Pete07GT

You actually use something besides astroglide?

AlsCobra

Meg's #13 for that.

Stacks Warmen

What site did you buy that from?

AlsCobra

Amazon. Came with a pinnacle kit.

Pete07GT

Thanks for the heads-up Alice, now I can refer back to this when I'm ready to get the car wax on.

Overboost

I got my 7424XP from Autogeek, which came with an assortment of pads. I can be honest, I would go back and eliminate some of them, because I don't really use them. I would say the orange, yellow, white, and blue are the ones I use most.

MarcHarris

I think this is a problem that happens often as it's hard to tell what pads someone will need.

I'd advise getting Orange, White, Black, and Blue.

Overboost

What size pads and backing plate would you suggest Marc?

MarcHarris

6inch with 6.5inch pads - i'd also recommend the black meg's backing plate with the holes for cooling as it helps your pads last longer.

http://www.detailedimage.com/Meguiar...ate-P517/6-S1/

It might not be worth buying if you already have a 6 inch backing plate, but for those looking to upgrade or who need another, look for a sale and ****** it up.

AlsCobra

Can the polishing be done in the sunlight? Kinda hard to see the scratches in the garage.

MarcHarris

Allow me to expand a bit more on my reason for you and others Steve.

The two real choices are 5.5 inch pads (with a 5 inch backing plate) or 6.5 inch pads (with a 6 inch backing plate). While some guys like 5.5 inch pads for better control or tighter spaces, I feel 6.5 inch pads can still be just as agile, but have nearly 40% more surface area, allowing you to polish areas much quicker.

MarcHarris

You CAN polish anywhere, but I wouldn't recommend it. Being able to evaluate your finish is an important key in detailing, and I wrote and entire article on different light sources for detailing with polishing being the main focus: http://www.autopia.org/forum/car-det...r-sources.html

In short, detailers and enthusiast usually use additional lights for a quick visual inspection to see how things are progressing. If you have the sun available, that's even better as it is the ultimate light source (and it's free!). In that case, do your test sections and pull the vehicle out into the sun for a good inspection to see how the paint looks. From there, you can decide if you need more correction (still have defects you want to remove), more refining (the finish has defects removed, but is cloudy / hazy), or areas that need more attention (areas that weren't polished enough).
Once you've inspected the paint, pull the car back into the shade (hopefully a garage), allow the paint to cool back down, and then start polishing based off what you found.

You don't want to polish in the sun because your paint absorbs so much heat so easily depending on color. Certain sections being flat, rounded, horizontal and verticle mean different panels and sections of panels will heat up more or less than others. This is important to note because what you really want more than anything else when you're polishing is consistency. A consistent clear-coat removal comes from consistent temperature, humidity, polishing speed, arm speed, amount of polish being used, pad condition (not overloaded with broken down polish or clear-coat residue), pressure, and polishing angle. The more you keep those things consistent, the more consistent your results will be. From that, you can accurately decide if you need to pursue a more aggressive pad, polish, speed, or amount of time working the polish. If you polish every section different, how can you know what you're doing wrong?

That's one of the biggest advantages a GOOD pro will have over enthusiasts; more experience to have a better over-all technique. The advantage you have as an enthusiast is time. You don't have to polish your entire car in a single weekend. It's for that reason I'd recommend you don't even try. Just do a single panel like the hood to start. Learn and get the hang of it. Take your time. Do a couple of panels in a day at most. By the end of the month, your car will look OUTSTANDING, you won't be overly sore from working too much at a single time, and you'll have learned a ton.

AlsCobra

Cool Marc. I've got a couple drop lights and a halogen on a tripod. I'll try that first. Black just makes everything difficult.

MarcHarris

WRONG!!!!
Black is the PERFECT color to learn on. You'll see EVERYTHING. This means everything you do right or wrong will be clearly laid out in front of you. There's no guessing if you did it right or wrong, if you corrected the paint or not, if you got good results or you didn't.
This can be frustrating, but it's actually a blessing. There are a lot of "detailers" that probably hate working on black, but ask any good one and they'll probably tell them it doesn't matter to them. I only get tired of black because we do such a disproportionate amount of black cars. At least 90% of vehicle we work on are black. It can be nice to see some other things, and it makes you appreciate how other colors CAN look when cared for correctly. Of course there's still nothing like black.

Here's more of a reason to avoid sun, especially on black. This is a vehicle we worked on a few years ago, a jet black BMW 335i. We showed up to work on the car and here were the conditions:

Concrete - 69.5 degrees in the shade:




Concrete - 91.5 degrees in the sun




And here I am taking readings on the car that's in the sun:




Take a look at the max temperature reading:



175.5 degrees. And this wasn't even BLACK black yet as it was dirty and not polished.

AlsCobra

Well we shall see soon. Guess the worst that could happen is I would have to pay a pro. Really don't mind that either.

MarcHarris

I think you'll be fine without one

Overboost

After asking this question I decided to look at my original kit a bit more. Turns out I've got a 5" backing plate and 6.5" pads:

http://www.autogeek.net/porter-cable...cessories.html

When I purchased the Meg's DA system, it came with another backing plate, which I use only for the DA MF stuff. I believe that's a 6.5" pad with a 6" backing plate. That seems to have a little better results.