Whitesnake
Newbie
Those rupes wool pads are great
Rupes Orbital Buffer
- Thread starter El Toro
- Start date
Whitesnake
Newbie
Flex equivalent for the 15mm and 21mm are personal preference really. Flex shines more with the forced rotation unit. Gear driven no stalling. Rupes has a forced rotation, the Mille, but the reviews are very mixed. Only thing I like about the Mille is it spins clockwise like traditional buffers but it doesn’t seem to be quite the workhorse as the flex forced. Makita has a forced that seems to get good reviews as well.
theastronaut
Promoted Users
I'm still convinced that a rotary will flatten the surface of the paint better than any orbital can.
With a rotary I can "cross hatch" buff the paint in the direction I want to to more effectively reduce any leftover grain/texture from wetsanding. I normally make two initial passes, both with the contact patch of the pad spinning perpendicular to the sanding pattern. One side of the pad is raised at an angle, all the work is happening on one side of the pad, so all the buffing action happens in one direction. This seems to work well to really cut all texture out.
Any time you're trying to level a surface cross hatch sanding works best. You want to knock down the peaks of the texture without cutting the low areas any deeper. An orbital will let the fibers of the pad reach down into the low spots every time it changes directions- polishing (and slightly lowering) the valleys. You'll have shiny low spots at the bottom of the sanding scratch. Polishing the valley of the sand scratch isn't effective for removing texture- clarity will suffer.
A rotary, with the edge of the pad spinning perpendicular to the sanding scratch pattern will keep the pad from dropping down into the valleys of the sanding scratch. The pad will partly flatten and partly round over the peak of the sanding scratch- the leading edge of the peak being more rounded than the side on the trailing edge of the pad. I make a second pass with the pad spinning 180* from the first pass before the scratch has started to fully gloss up to more evenly level out the peak of the sanding scratch, and go back and forth a couple of times, especially at first- you don't want to round over the peaks unevenly.
Never buff with contact patch spinning inline with the sanding scratches, that will allow the fibers of the pad to drop into the valley of the sanding scratch and polish the peak and the valley more evenly- it'll be glossy but it won't effectively remove the height difference between the peak and valley- the texture won't be flattened and clarity will be poor.
With a rotary I can "cross hatch" buff the paint in the direction I want to to more effectively reduce any leftover grain/texture from wetsanding. I normally make two initial passes, both with the contact patch of the pad spinning perpendicular to the sanding pattern. One side of the pad is raised at an angle, all the work is happening on one side of the pad, so all the buffing action happens in one direction. This seems to work well to really cut all texture out.
Any time you're trying to level a surface cross hatch sanding works best. You want to knock down the peaks of the texture without cutting the low areas any deeper. An orbital will let the fibers of the pad reach down into the low spots every time it changes directions- polishing (and slightly lowering) the valleys. You'll have shiny low spots at the bottom of the sanding scratch. Polishing the valley of the sand scratch isn't effective for removing texture- clarity will suffer.
A rotary, with the edge of the pad spinning perpendicular to the sanding scratch pattern will keep the pad from dropping down into the valleys of the sanding scratch. The pad will partly flatten and partly round over the peak of the sanding scratch- the leading edge of the peak being more rounded than the side on the trailing edge of the pad. I make a second pass with the pad spinning 180* from the first pass before the scratch has started to fully gloss up to more evenly level out the peak of the sanding scratch, and go back and forth a couple of times, especially at first- you don't want to round over the peaks unevenly.
Never buff with contact patch spinning inline with the sanding scratches, that will allow the fibers of the pad to drop into the valley of the sanding scratch and polish the peak and the valley more evenly- it'll be glossy but it won't effectively remove the height difference between the peak and valley- the texture won't be flattened and clarity will be poor.
Chris_Hamilton
Trying to be the best me, I can be
X2. This is the truth. Don't get hung up on the tool.
Whitesnake
Newbie
True, but in the hands of a novice much easier to screw up a paint job with a rotary.
I got a Rupes BigFoot Polisher 15ES DA $300 and used it on my recent 68 Corvette paint job, 1st time and newbie here. I used Rupes compound blue, polish yellow, and ultra polish white and following these directions, I thought I got amazing gloss from the Euro SPI Clear. I got a lot of trash in the clear and some orange peel, but I am happy with it even though you guys would likely declare disaster, maybe a 10ft driver paint job, LOL's! I know the rotary is the longtime pro tool, but you might check out the Rupes DA which is more forgiving for a newbie, I think. I know these guys are in the business of selling Rupes, but an informative video.
www.esotericcarcare.com
Much Thanks to all you great folks on this forum for helping me get this 68 Corvette paint job completed!
RUPES LHR15 Bigfoot Mark III
With its 15mm orbit and 5 inch backing plate, the LHR 15 MarkIII random orbital polisher is the perfect tool for working tight, intricate panels.
www.esotericcarcare.com
Much Thanks to all you great folks on this forum for helping me get this 68 Corvette paint job completed!
Last edited:
tomsteve
Member
i think something quite a few novices should understand is
1- go to a boneyard and get a hood/ panel to practice on first.
and
2- dont start out with balls to the wall rpms. start with lower rpms to get a feel of it.
and
3- check the surface temp with the back of your hand.
and
4- STAY AWAY FROM BODY LINES. learned that one real quick on a boneyard hood. pretty amazing how fast a wool pad will goober up a bodyline.
edit to add
seems i read the orbitals being used more in detailing than for cut/buff new paint. possibly because of factory clear being thinner?