waxing, polishing, etc.

[Sea Wolf]

Doc-

Good for you!

Enjoy it!

Be sdure and use only the lower/lowest speed(s) for buffing, as the higher ones develop too much heat!

Joe.

[Rob & Karen]

I am planning to order a buffer from Harbor Freight and have a question. The tool comes with terrycloth and a polishing bonnet, which I think is wool. They also sell microfiber pads. Which of these is best for buffing wax (colinite fleet wax) from the boat? I would like to order some extras along with the tool. I am planning to apply the wax by hand. Thanks.

Rob

[lloyds]

I too purchased a buffer from Harbor Freight. The bonnets are a real pain. They are tightened by drawstrings. Eventually the drawstrings come out and whirl around and hit your hands and are just plain not convenient. Look for pads that are secured by elastic or something similar. I am going to get some different pads and try it again. But if it still doesn't do the job I will go back to rubbing by hand.

[Sea Wolf]

The buffer I bught from Harbor Freight uses pads that are attached to the rubber base plate with Velcro, which solves the old string problem. This is the way mine came originally.

However, when I went back to get a couple of extra bonnets, they never seemed to have them in stock. So I went to Lowes and bought Makita pads which fit and work just fine.

What I'd do in your situation is take the Harbor Freight tool to Lowes or some place similar and see if their Makita base pads would fit on your tool, thus allowing you to convert it over to using the Makita bonnets.

The irony of this is that the Harbor Freight sander/polisher only costs about $27, and the Makita bonnets are $13 each! Not sure about the cost of the Makita base pad.

Hope this helps!

Joe.

[lloyds]

That does help, thank you. Amazing how you can spend more money on pads than on the buffer.

[mccml]

Do those people who bought the Harbor Freight 7" polisher still like it now that they have used it for some time? Do you use the terry cloth bonnets to polish the wax off or the wool bonnets? I'm thinking about buying one.

Thanks for any input.

[Jazzmanic]

I bought one of those Harbor Freight jobees to polish out some scratches and it worked ok for that but in the end, I ended up polishing and waxing by hand. Maybe it was because I used the string bonnets or maybe it was because I didn't know how to use it properly.

Maybe Joe could give me some pointers or maybe I should by the velcro pads by Makita. Those string bonnets just seemed like a hassle to me. I guess YMMV.

[boscoj]

My Mom recently took delivery of her new Tom Cat, "Knoty Lady". It arrived at the shop in Oakland and sat for about three months while it was kittted out. Plenty of industry, railways and airports to develop a substantial layer of fallout.

Having transported the vessel to the new birth in Santa Cruz I suggested it probably needs a good cleaning and a coat of wax. Mom said she got some "cleaner wax" at West Marine. I shuddered. More often than not "cleaner waxes" are more cleaner than wax.

I have been detailing cars for ~20 years. If there's one thing that makes pro detailers wince is "cleaner wax".

Dad and I immediately got on the web to research gel coat preparations. I found Gel Coat Labs which I later found out to be an arm of a well respected company http://properautocare.com. I was actually a bit upset to discover the company wasn't actually a "Lab" that studied gel coat.

Being a factory trained Meguiar's guy from 1988 I was happy to see my folks had chosen a Meguiar's product. Still I was uncomfortable with a "one step" cleaner wax product. They had a bottle of Meguiars #M50 Cleaner wax. I squeezed some into my fingers and was suprized by the lack of abrasiveness and reassured by the emollient quality I have come to admire from nearly all Meguiar's products. The 3M stuff is way too "granular" for most non pro, non body shop guys. Their stuff always makes my hands dry. Meguiar's . . . you're soaking in it.

So I get down to the boat with my whole detailing kit, trash bag full of rags, solvent, claybars, tape . . . B&D 6138 rotary buffer with my full pack of Meguiar's Softbuff foam pads.
http://marinerv.meguiars.com/product/Accessories-Machine

I try a bit of the #50 on a spot that appears to have some sort of tree/berry stains with a W8000 pad. It's nice and smooth, not abrasive at all. Doesn't really take the berry stain out at all. Well that's good from what I gather having read all the stuff about not being too aggressive with gelcoat. I turned up the rpm's on the buffer and leaned on it a bit more. Nothing. I now knew that this compound was very gentle and it would be very difficult to damage the surface with this combination of pad and compound.

Technique helped me here in not damaging the surface I expect. I figure about 70% of my buffing was done with one hand, only using the weight of the buffer to grind the gelcoat. This is where the consistency of the product comes into play. It must not be too thick. Water it down or use some quick detailer to loosen it up. see below

In hindsight what I probably should have done was get there alot earlier, wash it with Dawn dish soap, claybar it, and then use a solvent like Pre-Kleano or GROW Super Kleen to really get the fallout and stains removed. Then hit it with a nice coat of liquid wax. Then come back the next day and put another coat of wax on it.

But . . . it was a brand new boat, maybe I didn't get all the stains out but it is now protected. From what I gather, gelcoat is quite soft and those stains should come up in a few months with regular attention.

I also wanted to doctor up the #50 with some cornstarch and water to make a more abrasive cut product but I had left my cornstarch at home. I would have taken about 6 oz. of the #50 into a squeeze bottle, added a couple of nickels or stainless steel nuts/washers, 1 T of cornstarch to test and then add more if needed. Add water to make it loose. The nickels/stainless are there to mix it up.

I also found the #50 to load up the pad after awhile so I just sprayed some quick detailer or water on the pad to loosen it up.

I think I need some help with the "cast" tread in the surface. I've seen specific products but don't really understand how to apply and remove these products and what exactly they are supposed to do . . .

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jeff

[boscoj]

FWIW the Black & Decker 6138 is now the DeWalt DW849

I have had two of these buffers in my 20 years of detailing.

My first was a Snap-On model back in 1988.

Somehow the buffer was discontinued by Snap-On an offered by Black & Decker, a 6138 which I still use to this day.

The latest incarnation of this staple buffer is now the DeWalt DW849.

Same buffer, same features, same value.

From proper auto care . . .

http://www.properautocare.com/dew849profhe.html

[BrentB]

When I was teenager I cleaned and waxed cars using Blue Coral applied by hand. It was easy work since I set my own schedule.

I always wondered if it was a good wax and why everyone raved about it.

[smittypaddler]

Be sure to read the label on whatever polish you get, because some of them contain an abrasive. I neglected to read the label on a new polish, but luckily discovered after applying it to a small 6-inch square that it was making the surface dull rather than shiny. Also, I've had good luck using green Lime-Away as a cleaner, though you have to be careful, because it will almost instantly remove any anti-fouling bottom paint it gets on.

[breausaw]

Been using Meguiar's M5016 Boat/RV Cleaner Wax
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AXMY8 ,
quite happy with the results.
My approach is to do the entire boat prier to winter storage, and by hand. If you do the entire boat by hand switch hands as you go or you’re liable to get tennis elbo..don’t ask me how I know.

[mccml]

I brought this topic back up again to see if people were satisfied with their harbor freight buffer that was featured in this post. I did get one response back. Are there any other users out there that would recommend this buffer or should I bite the bullet and spend $150 and get a Porter Cable 7424?

[boscoj]

The Porter Cable is pretty much the standard now for the enthusiast car detailing market. Never used one myself but they are very popular.

http://www.properautocare.com/porcabpolac.html

[BrentB]

I have WEN from the 80's. It is like a Timex watch. Overall I am impressed with HF and they stand by their products like Sears and Craftsman hand tools. We have a store in Indy and stopped to pickup some airhose repair parts and irrigation pump for FL. The place was packed and folks were spending their money and not bailout cash. Everything I wanted was gone and bought some carpet cutting blades for $2.39 and left after 3 hrs