I have been wanting to perform a test showing the actual gloss reading difference between a rotary polisher, a dual action counterbalanced polisher Cyclo, and a dual action forced rotation polisher FLEX for a while now. I finally had some time to perform this test. This car belongs to an employee of mine, and he hadn't polished his own car in two years or so. First is a picture of the before, and the car definitely had uniform scratching all over the hood. I used orange CCS pads with SIP on all machines, and white CCS pads with Super Finish on all machines. Hood was of course fully clay barred prior to polishing, and cleaned after polishing with Menzerna Top Inspection. I worked all machines and compounds until fully broken down just like I would in real world use, but some RIDS remained. Results are as follows.


Before

FLEX

Cyclo

Rotary


The rotary finished with the highest gloss readings, followed by Cyclo, and Flex. I was not surprised by the results, and there is definitely a difference that can be noticed with the eye. The Rotary of course also removed a lot of the small pitting in the paint that was not removed with the other two machines.

 

Very nice John! By the way, do you know of any local Flex service stations I can get my flex warrantied at?

 

Time to get a rotary!

 

Good work John. Nice to see these technical write-ups. Now I'm going to have to get a gloss meter and play These tools really help us have a better understanding of what's going on and put a quantitative figure to the work we do.

 

Only if you're a pro It takes years to master a rotary, and that's with polishing routinely every week. I highly discourage any DIYer to use one.

 

Everyone got to start somewhere. Rotary polishers require lots of practice to master (preferably on a scrap panel, which should be polish in both vertical and horizontal planes) did I mention practice.

The newer Flex lightweight models make things easier, especially on vertical panels

 

Agreed. Great to see this type of 'real world' research

 

I think it's important to note, if you're a DIYer, and plan to be that and not detail for a living, I don't see the risks of a rotary being worth the reward. One small mistake of burning the edge of a door can cost thousands of $$ to repaint.

However, if you have every intention of becoming a professional detailer, then a rotary is a must and one has to start somewhere. Old body panels or scrap panels from body shops are a great place to start.

 

As we’ve all suggested a rotary requires a lot of practice. My thinking is the advancement of detailing technique and methodologies in learning the correct usage of a rotary polisher and wet-sanding; as the correct use of these methods / tools will produce a far superior finish

 

have not heard many people talking about the cyclo... is it better then the PC machine?

 

When I was detailing the two polishers I used were a Cyclo and a rotary. The Cyclo is a very smooth vibration free unit that you could use for hours without ‘white’ hands and for me gave the best finish, although the Flex comes a every close second. I’ve never been a big fan of PC orbital’s as they always seemed under powered and vibrated too much for me

 

thanks