02bluestepside truck looks the **** should have a photoshoot with the dually and the RCSB

 

check with the chemicalguys.com........if your ride isnt bad grab the final polish,a glaze like wet mirror finish or revive and xxx or pete's wax.....guarentee you it'll be a great combo

 

Nah man, I plan on using it, I just got it last summer, along with a bunch of pads for it. I'll probably break it in on my wife's car this June or something

 

For those of you are curious about which buffer to buy, the Porter-Cable 7424 (or PC as it is often referred to) is the ideal buffer to start off with for the novice detailer. Here's why.

Porter-Cable 7424 Dual Action Polisher - This is the Porter-Cable 7424, or PC for short. It is a dual-action polisher. The fact that it is a dual-action polisher is what makes it safe enough for a novice to use. Dual-action refers to the way that the pad rotates. It mimics the earth's rotation around the sun. The earth rotates but as it is rotating, it is also orbiting around the sun. The pad of the PC does the same thing. Because the pad does not sit in one spot on your paint AND the fact that the PC is not as powerful as a true rotary buffer, it is next to impossible for the PC to harm your paint.

This is what makes a dual-action (or orbital polisher as they are also called), safe for the novice user.

The diagram below shows the pad motion of the 2 types of buffers. Because the pad of a true rotary buffer only spins and spins at a much higher rate, it can get hot enough to burn or even take the paint off your car!



The rotating action of the PC is no where near as powerful. As a matter of fact if you apply too much pressure, the pad of the PC will stop spinning. It will continue to orbit but as you can see by the diagram above, the orbiting action does not sit in one spot on your paint. Because it is moving around (or orbiting) in this manner, it cannot build up enough heat to cause any damage to your paint. This is the safety feature built into a dual-action polisher that makes it ideal for the novice detailer. If you decide to purchase one of these, you will be overjoyed with it's performance. For you folks who have been doing this by hand, your joints will be overjoyed you too!

Sometime you will hear people who are not familiar with an orbital buffer speak of it as being inferior to doing real work like removing wet sanding marks. To those folks I recommend that they watch the following videos. These videos show me wet sanding on a car and then removing the wet sanding damage using a PC. Notice how quick the damage is gone.

Start watching video 2 at the 6:30 mark (no need for you to sit through the entire wet sanding series unless you want to). Then watch video 3. I no longer use the Meguiar's or Zaino products. I now strictly use Adam's Polishes. For those of you who use Zaino or Meguiar's, I know first hand that they are excellent products but I have just decided to give Adam's a try and have had some remarkable results.

Here's Video 2

Here is Video 3

The main thing is getting your technique down. You have to learn how much pressure to apply. If you apply too much pressure, the PC will still do its orbital spin but the pad itself will quit spinning. This makes the polisher only half as effective as you want it to be. Thus, only apply 9-13 pounds of pressure in order to get the full action of the polisher.

As for the polishes that I use and the results that I have been able to get, check out this repair I did.



A friend of mine showed up in her 2002 Black Corvette Coupe with what appeared to be the damage caused by a truck which had backed up onto her front bumper. The damage was deep and nasty. I washed the bumper and dried it off just so that I could get a clean look at how much damage was actually there. Here's what I was looking at:






Here's a short video of the same damage.


As you can see, this was not going to be a walk in the park. Armed with my Batman utility belt filled with various Adam's products, I confidently stepped up to the plate!


Step 1. The first thing I did was wash the bumper so that I could see what damage was actually done. The next thing I did was claybarred the bumper in order to remove any impurities in the paint. Remember, the prep is the key to the success that you will see when the work is done. This Vette is a daily driver and is not garaged so my final goal was not perfection, it was to make the bumper appear to have never been hit at all.



Here's video of me hitting the bumper with Adam's Detail Clay Bar.

A funny side note: After I dried the car off from the clay bar work, my friend gasped and then stated with concern in her voice that the scratch was still there. Since I hadn't done anything to remove the scratch up to that point, it was still supposed to be there. I said to her, "Ye of little faith need to remain in the boat." She being of strong religious conviction, immediately got my joke and laughed. Those of you who don't get it didn't pay attention in Sunday school!

Step 2. The next thing I did was hit the bumper with some Adam's Swirl and Haze Car Polish (SHR), a Adam's Orange Dual-Action Swirl Killer Pad, and some Adam's Detail Spray.

In a thread that I posted over at Adam's, I talked about using detail spray on different pads along with SHR. The premise was that you could adjust the cutting action of a pad/polish combo by adding detail spray to the pads (thus thinning out the SHR). In this case I used a wet orange pad (pad sprayed down with detail spray), because I didn't feel that this situation warranted the need for the full cutting action of a dry orange pad. For those of you who are familiar with the professional line of Meguiar's products, this is similar to creating the action of their Cut Cleaners.

I basically made two passes over the bumper with this combination. After wiping the bumper down, I took some pictures of the bumper up to that point:




Step 3. I finished the job up with a coat of Adam's Fine Machine Car Polish. Took a few more pictures too! Again, this is a daily driver which is not garage kept. Although that is the case, you can see that the job turned out pretty nice. The little imperfections that you see in the pictures below are actually things being reflected off my garage wall.





I hope someone finds this useful.


The Junkman

 

the nose of that vette looks ****

 

Well, it has been raining, too cold, or I haven't been able to work on the dually since posting this but I plan on doing so this weekend. 02stepside I see you are in GA who bagged your dually? I am seriously wanting to lower mine but I am not sure if I want to bag it or lower it with steel. PM me if you like.

 

I actually detail cars myself and I always use Meguiars. I start with their clay bar and then I use their new product SwirlX which works great! And I finish with their NXT Gen wax. and it comes out looking brand new!

 

I bought it out of OK with everything already done. It was bagged by Ekstensive in TX. Done right, everything top notch, and still set up to tow if need be.

 

SwirlX has fillers, i would stick with more traditional compounds, so the swirls dont come back.
I used meguires m105 and m205on my truck at Christmas time and have been very carefull with my washes and it still looks great.

 

Zaino....