette badge he is right in the area where I want to work. But it's hard to see in most of these videos exactly how fast the pads themselves are spinning... In some of the big pad videos I've clearly seen where the pad is rotating slowly but with these smaller pads it's harder to see rotation...

 

I might need rotation to eventually remove these small scratches but my huge fear is burning the paint and from what I've learned, constant rotation can equate to burnt paint and that's what I want to avoid... I was expecting to see the PC vibrate but not rotate at quite the rate I appear to be experiencing when I hold it against my hand...

 

One other question... The PC comes with a counter weight attached that says "use only with 5 inch pads"... Obviously, when used with the Adams system, you are using either 4 inch or 6 3/4 pads. Are you supposed to change counter weights when using these with the PC?? My guess is not since I've never heard them mentioned in any of the videos... So am I ok using the one and only counter weight that comes attached to the porter cable even for use with 4 inch or perhaps (later) 6 3/4 inch Adams' pads??? thanks... bob...

[Team Adam's]

Hi Dylan... Yes, I have seen that video and yes, you are correct, when he swings beneath the corvette badge he is right in the area where I want to work. But it's hard to see in most of these videos exactly how fast the pads themselves are spinning... In some of the big pad videos I've clearly seen where the pad is rotating slowly but with these smaller pads it's harder to see rotation...

 

I might need rotation to eventually remove these small scratches but my huge fear is burning the paint and from what I've learned, constant rotation can equate to burnt paint and that's what I want to avoid... I was expecting to see the PC vibrate but not rotate at quite the rate I appear to be experiencing when I hold it against my hand...

 

The reason I linked that video was because I specifically mention not to work above speed 4 with the 4" pads... given the smaller size the machine will be unruly and moving too quickly to be effective, thus the reason you experienced a ton of spinning at speed 5 and 6 (not recommended)

 

One other question... The PC comes with a counter weight attached that says "use only with 5 inch pads"... Obviously, when used with the Adams system, you are using either 4 inch or 6 3/4 pads. Are you supposed to change counter weights when using these with the PC?? My guess is not since I've never heard them mentioned in any of the videos... So am I ok using the one and only counter weight that comes attached to the porter cable even for use with 4 inch or perhaps (later) 6 3/4 inch Adams' pads??? thanks... bob...

 

No. The counterweight has zero impact on the performance of the machine when used for polishing... its actually more for when the tool is used as a sander. Given the fact you're offsetting WEIGHT and not SIZE + foam weighs very little at either size the counterweight size isn't important.

[diitto]

Thanks Dylan... And I did go ahead and watch that full video again and yes, the narrator, and I'm assuming you are that narrator, right??? did say to use speed 4 with these 4 inch pads... Good input... I have now locked that in my brain... And I did watch another video by Junkman and he points out that while the Flex is both orbiting AND rotation, both forced, that there is no forced rotation in the PC... He pointed that out by showing that you can free wheel the PC while it is off but that you can't do that with the Flex... I picked up my new PC and true enough, while it's off I can turn the pad freely.

 

Again, to start calmly, it's my intention to do a first run over that entire rear area just like in your video, between the tail lights if you will, starting with the orange pad/polish and then going to the white pad/polish... If a couple of rounds of that don't show any improvement I will then go to the green pad/polish and do a full three system run a few times... It appears that often you must do a full three passes with all three polishes to see reasonable results, right??? And again, all at speed 4... thanks... bob...

[diitto]

Wow... Today I got the courage to give it a go... The first pass of orange and white took the swirls right out... But, as more or less expected, that didn't touch the scratches themselves... I went ahead and did a couple of cycles of orange and white... Then I did a couple of series of green, orange and white, all so far with the Porter Cable...

 

Then, because the scratches were still basically unchanged, I got up the courage to break out the drill... I have two cordless drills but neither generates much speed. So I broke out my 30+ year old corded drill that is variable speed but with quite a high top speed (though I actually didn't look to see what it really was, not sure the videos said anything about speed either than, if I recall, that higher speeds were desired)... Anyway, I gathered my courage, put the orange pad in the corded drill and let er rip...

 

I was pretty fearless with the PC but I was just the opposite, full of fear, with the drill... I did a few passes with the orange pad on the drill, then I would switched over to the PC and do an orange/white combo...

 

The bottom line is the swirls disappeared the moment I first touched them with the PC. And the scratches themselves were much improved after some patient work with the drill followed by the PC...

 

I was way jazzed... The drill is still pretty scary as it wants to take off and walk and my fear of burning paint shows how big a novice I am... But I felt both the pad and the trunk surface a number of times... The pad was always quite cool and the trunk was at most a tiny bit warm... Never hot...

 

Anyway, thanks for all your help... much appreciated... bob...

[DaveVY]

Happy to see you are getting results!

 

The clear coat on the Vette is notoriously hard and requires lots of patience to correct.

[diitto]

Happy to see you are getting results!

 

The clear coat on the Vette is notoriously hard and requires lots of patience to correct.

 

I hear you... I got these three scratches down to where 1 of the 3 is gone and the other two are so slight that it takes time to find them.. I'm confident if I wanted to work at it longer that I could make those two completely vanish too but above all I want to stick to my creed of "do no harm" and so I decided to consider where I landed to be good enough...

 

Again, thanks for all the help... bob...