Flex vs Rotary?

When I get my hands on an abused paint finish, to make $$$ in a reasonable amount of time, sometimes defects/marring takes 3-4 passes over an entire panel and that can add atleast a half hour to the job just isn't reasonable.

I'm doing this in my spare time...and right now my spare time is about as valuable to me as it's ever been.

Is the Flex powerful enough to eliminate that 3rd or 4th pass? Or should I just bite the bullet and learn how to use a rotary? Everyone who uses a rotary tells me it's not as dangerous or as hard to use as everyone makes it out to be, but it'll certainly do damage if you let it build up enough heat or use too much pressure.

So what I'm getting at really is...removing washing/drying swirls with one pass of compound followed by a polish. Will the Flex cut the cheese or do I really need to change my panties for some boxers and go rotary?

 

i wouldn't use a rotary without an insurance policy to back me, but i would use a flex w/o one.


theres one video that compares a flex to a pc. it shows them both on the same panel, 50/50 with tape splitting the 2 and them being used. the pc took about 1/3 longer than the flex and also required one more pass.

im not too sure between the flex and a rotary, but the jump between a flex and a PC is a big jump. IMO, you should get a flex since you don't have an insurance policy - it's still a big jump from a PC.

 

I'd use the Flex before the rotary. Remember you should always be looking to use the least aggressive method to get the job done when detailing. When polishing you're actually removing a very small amount of clear but none the less removing some of it. So if you think about it, a rotary is only working faster because it's removing more clear coat. I'd get a hold of a Flex, it's an awesome tool and ditch the G100 or PC 7242, assuming you're using one of those now. I've used a rotary on boats, RVs, and on spare panels to practice on but I still don't feel 100% comfortable in using them on a brand new vehicle.

 

http://www.autopia.org/forum/machine...ing-guide.html

A rotary isn't incredibly hard to use without burning your paint, but it gets harder to do perfectly without any holograming. Most of the time it just isn't needed. A Flex will probably do everything you need just fine, and be much safer. To me, it's not so much about having to be really good to use a rotary, it's more about the one time something distracts you and you screw up and hologram or burn your paint. With a Flex you don't have to worry about it.

 

I always try to use the least aggressive polish/compound to start, but I've never had a car that I could correct the paint to my standards without making 5 passes with a light polish versus 1 or 2 passes with a compound.

My Titan was heavily swirled, I used my PC on it when I first got it using Poorboys SSR2.5 and it would take 2-3 passes ATLEAST per 2x2 spot with an orange pad to get it looking like someone else wouldn't feel ripped off paying me 100 smacks for it all. When it's your car, spending 4-5 hours doing the whole thing isn't a big deal at all and I doubt anyone would have a problem with it...it's such a safe tool that you really can be careless and not hurt anything. But when you are trying to make a couple bucks and it doesn't make sense to spend 8 hours getting the job done...

I've yet to try the yellow pad I got from Obsessive with Optimum Compounds on my truck yet, I'm sure those will get the job done faster than the Poorboys stuff I had.

Before I jump ship, how aggressive can I get with the PC/Flex before I would even remove the same amount of clear that a Rotary would remove with one pass? Maybe my problem is that I don't know the boundries with the PC, yellow cutting pad and heavy compounds. Ideally, if a car/truck brought to me looks like it's going to take 2-3 passes with an Orange Pad/Optimum Compound before the marring I'm happy with comes out..if I could just go right to a yellow pad with Optimum Hyper and end up taking the same amount of clear off as I would have with Orange/Compound then that is what I'd like to do.

I will be having a couple coats of clear shot on my Cobra either this fall or next spring, so maybe I should just give it a try and see what happens.

 

Slightly off topic, but what do you guys consider a pass over an area?

I think literally just going over it one time, but do you mean putting more compound on and going back over the spot again?

 

+1, I was curious what you meant by that as well Dan. Since most people will call a pass each time you go over an area, and you probably do around 15-20 passes for each section (I use about the same as in that PDF I linked to).

 

I generally do a 2x2 section and will do 2-3 or morepasses for each 2x2 depending on the results.

So yeah, in the end I will do 3092039492304 passes per panel.

So when I'm done with the car, I've done roughly 9999999999999999.99 passes and there is actually no body panels left on my car and it's just the skeleton left. Shines like a biatch though.

 

A 2 INCH BY 2 INCH SECTION?! You should do more than that at once.

 

a "pass" 2'x2' sectionfor me would be spreading the polish at low speed, bump to speed 6, working until broken down and removal. i may swipe the machine across the area 15-20 times before it's broken down