Rotary Compounding – Is It Dead?

Great story. Thanks for taking the time to write that out for us!



Ron Ketcham said:
I was working for Finish Kare at the time and DAS (Nissan port operations) in Long Beach called the office, I was in San Diego, and was beeped on my pager (long before cell phones, that how long ago it was) so called the office.

Was told to call my contact at DAS as they were in a panic.

Had to be there in two hours, and the 3M and Mequiar's rep was to be there as well.

Seems that the Nissan/Infiniti paint engineers had selected a new clearcoat that contains a flurotelamer resin in it-(base of Teflon) that they believed would reduce or eleminate bird etching, acid rain etching etc.

There were 3000 new Q45 that had to go to dealers in three days for the unvailing of Infiniti, but one small problem.

All had unbelievable swirls in these high line, flag ship, vehicles.

It seems that when they came off the assembly line, there was a large amount of dust nibs in the clear, so they sanded the nibs and buffed them

, then applied a glaze and put them on the ships.

When they were washed at the port, big swirl concern.

This was not acceptable, to Infiniti, the dealers, etc, so the port had attempted to polish out the the swirls, didn't work.

They just got worse.

We three (they at least thought we were) experts, were to attempt to resolve this huge issue.

No matter what any of us hit them with, product, pad, buffer speed, etc, they just kept swirling, like we had done nothing but make it worse. We even tried using the old WaxMaster orbital buffers and no luck.

After a few hours of playing around with product/pad, etc combinations, I was leaning against the C pillar of a burgandy Q45 with my palm for maybe three minutes and then stepped away to look at the car one more time and scratch my head.

I noticed that my "palm" print was in the clearcoat!

Whoa!!!! Talk about "soft clearcoat"!

That's when all three of us starting asking some new questions, and ended up on the phone to the plant in Japan with the lead paint engineer.

We learned of the flurotelamer being added, and figured it was why the clear was remaining soft.

Which he agreed with.

However, the company had a multi-million dollar ad campaign breaking in three days, dealers had spent more than a few bucks on their new facilities, local advertising,etc and at least two cars had to go to each dealer for the launch.

I don't recall the name of the Mequiar's rep, but he told the 3M rep and me about a new tool they were working with and may introduce it to the detailing community, not like anything we had seen at the time.

What the "h", go get it, anything to get this resolved, so he drove to Irvine and came back with two PorterCable DA's, velcro backing plates and some new foam pads.

Didn't make much difference of whose polish product we used, they all did wonders with the paint issue.

End result, Infiniti got a DA and some pads, with the Mequiar's product to each dealer ASAP and instructions of how to use on the other vehicles they would receive in the coming months.

The port took all the DA's that Mequiar's had available and went to work, and the cars made the dealers for the launch.

Neither Finish Kare or 3M got any of the business at that time, but what we did was appreciated and we both got other business from Nissan and Infiniti later on.

Those poor souls that got cars from that production run, what a mess, it was almost as if you looked at them, the showed marring.

A couple of years later a large percentage of those first run cars had clearcoat delamination, etc.

These things happen, to all vehicle manufactuers, just this one is about the first time that DA's were used on more than some body playing in their garage at home.

Grumpy
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I have had a Porter Cable machine since 2000, in the past I used it for light polishing and application of liquid waxes and sealants. Now it was not until a few years ago that guys were utilizing PC's and now more varied RO machines for corrective work, and I still lean heavily on Twisted wool pads for heavy cutting of serious defects and CAN finish down a car's finish with a rotary from A to Z.................however like anything to the new gear and products evolve and smarter guys than me (Kevin brown) have explained the why's of how a particular methodology works on any given substrate(Painted or hard surface finish).



You can cut through serious defects with a DA, and of course I find DA sanders or even a DA polisher to be more uniform in sanding a paint finish as well over hand sanding(Which in my time in the trade I have done much of but not so much anymore with thinner water based paint finishes and people not willing to spend the money to have me do it).



You need both for high level corrective work, but the Megs system as "The other PC" mentioned has allowed for extended capabilties especially for less experienced guys coming into the trade or enthusiast detailers and has proved it's place and makes life easier for us all with a margin of safety with less mess to clean up, as I have a "Wooled up" shop at the moment from a restorative Lexus LS-460 correction and the DA polisher could have done the same job but slower in the heavy cutting phase when I needed to get under crust/acid rain/RIDS from hell.



The aforementioned Lexus..............





Before.





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After rotary & DA correction work.





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But on clearfilm use a rotary and you are screwed................ such as the genius who "Rotary" compounded this film.





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50/50 of film after correction of "Rotary correction" lol....





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That's video echos exactly what made my jaw drop the first time I used the MF pads. I couldn't believe that level of correction was possible in such little time with a DA. I did a couple IPA wipedowns as I was sure the swirls were just filled but no they were really gone. I'm as enthused about this as I was about getting the DA in the first place back in '95. My corrections are now easily twice as fast as with foam for the most part. I'm really quite happy with these pads.





RaskyR1 said:
While I don't feel the rotary is dead, I can certainly say that my rotaries have taken a back seat to my DA polishers over the last year or two and probably 90-95% of my work is now done via DA. (keeping in mind my 1st polisher was a rotary over 20 years ago).



That being said, I will continue to treat each car/job individually and I will use whatever tool yields the best results based on my test spots. I do feel there are still some tasks or paint types that the rotary still excels on, but on most paints I do feel the DA has equaled or surpassed the rotary.



I think this video shows just how well and fast the DA/MF can work....best part, no holograms!

D300 test spot - YouTube







Just my $.02

Rasky
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After exclusively using a DA for a little while now (all hail the KBM), I've thought long and hard about how this machine could "fit in" a high volume operation? I honestly think it can and would work great, but it is totally defined by the end result, the client and the detailer. Nothing like grinding down the finish of an abused dealer car with a twisted wool and some heavy cut compound, but the days of doing 2-3 steps afterwards are long over thanks to the new DA technology. I think you can bridge the gap to acceptable completition much better by using a DA. I actually have set up a few body shops on a true 2 step DA system for their after sanding routine(3000) and they all swear it's been a blessing in disguise as they never thought their little DA sanders could polish paint. It's not only saved them time by cutting out an additional step (typically by using the popular 3M system), but also totally eliminated come backs from the notorious 3M heavy filling/defect return dilema.
 
David Fermani said:
After exclusively using a DA for a little while now (all hail the KBM), I've thought long and hard about how this machine could "fit in" a high volume operation? I honestly think it can and would work great, but it is totally defined by the end result, the client and the detailer. Nothing like grinding down the finish of an abused dealer car with a twisted wool and some heavy cut compound, but the days of doing 2-3 steps afterwards are long over thanks to the new DA technology. I think you can bridge the gap to acceptable completition much better by using a DA. I actually have set up a few body shops on a true 2 step DA system for their after sanding routine(3000) and they all swear it's been a blessing in disguise as they never thought their little DA sanders could polish paint. It's not only saved them time by cutting out an additional step (typically by using the popular 3M system), but also totally eliminated come backs from the notorious 3M heavy filling/defect return dilema.
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Dead nuts right on Dave.
 
As good as the new polishes and the microfiber pads are, I still run into situations where I have to use my Dewalt.



When it comes to the average body shop or car dealer detailer though, they shouldn't be allowed to touch a rotary.
 
Scottwax said:
As good as the new polishes and the microfiber pads are, I still run into situations where I have to use my Dewalt.



When it comes to the average body shop or car dealer detailer though, they shouldn't be allowed to touch a rotary.
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Agreed, but it does keep us busy. :)
 
There is no way, currently I could completely eliminate(or partially) compounding with a rotary. Not a chance



That said, we use and sell a ton of the MF pads, kits and polishes... but with all that pressure, friction and its by-product(heat) in small areas, sometimes small wool is simply better(well, really sometimes there isnt any other option unless youre old schoolin' it by hand)
 
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