Trying to remember as my search capabilities are poor. When usuing Prima products, you use the same speed as when you use Meguiar's products, but put little pressure. 6 for polish, 4 for wax, (Epic). Is that correct?

 

If you are using the DP pads (Lake Country) no added pressure, just the weight of the machine.
For polish (ie Swirl) I use a speed of 5 unless I really need to work an area then I will drop it to 4.5 or 4.
I put both Epic and Amigo on using a speed of 3.

 

Excluding the extreme high and low speeds, PC speed recommendations often vary by the user. In other words, to some degree anyway- to each his own!

That said, we run our PCs between 4 and 4.5 for almost everything we do. We rely less on speed variations and more on pressure (or the lack thereof) and length of time, as a rule.

The only caveat I would offer when experimenting with PC speed is regarding abrasives. For most diminishing abrasives, the relationship between speed and abrasive "strength" is rather counterintuitive.... the abrasives tend to break down more quickly when you run the PC at high speeds; thus, you end up working with a somewhat less abrasive polish at high speeds. Likewise, the abrasives tend to break down more slowly when you run the PC at low speeds; thus, you end up working with a somewhat more abrasive polish at low speeds.

Either way, we still rarely find the need to move outside of the 4-4.5 speed range. I think most speed variations are fine.

-Heather

 

Load your pad and turn it up to 6, if you do this off the paint you get a Jackson Pollock painting for free.

 

Thanks Minimaybee and Heather, I have a tough time remembering. Still have the brand new out fit from DP that I haven't used yet. I hope I get to use it some day. Did do Epic by hand on my new Z4 after I clayed it, really like how it did with just one coat.

 

For polishing, I use speed 5 on vertical panels and speed 6 on horizontal flat panels. Although I will vary between 5 and 6. I wish I had a 5.5 but I don't on my PC. This is the same with the orange or white pad and Swirl. With either of these I use no to moderate pressure--no more than 5 pounds, depending on the softeness/hardness of the paint and the type of defect I'm removing.

For Amigo, I use speed 5 with a white pad with very light to no pressure.

The difference in vertical versus horizontal lies in pad contact. Usually on horizontal surfaces I have full pad contact while on vertical surfaces, full pad contact isn't always possible depending on the curvature of the panels.

For applying wax, I use speed 3 using the black pad and Epic.

 

With Swirl and orange pad, today I had to use it on 3.5 and use a little bit of pressure to get the result I wanted. It just was not working any other way. I used Amigo the same way (on 3.5, but with the white pad), and went down to 3 for Epic on the black pad and that was fine.

 

Thanks all, this is a great Forum!