Advice on buying an electric polisher...

[gerrymoore]

My wife wants to sell her 2004 Yaris diesel but the metallic paintwork needs a good polishing and there is a long key scratch on one side. I've been given a price of £160 to buffer the whole car and 'try' and hide the scratch from a professional sprayer.

The car won't fetch much so although it's a good price, and as I have a lot of time on my hands, I'm thinking of buying a polisher and having a go myself....I do have some experience with spraying and repairing over the years.

Looked on Ebay and there seem to be quite a few polishers with accessories for between £40 - £60...are these any good (I don't think I would buy the silverline one). Also, what do I use for the polishing..T Cut??

Any ideas to make the scratch go away

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Just to show they are not all bad I have the Silverline polisher and I have used it to cut and polish 2 vans, a camper van, 2 cars and a 23' yacht as well as lots of smaller parts and its been fine.

 

[123hotchef]

run ur nail over the panel if u can feel the scratch it aint going to polish out I don't think

 

[Fazerruss]

If the scratch hasn't gone right through the lacquer then you need some very fine wet n dry around 2000. With plenty of water gently take the sharp edges of the scratch until the area goes evenly cloudy but be careful not to go through to the base coat.
Then use something like farclea G10 with a compound head (again with plenty of water) to bring back the shine.

 

[gerrymoore]

Thanks for the quick replies fellas.....there is a guy on youtube who used touch up paint with a very fine brush to go over a scratch and then very gently rubbed it down...didn't look 100% but better than it was....this sound feasable??

Re Silverline tools...I've bough some of their stuff that was good and some rubbish...nice to hear the polisher is OK...

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Join up at Detailing-World http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/ and you'll get/find ALL the info you need. You'll need a flask and sandwiches to hand 'though......

But be warned, it can be addictive, not to mention expensive.......

@123hotchef's got it right, although with a bit of filling with touch-up then wet sanding/polishing it'll be hugely improved.

 

[steveo3002]

if that scratch is as bad as it looks then yes carefully fill it with basecoat until its nearly flush then some clearcoat , once its dried off tickle it with some 1500 and polish it , it wont be anything like invisilble but will look a little better if you take some care doing it

silverline buffer is good enough for stuff like this

 

[norsa]

Forget t.cut. Very messy, hard work and contains amonia (or at least it used to in the 70s when i last used it). I would recommend something like farecla for compounding. G3 and G10. Its water miscible so easy to clean up before aplying a decent finish wax.
Nick

 

[ford34/2]

I have a Silverline Polisher, its been used dozens and dozens of times over several years, I swear by the Farcella range. Now the bad news the first one burnt out very early in its life, replaced under guarantee -no hassle job. By comparison this one multispeed etc, has been brilliant and paid for its self many many times over. Standard fitting takes all the various foam pads etc.
What you dont want are the two handle cheap buffers sold cheap for 15-30 quid. with the lambswool bonnets
Consider a touch up kit, base coat and lacquer, you can achieve some spectacular results taking time to fill the scrapes and then lacquer them, but you will only help hide them ---- not make them disappear.


Stan

 

[500e]

Give it a quick buff with G10 to see what will come out easily & what requires more exhaustive work.
Our Wallace used to touch in with the end of a chewed matchstick!! sounds strange but seemed to work, it deposited the paint at the bottom of the deep scratches

 

[steveo3002]

take note plastic parts like bumpers burn very very easily compared to metal panels ...keep moving at all times

 

[ford34/2]

if your going to have a go machine polishing--- keep off all edges, the likes of door edges, wings joining the bonnet etc, you can cut through the Lacquer coating in a jiff. always try and polish off the panel face and away way off to the edge.

keep it wet and keep it mooving. Tcut in its day was brilliant- hand job and hard work, I wouldnt use it now. Brasso was canny as well.

 

[norsa]

if your going to have a go machine polishing--- keep off all edges, the likes of door edges, wings joining the bonnet etc, you can cut through the Lacquer coating in a jiff. always try and polish off the panel face and away way off to the edge.

keep it wet and keep it mooving. Tcut in its day was brilliant- hand job and hard work, I wouldnt use it now. Brasso was canny as well.

great advice

 

[steveo3002]

can also consider masking tape over any black trims etc , the white splatter can be a pain to clean off

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Do you have a link to the outfit you mention?

Rotary polishers [like the Silverline] can be severe in the hands of the inexperienced and inflict more swirls/buffer trails than the user set out to rectify. Consider a Dual Action one like the Meguiars, much less chance of the foregoing.

 

[WorkshopChris]

Its not cheap but 3M Fast Cut Plus gets very good results.

 

[the snooper]

Its not cheap but 3M Fast Cut Plus gets very good results.

I recently bought 3kg of g3 and it was about 30 quid

 

[Cobs]

Re dual action machines - have a look at the DAS-6PRO from Clean Your Car - they also do kits with polish and pads

 

[armalites]

^^^^
That's what I have bought from the same place, I bought it with the Sonas kit.

 

[dazza]

I've had good results with Rupes UHS on a cutting pad followed Sonax profiline perfect finish on a finishing pad.

luckily this key scratch was not that deep. (Just my luck my dash cam decided not to work that afternoon).

I have a das 6 but recently bought a FLEX XC 3401 VRG Positive Drive Orbital Polisher which is great.

On the scratch below i used a microfiber spot pad on the das 6. The scratch actually went from the wing to one third across the bonnet.

I gave the rest of the car a once over with just a finishing pad and Sonax.

This polishing session took about 4 days so take your time one panel at a time.