[jonh]

I have an older car with acrylic paint I think 14 yrs +/-. Supposedly the paint is from a '74 Mercedes. It has some minor scratches and webs that show at different times. I would like to purchase a dual action orbital sander with pads and polish material. I think I want the Porta Cable 7424 and accessories. Does anyone have other suggestions.
Thanks,
Jon

[nitetrane98]

Seems like I gave about 40 bucks for a Harbor Freight adjustable speed buffer. I use Norton foam pads. I've never tried the PC for buffing. I have one I use for wood work and like it fine for sanding. I don't think it is powerful enough to handle true buffing work with compound etc. Maybe if you are talking about wax removal etc. I think the PC's are about 120 bucks?
You can just about outfit yourself with a real buffing setup for that.

[jonh]

nitetrane98,
would you please describe a real buffing setup.
Thanks,
Jon

[jayrod]

You need an adjustable speed buffer, maybe 2 buffing cloth pads, one foam pad, and I use 3 stages of 3M finesse It compound. Coarse , fine and polish. If you sand it with 1200 grit then 2000 or even just 2000 it will look alot better and get some of the scratches out. That little orbital wont do a good job Its mainly for a quick wax or polish if you get the above it do the best possible job. The compound is about $30 a bottle but thats for the big ones you might be able to get a smaller size. if you can find a buffer for 40 bucks thats really good there normally 100-300.

[67pete300]

I am right now doing all the research I can for the same issue. I want to clean up the original paint on my 67 as much as possible without a complete repaint. But I don't want to burn through my single stage, 40 year old paint either.

From what I have read, the Porter Cable seems to be the machine of choice. I am pretty sure I will buy one because I will use it to clean up my 2 daily drivers as well. I still am reading about pads and polish.

Go here and read as much as you can:
http://autopia.org/forum/guide-detailing/

It seems to be mostly related to modern 2 stage paint, but there is a ton of good information.

I'll be keeping tabs on this thread because I don't want to screw this up!

[67pete300]

Here's a whole article about how to use the PC:

http://autopia.org/forum/guide-detai...-polisher.html

And another about polishing in general:

http://autopia.org/forum/guide-detai...erfection.html

And the final warning:

http://autopia.org/forum/guide-detai...ing-paint.html

[davisrus]

I have tried orbital buffers before and it seems to me that I can do about the same thing by hand. With a good variable speed buffer you can do alot more.