High speed polisher to remove those unwanted scratches.
In my early 20’s I was working at the local detail shop for a few years, I polished one side of the car up to 13 cars a day.
When you are polishing used car trade-ins from dealerships, a little burn from the polisher isn’t as bad as if it were a personal vehicle. Granted, they are all bad, just some are more forgiving. These are great to teach a newbie on.
I skinned up a few, marred a few electric cars for sale and had to hand polish the spots off, ripped the wiper blade off one or two with a little cut on the hand to show the proof. It takes a little getting used to, finesse and attention to detail to avoid the areas that could cause problems. I normally use the orbital polisher for those harder to get to areas and hand polish the spots that are missed.
Tips when polishing:
Never let the pad on the high speed go up and over a hill or a crease. You always want the rotation to go from hi to low, never low to high as far as peaks, and ridges on the body. If it is a sharp cut in the body lines you just want to lightly hit those areas and let the orbital polisher take care of the rest to prevent burns, or rubbing the paint to the primer or even worse to the metal.
Final thoughts:
When you are polishing the car ,concentrate on the faded paint areas, and any scratches you come across, other than that the orbital polisher with a little of the same abrasive you used on the high speed polisher will remove most of the fine scratches, swirl marks and any lightly faded areas.
After using the orbital with a fine polishing compound, install a new clean pad, then use a good carnauba wax and go slow with the orbital. Use the orbital to polish the entire car with a good wax, and then use a clean pad to polish off the wax.
You will be surprised at how slick your finish will be afterwards. Now it needs a good detail brushing and wipe down to remove any wax from cracks and crevices. Open all doors, hood, trunk and wipe all wax from the jams.
Last but not least, let’s wipe the car down with a clean towel and get out your detail brush to clean all wax from the car. Sometimes after polishing a car I will go rinse it well with a coin operated pressure washer paying special attention to the door seals and cracks or crevice.
A few items on hand can make all the difference when it comes time to care for your car.
The high speed polisher I prefer is the Milwaukee 2800 rpm. I noticed after looking one up, they have a variable speed model available now which is a nice feature to prevent burning the paint. Then I use what we called a knock off pad. It is a two sided polishing pad available at most auto paint supply houses.
I preferred using Production Car Care Products compounds and polishes, especially one called the “Reviver”. They make great car wash equipment for professional results.
