Prima Polishing Pad and Chemical Combos

I received a PM today asking about Prima Pad/Chemical combos, so I'm posting this for the benefit of all.

There isn't a secret recipe, but the choices can be personal. The pad and chemical combination really depends on the task at hand, though I can generalize based on my experience.

Btw, have you seen my detailing articles in the library? That would be an excellent place to start.
http://www.motoringalliance.com/library/detailing-articles-11/

I personally use the following pads and chemical combinations.

PC:
Yellow/Swirl
Orange/Swirl
White/Swirl
White/Amigo
Black/Epic

I don't use Cut very much since I will use my rotary if I need more cutting action than a yellow pad and Swirl. Cut is a good product but since it was intended to be used with the PC, it tends to break down too fast on the rotary. If I need more cutting action than a Yellow pad and Swirl, it'll be a wool pad with Meguiar's M105..and that's really a situation where I'm polishing out sanding scratches after wetsanding the paint.

PC:
Yellow/Cut
Orange/Cut

I consider Prima as the best "finishing polishes" around. Everything after aggressively compounding the paint. In fact, my shop guys do an excellent job compounding fresh paint, but they are always blown away at how much further I can take it with Prima.

I also don't use Finish much since I love White/Swirl combo.
White/Finish

Personally, I LOVE to polish with Swirl. Since I use both a PC and a Makita Rotary, my process usually involves polishing with the Rotary with either a White or Orange pad depending on what the paint requires. Once the swirls have been knocked out to the desired level, I will take the pad off, and stick it to my PC and continue polishing using that broken down Swirl. This further polishes the paint to a very fine degree. If the paint is dark (anything other than white paint) I will follow that with a White pad and Amigo on the PC before going to wax.

Richard

 

Prima and Porter Cable Random Orbital Dual Action Polisher

Let me just add that while I use Prima in my professional life using a rotary buffer, whenever possible, if I can get away with using just the PC, I certainly will.

The rotary buffer makes polishing faster if you have the skill to use one, but you can also do great damage if you aren't careful.

There are certain circumstances that using a rotary just isn't practical. Maybe the paint is thin, or the body panels have lots of sharp edges or maybe it's just not practical to get a rotary buffer into tight areas, or maybe the paint just doesn't need a rotary buffer!

Regardless of the reason, choose your pad/polish combo based on the task at hand and start with the least aggressive combo and work your way up on a small square until you've gotten the results you expect. Only get more aggressive after you've thoroughly polished an area with 3 or 4 passes in approximately 5 minute sessions or until the polish has been fully broken down.

Richard