ROS to polish car?

[DBT85]

I once cleaned, clayed, polished and waxed my focus so nicely that I quite literally walked past it as I didn't recognise it.

A week later it frosted out and honestly had 2mm ice cubes all over the car.

 

[Lons]

Great car or as novocaine said "tank" hope you can get it sorted, you'll have biceps like Popeye when you've finished polishing that but worth the effort.
I misunderstood Chris, I thought there was a lot less work involved and it was just a polishing issue. I washed our cars this morning, no polishing and took some pics of the paint and products I use so if you don't mind me hijacking your thread I'll post them in case others are interested.

 

[novocaine]

Safest car in the world. No matter what hits you or you hit, you are always a minimum of 10ft from it.

 

[Lons]

Washed the car today no polish just leathered off, last hand waxed a couple of months ago so due a machine polish and wax next month but still almost no scratches or marks in the paint, easy if you keep on top of it but does take time, the car is never garaged btw.
I polish the wife's Mini but don't bother too much with the little Skoda.

* Cheap rotary polisher, complete waste of time though occasionally I use it on the glassfibre roof of the motorhome.
* D A polisher, works very well and safe for anyone who isn't an *****.
* Products I use 95% of the time.
* Paintwork on my car now 3 1/2 years old, metalic black which is always a pita to keep looking good.

I'm not OTT....honest.... well maybe a bit

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Mine has 6 speeds - can it be used to polish a car? If so, what kind of mops do we need to put on and to polish off, and what's a good speed? It's just regular wax polish, not a dedicated cutting compound.
Thanks

DON'T do it!

The slowest speed on a sander is the fastest speed on a polisher. Speed creates heat, and heat will cook the clear coat!

There are different types of polishers available today. The modern variant is a DA or Dual Action. This is both rotary and variable movement, which was invented by Rupes. Think of these as the Festool of polishers. There are a lot of cheap polishers on the market, in the same way as there are rotary sanders cheaper than Festool. What you pay for is build quality and vibration control. These are probably more important to the pros, who have to use their machines all day long.

Another factor is size of pad. A large disk (5" or 6") is better for flat areas, and then you need something smaller (3") for curves to reduce the heat factor on edges. I have a 5" Rupes (I could have happily purchased a cheaper machine in retrospect) and a 3" SPTA (inexpensive and excellent) DA polishers.

The last factor is the pads you use. There are wool, microfibre and foam pads, and all have a different degree of aggressiveness in the cut and polish. Linked to this are the different cutting and polishing agents. Think of these like different waterstone grits. Polishing and sealing is a final step, after milder cutting agents have removes scratches and swirls from the paint.

Paints are not all the same on cars. They can be harder or softer formulations, and you ideally need to know what polishes to match to your car. It pays to do some research. YouTube was my friend.

My 20 year old Boxster S after a polish ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Fergie 307]

Lons - I think for the moment we'll go with doing it by hand, see how it goes. The polish we've got here seems to do a decent job, I guess the challenge is being systematic across the larger areas to get even/ the same amount of shine? We've not had the car long and tbh, we're just fiddling while we wait for the MoT next week, it ran out at the beginning of the month and there's been little rush as the lad can't drive it under lockdown (he's still learning and not used to proper traffic). We've completely changed the rear suspension, track rod ends, ball joints and connecting rods, timing belt qnd a few other bits, it's driving well, we'll see what the garage thinks!
Novocaine - Here's a more challenging pic. The car is pretty good overall, but this one door seems to have a new skin fitted over rust. We removed the nasty mastic stuff that was doing a good job of trapping moisture and wire-brushed it back, but the Kurust stuff did a poor job. I guess the only proper option is to get the skin off, have the door metal cleaned properly and fit a new skin, but as an interim is sandblasting the rust out an option? Angle grinder with abrasive disc? The metal is still quite solid in spite of the rust.

Clean off all the paint with chemical stripper. Then use phosphoric acid on any rust. Once the acid has done it's stuff clean the metal and repaint using an etch primer first. Once the paint is thoroughly cured squirt waxoyl inside the door. Best way is to stand the waxoyl can in a bucket of hot water for 15 mind so it's nice and runny. Now place containers under the door drain holes and pour the waxoyl in around the inside of the seams of the door. Wait till it stops dropping out of the drain holes and you're done.

 

[Robbo60]

I bought a cordless Bosch ROS recently and on the box it showed a picture of a Guy polishing his car with it. I used to be on a Car owners FB thing until recently but many of the contributors were so anal about washing and polishing their cars (detailing, I think they called it). I mentioned I used a sponge to wash my car - anti-Christ! No - you should jet wash (not too hard) , snow foam??, jet wash (not too hard), dry- with a blow dryer!!, wipe with a micro fibre, polish with various expensive products - I kid you not. Oh and then take numerous photos and post on FB. Was this a Ferrari, Porsche, Jag I hear you cry. NO a Ford Kuga.
Now I have a Ford Kuga and a very useful car it is too but really??

 

[BillK]

If it's just for saving elbow grease buffing wax then anything will do, the cheapo electric polishers from Halfords etc work fine. With a microfibre cloth to get at where the machine can't it's sorted quickly.

With random orbits the straight rpm figure doesn't seem to relate to purely orbital machines. My random orbiter has lower rpm around 4k and is used often for cutting/polishing paint, but pure rpm figure doesn't tell the whole story. Makers don't seem to use any standard for expressing details or anything very consistent, makes it a pain to choose. Some quote rpm, some orbits/min, and some other number that I can't remember.
My old purely-orbital is best at 1800 or less rpm, used to use that when painting cars & motorbikes, but trickier for cutting paint than a random action tool.

I had a 240 the same colour, had it four years used daily and sold at a small profit. Great thing. Rear arches are the weak spot and nearside rear suspension, some rear bushes don't last long at all but polybush kits sort that. I thought the 240 would be a cheap anonymous hauler, but on the first day three people came up and said "nice old car mate"...!

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I bought a cordless Bosch ROS recently and on the box it showed a picture of a Guy polishing his car with it. I used to be on a Car owners FB thing until recently but many of the contributors were so anal about washing and polishing their cars (detailing, I think they called it). I mentioned I used a sponge to wash my car - anti-Christ! No - you should jet wash (not too hard) , snow foam??, jet wash (not too hard), dry- with a blow dryer!!, wipe with a micro fibre, polish with various expensive products - I kid you not. Oh and then take numerous photos and post on FB. Was this a Ferrari, Porsche, Jag I hear you cry. NO a Ford Kuga.
Now I have a Ford Kuga and a very useful car it is too but really??

Robbo, I sympathise with you. Until recently I used a sponge and hot water in a bucket. I have done this for decades. Then I looked at the paint on my car, and I could see swirls, scratches and all sorts of water stains. I decided to do a little research via YouTube. I learned a lot ... hence the purchase of dedicated polishers. I don't have the patience to become obsessive about polishing, and use an all-in-one polish (rather than the 2-3 step methods the dedicated do). A proper polisher makes fast work of this step. I can see a huge difference in the results I now get. Do not mock these guys - they are correct ... obsessive, sure ... but correct. A bucket and a sponge is not going to give you decent results up close. But that does not mean one has to follow their exact path to get the same results.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

Counter to what derek is mentioning above, one of the more popular detail polishers here is a 450 watt porter cable sander with an override kit to make the buff rotate rather than do the ROS thing. To get an idea why the ROS bit is pretty meaningless when you really need to remove a very thin layer of wear off of the finish, put a ROS on a pillow, attach sandpaper to the other side of the pillow and see how fast it works.

The pads sold for the dual mode sanders (sold as polishers here) are so soft that the ROS mode doesn't really get through, but the pads are so soft that with a cut and color type polish (the "Tweener" that derek talks about), they're very controllable. you don't want speed 6 in most cases, and use a little more lubricant - if you use speed 6, your shirt will have a line on it. I don't know that much about polishing cars, but I have buffed finishes on guitars (that I've applied), and I've repainted a defective car hood on a santa fe (SUV) and then wet sanded and painted that.

I think the dual mode sanders are plenty aggressive for the average person (as mentioned earlier, I also have a 15 amp large rotary buffer - it's more of a physical thing and you have to be on the move with it and think second to be good with it. I don't like to use it because I feel like I have to do such good pre-prep with it and then more clean-up after the fact. It makes heat.

If I had to buff 4 cars a day, there's no way I'd go without it, though - you could get good with it pretty quick.

long story short, match the media and the pad, etc, to the tool and pay attention at first to see how the tool works and speed things up once you're comfortable.

Learned with a two part finish on my car that whatever hyundai uses on their cars in the mid 2010s, it's sure a lot softer than an isocyanate containing two-part finish. the latter is like hard epoxy - it's hard just to sand it. What's on cars now as standard seems to be more like what's on musical instruments at the commodity range - a thick soft finish made to be easy to buff from the factory. Maybe not thick compared to some cheap repaint places, but thick and soft compared to what I laid on the car.

 

[D_W]

(better to learn burning through edges on a guitar, too, I guess. BTDT on a high speed buff with heat on a very thin finish. There's little risk on anything other than really bad damage to chance anything like that on cars).

I also have one of the 250 watt slow style wax type polishers, but never use it. I dont' even like cars. I have no idea why I have all of this stuff (ok, i sort of do - most of it was bought for furniture and floors and household stuff and the small pad kits, etc, to use for cars were inexpensive add ons. I actually thought early on that if I bought a large foreign 15 amp buffer (1800 watts), variable speed, that I'd be laying heavy finishes on furniture and rubbing them out to finish with a buffer like that.

I did use it, it works well. Laying finish thick enough on furniture to use it looks garish to everyone except people who don't build furniture (my relatives think the one kind of ugly case that I made that looks like it's wrapped in glass is really wonderful).

 

[Lons]

Robbo, I sympathise with you. Until recently I used a sponge and hot water in a bucket. I have done this for decades. Then I looked at the paint on my car, and I could see swirls, scratches and all sorts of water stains. I decided to do a little research via YouTube. I learned a lot ... hence the purchase of dedicated polishers. I don't have the patience to become obsessive about polishing, and use an all-in-one polish (rather than the 2-3 step methods the dedicated do). A proper polisher makes fast work of this step. I can see a huge difference in the results I now get. Do not mock these guys - they are correct ... obsessive, sure ... but correct. A bucket and a sponge is not going to give you decent results up close. But that does not mean one has to follow their exact path to get the same results.

Regards from Perth

Derek

+1 Derek
You actually don't have to change habits much to keep your car free of swirls and light scratches but can decide anywhere on the scale between careless and obsessive. Providing the paintwork is good to start with the single most beneficial way to keep it that way is throw away the sponge it's the devils work, get a microfibre mop and use 2 buckets, one with clean water and the other shampoo/soap and use grit guards, if you want to know why just look in the bottom of the bucket after washing to see just how much grit there is. Plenty of advice on the net about the 2 bucket wash.

Then keep a good coat of wax on it to guard against contaminants / bird lime and abrasions. then keep the thing clean. If someone brushes against a dirty car they'll scratch it where it's less likely if the paint is clean and waxed.

Nice car btw Derek but much easier to keep it clean in Perth than over here. Perth is our favourite city Oz city.

 

[DBT85]

I bought a cordless Bosch ROS recently and on the box it showed a picture of a Guy polishing his car with it. I used to be on a Car owners FB thing until recently but many of the contributors were so anal about washing and polishing their cars (detailing, I think they called it). I mentioned I used a sponge to wash my car - anti-Christ! No - you should jet wash (not too hard) , snow foam??, jet wash (not too hard), dry- with a blow dryer!!, wipe with a micro fibre, polish with various expensive products - I kid you not. Oh and then take numerous photos and post on FB. Was this a Ferrari, Porsche, Jag I hear you cry. NO a Ford Kuga.
Now I have a Ford Kuga and a very useful car it is too but really??

Haha I understand the sentiment a tad but to many it's a hobby as much as anything else so the discussion can appear as bizarre to an "outsider" as a 17 page thread on here about sharpening a chisel or any number of other things.

I don't clean mine nearly as often as I should but I have a long list of other jobs that I deem more important.

I did go to the trouble of getting my Superb ceramic coated which included a full "detail" and polish when I bought it 3 months old. Looked stunning. and the difference was remarkable for a car that was only that old with 3k on the clock. I beleive the guy said it had been previously washed with something akin to a lump of volcanic rock.