If you have the arm strength for a three-step process I would recommend Swirl, Amigo and Epic in that order. If your only able to do two of the three, and you're doing this by hand then do Amigo and Epic. You won't be getting rid of a lot of swirls but the Amigo will at least hide most of them.
As for your el'cheapo RO, probably not unless you can vary the speed and it doesn't have a lot of torque.

 

Well, it's not just arm strength but time required
I live in an apartment and Alabama seems to be... pollen intensive, year round So I don't really have a good place to detail and when I do try and do anything, the dust/pollen covers the car before I have a chance to get going :impatient
As for my el'cheapo, it's a 6 inch, single speed (4k rpm I think) Waxmaster W6000 that I bought to get the Meguiars Gold Class off of my Audi From what I've read here, the Prima products are much easier to remove

 

Yeah, I feel your pain. I've a dewdrop dripping Aspen over my driveway and I can barely get the MINI washed and pulled into the garage before I got aphid poo all over it again. Would a QuikShade pop-up tent work? They are only about $60 and 10'x10' so most of the MINI would fit. You could get a bigger one, but they cost more.
I don't think I would use the Waxmaster sounds too scary! Amigo and Epic wipe off very easily. Swirl can be a bit tougher but not too bad.

 

I don't dance really...

 

Then you've never had the right partner

 

I had not considered this!!!!

 

I'm thinking about the canopy and it'll help
So you figure Amigo will give me a decent polish/paint cleansing/light swirl removal with the gloss/shine from the Epic then?
Sounds like a plan, then if I decide to get a bit more serious I can probably get the Swirl to start off with, right?

 

Just joking dude, no worries

 

That would be the order: Swirl, Amigo and Epic. Though not without considerable elbow grease if you are doing this by hand and want to eliminate swirls. Doable, but not too enjoyable!

 

Gotcha, thx
As for enjoyable... being pretty was never easy

That's it for me, 'night y'all

 

I just did the Finish (should have gone with Swirl), Amigo, Epic method by hand. This week I did the roof (which came out very nice), next week I'm going to try and do the body or part of the body.

 

Only slightly OT, but what orbital waxer would you recommend?

 

I have a Porter Cable 7336. I think for ROs it's pretty much the standard, although there are a few model variations of the same one that are used.

 

My recommendation to a T.

With your time/location situation, keep in mind that you can get away with doing the 3-step Swirl-Amigo-Epic process just twice a year. Since you're already hooked on Hydro (hee-hee-hee ), using Hydro will bridge the "twice a year 3-step process" quite nicely for you. So, if you can perhaps borrow some space or something like that to do the 3-step process just twice a year then the rest of the time is easy-peasy.

For that matter, with Hydro being used the rest of the time, the 2-step process could be done just twice a year too. Of course, the impact wouldn't be as significant as with the 3-step, but as MiniMaybee pointed out... it is doable to polish (Swirl) by hand but rather tiring to do it well.

I hope that gives you some more food for thought and some options.

-Heather

 

A question: Since Swirl is more abrasive than Amigo, what purpose is there in using Amigo after using swirl?

 

Moving from heavy to light abrasiveness (sp?) smoothes the finish out

 

Drillslinger's right... in general, you sometimes have to move from something abrasive enough to correct the paint (ie, remove swirls) to something less abrasive to finish what the correction step left behind.

It's a similar concept to wood sanding... to "fix" the wood you have to use a coarse piece of sandpaper. After you've "fixed" it with the coarse stuff, you usually need a finer piece of sandpaper to smooth it out and "finish" it.


With Amigo in particular though, it's a little more than that too.

Amigo used with a polisher can be your finish abrasive at a very super-fine level. Paints that are on the soft side can benefit from this level of super-fine finish abrading, while paints that are fairly hard will not be affected by the super-fine abrasives. (it also depends on which pad you pair it with)

Amigo by hand is not considered an abrasive at all, simply because the abrasives that are in it are so super-fine that the mechanism of your hand just isn't enough to really activate the abrasives. In the case of hand use, Amigo's super-fine abrasives aid in beefing up the paint cleansers in Amigo.


In both polisher and hand use, Amigo is often used as a pre-wax step regardless of whether or not an abrasive, like Swirl, has been used prior.
Why? Amigo has paint cleansers, as well as fillers/concealers. Prepping with Amigo before you wax will help your wax bond better to the paint. In addition, it will help fill and conceal any fine paint imperfections such as very light scratches or swirls. It's not a necessary step but a very beneficial one.

-Heather

 

I have to say, the first time I polished Clara I went straight from M80 to Epic and the results were...okay...but not fantastic.

This most recent round a couple of weeks ago, I went M80 -> Amigo -> Epic and the results were MUCH better.

 

Heather, which is more abrasive then, Amigo or Finish (I would assume Finish) and does Finish have any of the paint cleansers in it that Amigo does? I'd like some swirl removal and if Amigo by hand won't accomlish much....

Thanks

 

Uggg. Guess I will have to add Amigo to my order...... I knew this would happen.... I knew it, I knew it, I knew it...... Grrrrrrrrrr

 

^^ dont forget to order some Platinum MF towels to remove amigo too.

 

I can think of more than one appropriate expansion of the initials MF. Alas, I already have MFs. Somehow, I am not surprised to see you turn up to rub walt in the soonds...

 

I tried to warn ya LynnEl.

Gokartride will be falling into the koolaid next.

You post a poke here and there, and you think you can simply walk away. But then you find ourself coming back and poking less, asking more questions....

Then,..one day,...you place an order.

 

I'm not an addict... I can quit anytime.... Just not today..... Besides, I'm only using the light stuff....

Besides, I'm not done poking...