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New member
Rupes Duetto
Rupes MF Cutting Pads & Rupes Zephir Gloss Coarse Gel Compound
Rupes Yellow Polishing Foam Pad & Rupes Keramik Gloss Fine Gel Polish
Lake Country HydroTech Cyan 6.5 (the thick ones) & Poorboys Polish w Sealant
Meguiars #26 Liquid Wax via red ccs hand pad
other experimentation with pws and lc ht tangerine/crimson
CG Citrus Red, Foam and 2bwm, Sonax, Pinnacle APC (tires), Optibond x2 on tires ( rubber still needing some love), Nanoskin Handitowel 7x7 clay towel (a must have), NAnoskin Glide (turns out to be a much better clay lube than onr)
My friend's girlfriend has this huge denali xl bus which I figured would make a great canvas to play with. 2003 year model with 127000 plus miles. It was donated to me to keep overnight in order to break in the rupes and my learning curve.
Vehicle came to me in better shape than I've seen it as they live on a dirt road that tends to get muddy.
pretty swirled up
passenger door
I taped off a line on the passenger door and put the rupes yellow polishing pad and yellow top fine gel on speed 2 and did my first pass
Slow start is a very nice feature. The machine takes only a couple of seconds until it buzzes into gear spinning away. The close visual of the pad spinning and throwing is a pretty cool sight as well (especially with the mf cutting discs).
This is the first time I have used a real polisher besides the da drill attachment. I guess I started with the right one because this is one sweet machine. I've never even held a griots or pcxp so I have zero baseline to compare to.
Immediately this thing felt like I had already been using it for some time. I don't know if thats a testiment to their engineering or what but it just feels right. It doesn't weight much and can easily be maneuvered with one hand as I found quite pleasant when squeezing in between the back of the denali and the closed garage door (which was less than 1 foot from the paint).
pretty nice for speed 2 and only enough pressure to make sure i didn't drop the duetto
one more pass with the speed up to 4 and light pressure
time for the rupes mf cutting pad, primed and ready with the rupes blue top compound
one pass on each side, speed 3.5ish light pressure
as you can see it left a pretty nice finish but there was still some marring that looked like it came from the pad doing its work
the rest of that side was then cut with the same method and then went over with one pass of the rupes fine gel and yellow polishing pad
here's a pic of the passenger door after the polish but before any wax
On to the hood:
Rupes MF disc and blue compund gel + rupes yellow polishing and fine gel
all done (with wax as well)
Poor Boys Polish with Sealant + Lake Country Hydro Tech Cyan Cutting 5.5
Did the whole driver side with this to see how it was going to work (I plan on using this as my goto AIO throughout the spring and summer for mobile 1 steps)
Pass with done on speed 4.5 with a little pressure
before
50-50 below
sorry not much room for side photos in the garage
pics with the brinkman
swirled side
pb pws only
by all means not as good as the other side but i will have to say i was impressed with the results. some fine scratches remain but only seen in the right lighitng and or under halogens.
sun shots: driver side pb pws, passenger side rupes compound and fine gel
poor boys side
Now some quick thoughts:
Pad observations: Duetto + Rupes pad (6 inch) was noticeably smoother to operate than equipped with the lc hydro tech foam pads (5.5 and 6.5 used). It wasn't difficult by any means to use the lc ht pads but in my experience the rupes pads provided less vibration. Additionally the rupes pads did not get near as dirty as the lydro tech pads.
I realize this is attributed to the open vs closed cell design of the two but the rupes foam pads work very well with the 'gel' polishes. It seems the rupes gel just soaks up into the pad after each pass. I used one rupes yellow pad to go over the whole passenger side plus half the hood. I used 2 lc hydro tech cyan 5.5 pads to cover the driver side with pws. Both of these pads became almost black. The rupes mf disc did not.
Rupes Cutting Disk: 6inch. Crazy design. Never used a megs mf disc or any other brand so no real baseline but it cut pretty well in my opinion and left a very nice finish. I wil be experimenting on using this with one of their fine polishes on my vehicle soon. The pad did shed a little bit but im sure that is normal. It was only a few small pieces. It did dust a little bit as well but I might have been using too much polish, or not enough, I primed it and then put 3-4 pea sized drops of the gel on there.
Hydrotech Pads: I used all three variously but settled with the cyan cutting pad and pws because it took the most of the swirls out and finished better than the tangerine pad left the paint looking (for lack of cutting ability).
Rupes Gels: I only got the blue (compound) and yellow (fine) polish with the kit but I have the medium and ultra fine on order and more pads to match as well. I will be experimenting with the pads and gel combos from rupes to see if i can find a good one step for cut and finish.
Poorboys Polish w Sealant: This stuff is awesome. the latest polish chart i saw has this rated as a 4 on cut and I'd have to say that it works pretty well for an aio. I wanted to compare it against xmt 360 but got overtaken with the size of the vehicle and never got around to it. It left a finish almost as smooth as the 2 step polish with rupes gels/pads
Unless you looked at the paint in the right lighting or with a brinkman you could not tell the difference from passenger to driver side. And there was, of course, a noticeable difference.
Anyways Thanks for viewing. Questions/comments always welcome
Rupes MF Cutting Pads & Rupes Zephir Gloss Coarse Gel Compound
Rupes Yellow Polishing Foam Pad & Rupes Keramik Gloss Fine Gel Polish
Lake Country HydroTech Cyan 6.5 (the thick ones) & Poorboys Polish w Sealant
Meguiars #26 Liquid Wax via red ccs hand pad
other experimentation with pws and lc ht tangerine/crimson
CG Citrus Red, Foam and 2bwm, Sonax, Pinnacle APC (tires), Optibond x2 on tires ( rubber still needing some love), Nanoskin Handitowel 7x7 clay towel (a must have), NAnoskin Glide (turns out to be a much better clay lube than onr)
My friend's girlfriend has this huge denali xl bus which I figured would make a great canvas to play with. 2003 year model with 127000 plus miles. It was donated to me to keep overnight in order to break in the rupes and my learning curve.
Vehicle came to me in better shape than I've seen it as they live on a dirt road that tends to get muddy.
pretty swirled up
passenger door
I taped off a line on the passenger door and put the rupes yellow polishing pad and yellow top fine gel on speed 2 and did my first pass
Slow start is a very nice feature. The machine takes only a couple of seconds until it buzzes into gear spinning away. The close visual of the pad spinning and throwing is a pretty cool sight as well (especially with the mf cutting discs).
This is the first time I have used a real polisher besides the da drill attachment. I guess I started with the right one because this is one sweet machine. I've never even held a griots or pcxp so I have zero baseline to compare to.
Immediately this thing felt like I had already been using it for some time. I don't know if thats a testiment to their engineering or what but it just feels right. It doesn't weight much and can easily be maneuvered with one hand as I found quite pleasant when squeezing in between the back of the denali and the closed garage door (which was less than 1 foot from the paint).
pretty nice for speed 2 and only enough pressure to make sure i didn't drop the duetto
one more pass with the speed up to 4 and light pressure
time for the rupes mf cutting pad, primed and ready with the rupes blue top compound
one pass on each side, speed 3.5ish light pressure
as you can see it left a pretty nice finish but there was still some marring that looked like it came from the pad doing its work
the rest of that side was then cut with the same method and then went over with one pass of the rupes fine gel and yellow polishing pad
here's a pic of the passenger door after the polish but before any wax
On to the hood:
Rupes MF disc and blue compund gel + rupes yellow polishing and fine gel
all done (with wax as well)
Poor Boys Polish with Sealant + Lake Country Hydro Tech Cyan Cutting 5.5
Did the whole driver side with this to see how it was going to work (I plan on using this as my goto AIO throughout the spring and summer for mobile 1 steps)
Pass with done on speed 4.5 with a little pressure
before
50-50 below
sorry not much room for side photos in the garage
pics with the brinkman
swirled side
pb pws only
by all means not as good as the other side but i will have to say i was impressed with the results. some fine scratches remain but only seen in the right lighitng and or under halogens.
sun shots: driver side pb pws, passenger side rupes compound and fine gel
poor boys side
Now some quick thoughts:
Pad observations: Duetto + Rupes pad (6 inch) was noticeably smoother to operate than equipped with the lc hydro tech foam pads (5.5 and 6.5 used). It wasn't difficult by any means to use the lc ht pads but in my experience the rupes pads provided less vibration. Additionally the rupes pads did not get near as dirty as the lydro tech pads.
I realize this is attributed to the open vs closed cell design of the two but the rupes foam pads work very well with the 'gel' polishes. It seems the rupes gel just soaks up into the pad after each pass. I used one rupes yellow pad to go over the whole passenger side plus half the hood. I used 2 lc hydro tech cyan 5.5 pads to cover the driver side with pws. Both of these pads became almost black. The rupes mf disc did not.
Rupes Cutting Disk: 6inch. Crazy design. Never used a megs mf disc or any other brand so no real baseline but it cut pretty well in my opinion and left a very nice finish. I wil be experimenting on using this with one of their fine polishes on my vehicle soon. The pad did shed a little bit but im sure that is normal. It was only a few small pieces. It did dust a little bit as well but I might have been using too much polish, or not enough, I primed it and then put 3-4 pea sized drops of the gel on there.
Hydrotech Pads: I used all three variously but settled with the cyan cutting pad and pws because it took the most of the swirls out and finished better than the tangerine pad left the paint looking (for lack of cutting ability).
Rupes Gels: I only got the blue (compound) and yellow (fine) polish with the kit but I have the medium and ultra fine on order and more pads to match as well. I will be experimenting with the pads and gel combos from rupes to see if i can find a good one step for cut and finish.
Poorboys Polish w Sealant: This stuff is awesome. the latest polish chart i saw has this rated as a 4 on cut and I'd have to say that it works pretty well for an aio. I wanted to compare it against xmt 360 but got overtaken with the size of the vehicle and never got around to it. It left a finish almost as smooth as the 2 step polish with rupes gels/pads
Unless you looked at the paint in the right lighting or with a brinkman you could not tell the difference from passenger to driver side. And there was, of course, a noticeable difference.
Anyways Thanks for viewing. Questions/comments always welcome
