Rotary Training Day Pictures - 2nd May 2009

**imported_Dave KG** · 05-04-2009, 05:50 PM

Something a little different from a car detail here - teaching people how to machine polish their own cars in a day long "class"... obviously its not all-encompassing, but it has been designed to give new rotary users a sound basic grounding with which to enhance their skills

Another successful machine polishing training day, this time focussing on the rotary polisher

A few pics from the day`s entertainment...

The training days always begin with control of the rotary polisher - on many panels of the car, starting out with the easy flat panels such as the bonnet and moving to harder panels such as doors below styling lines where different techniques of machine movement must be adopted. Once happy with machine control, we move onto paint assessment and the correct use of paint gauges, light sources and simply ambient light, all have a very important part to play in the armoury of the machine polisher

Moving onto using the machine for paint correction, we look at how moving up through the abrasive scale affects the level of correction and the amount of paint removed - what is safe, what is effective?

After a morning of "theory", and putting into practice individual aspects of machine polishing and getting comfortable with the machine, polishes and associated tools (thickness gauges, light sources), the afternoon kicks off with a challenge - with no help from me, a panel of the car has to be corrected... Sound easy? Well, said panel may have been resprayed, a certain soul may have wetsanded a thin spot into it here and there

The point of this is to put into practice everything covered in the morning and to get a feel for machine polishing "in the real world", and putting into practice good techniques to get the best correction possible, safely... I am a firm believer putting things into practice, in situations as close to "real life" as possible, and I am also a firm believer in challenging as its all the more rewarding to see people`s success

Here`s the two teams assessing their panels:

There was certainly some swirls and RDS to correct!:

Choosing their products, they set to work:

And here`s what they guys achieved - pretty damn good I`d say:

As well as achieving correction, they also spotted what door was resprayed, where there was filler (I told you this wasn`t easy

), and where there were thin spots and adjusted their correction methods to suit - all told, it was a sterling effort from all on this task

It was then onto the open ended workshop, where the four attendees set to work on the bonnet of their own car, trying out a range of different products to see what they liked best - Meguiars #205 and Lusso Revatalising Cream were the stars of the day

**imported_Dave KG** · 05-04-2009, 05:52 PM

Mk1 Golf GTi (not often you see one in this good condition!)

Peugeot 206:

Ford Focus:

(Amazing how good silver can look with the correct prep!)

**imported_Dave KG** · 05-04-2009, 05:53 PM

Ford Mondeo:

As I mentioned before, I am a great believer in doing when it comes to learning and perfecting the rotary and this pic depicts exactly what one of these machine polishing classes is about - getting stuck in and learning and enhancing a new skill, all hard at work:

But always with great banter and a cheery atmosphere which is all down to the great folk who attend these classes and who have made them very enjoyable since I started running them at the start of the year!

Another great day guys, and I am looking forward to the next one :thumb:

**Barry Theal** · 05-04-2009, 06:06 PM

that looked like a fun day, boy that brought back some memorires of when i first used a rotary lol geees the things i did lol! thanks for a good post!

**flash gordon** · 05-04-2009, 06:22 PM

Having fun & learning...What a novel concept.How many Makitas do you have, or did everyone supply there on.I notice in 1 pic. Rotary laying on the ground. I always worry a pebble may sling off my shoe and land on the pad...Maybe I`m a little paranoid.