How safe is the Porter Cable 7424 machine to polish ?

frankosmusica

New member
Well I have a Dewalt 849 polishing machine, when I went to go buy pads at the auto detailing store the guys said I can create swirl marks very easily with my Dewalt. They recommended the Porter Cable 7424 polishing machine they said because of the way it spins its very safe and easy to use for beginners. Is this true about this machine ? I dont want to spend money on it and end up being the same like my Dewalt 849 ? So any suggestions on the Porter Cable 7424 random orbital machine ? Can I burn paint with it if im not careful ?
 
you can burn paint with any machine if your not careful. some are just harder to to do it with. a rotary can finish down very nicely with no swirls it just depends on the skill of the operator and occasionally the paint.
 
A 7425 with 5.5 or 6.5 inch pads is pretty newb friendly. You apply a lot of pressure on either of those pads and it takes a deliberate screw up to do any damage. 4" pads on the other hand can generate a lot more heat with pressure and take a bit more finesse.
 
FWIW, I can't finish out 100% with a rotary, and I'm a) not exactly a klutz and b) not inexperience with those machines :nixweiss



If considering a RO, I'd go with the Griot's 6". IME the PC is *barely* capable of polishing paint effectively, or at least efficiently.
 
+ 1 on Accumulators post. Get the GG RO. You wont regret it. MY pcxp these days is just for the brush attachments for carpets and LSP application.
 
Please allow me to share the following;



Sometime back I did the following test. I'm not sure if you guys will consider it an accurate test or not:shocked. However, I was trying to see how each tool/pad could stack against each other, although I ran the test for 2 minutes I later went back and ran the porter cable for a longer period, but I was not able to damage the paint.



I’d also like to mention that I’ve been able to do some real good jobs with the Porter Cable and to me the size and the weight are a big factor.



In my opinion the Porter Cable tool is a very friendly tool.



A used neutral non molested surface, same amount of product was used in each test, Left side will be Porter Cable- Right side Rotary tool.



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Porter Cable -orange pad speed setting 6.0 2 minutes



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Rotary with wool pad setting 6.0 2 minutes



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Eh, you can damage paint with most anything if you [mess] up badly enough. I've done damage with a PC, and I wasn't being stupid about it. Most anybody will have an "oops!" with a rotary at some point, do it enough and it's pretty much bound to happen.
 
With the new Meguiars microfiber pad system, you can get some pretty amazing correction with the relative safety of a DA polisher. Still best to have both machines though.
 
I've not used my Makita rotary in the last three months. The MF pads on my DA are really effective and fast at correcting. I'm still amazed at just how good this system is.
 
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