Harbor Freight Polisher
I use Megiures. They have a Medium cut tha works GREAT with the HF rotary/3M grey egg-crate pad combo. I've never had to use anything more harsh than that. I got those grey pads at O'Reillys...weren't cheap...like $50. I also use a Meguires "Machine Glaze" as a finishing pass after cleaning the panel an the pad. It gives a GREAT mirror-like shine even before sealer and wax. With that Medium cut and grey pad I was able to burn thru in the edge of a test panel while TRYING to. So mask off the edges/corners when and where you can. Then go over them next at a lower speed and more care. You can avoid masking tape by leaving the space but just be careful or you can do damage.
I decided to give the Harbor Freight polisher a try this weekend. I used 3M Finesse It II finishing polish and a gray pad from an auto paint store, which they recommended as a good way not to screw up my paint since it was my first try at this. I started with a good wash and clay bar, finished with Meguiar’s NXT wax. Total cost for the HF, pad and polish was $60.00.
My opinion of the HF polisher? Well, like I thought and expected you get what you pay for. It sounded cheap, ran clunky and was a little heavy after a while. Having said that, it didn’t break down and overall I think it did a good job especially since I really didn’t know what I was doing. My bigger issue was with the size of pads used with rotary polishers in general. The 7” pad made it difficult to get the hard to reach places, especially for a beginner like me. I’m thinking the smaller Porter Cable would make this a lot easier but I bet an experienced rotary user would have no problem with using the HF.
After claying, I noticed that my car really didn’t have a lot of deep scratches so I went with the lightest recommended polishing compound, which means that the few deep scratches are still on the car, but it really cleaned up the light scratches and rough spots. While I’m satisfied with the end result, I’m still going to try to get a complete Porter Cable kit whenever I can swing the cost and go with Meguiar's 105/205 combo.
Here's a few pics with a cheap camera - those light spots on the hood are clouds reflecting off the finish:
My opinion of the HF polisher? Well, like I thought and expected you get what you pay for. It sounded cheap, ran clunky and was a little heavy after a while. Having said that, it didn’t break down and overall I think it did a good job especially since I really didn’t know what I was doing. My bigger issue was with the size of pads used with rotary polishers in general. The 7” pad made it difficult to get the hard to reach places, especially for a beginner like me. I’m thinking the smaller Porter Cable would make this a lot easier but I bet an experienced rotary user would have no problem with using the HF.
After claying, I noticed that my car really didn’t have a lot of deep scratches so I went with the lightest recommended polishing compound, which means that the few deep scratches are still on the car, but it really cleaned up the light scratches and rough spots. While I’m satisfied with the end result, I’m still going to try to get a complete Porter Cable kit whenever I can swing the cost and go with Meguiar's 105/205 combo.
Here's a few pics with a cheap camera - those light spots on the hood are clouds reflecting off the finish:
