Agreed, I think that was an Octane Deduction Ken.
-1

 

ooo, burn!

 

ohhhhhhhh shitola!

 

Hey, you must be a camera expert!

Thanks for the insight. Good point!

-Heather

 

We always recommend making "tick marks" on your plate so you can monitor the orbiting of the plate/pad. In OctaneGuy's video, these marks are on the pad. (we mark the plate just so we don't have to mark each pad)

The plate does vibrate alot- making it very difficult to asses whether or not the plate/pad is still orbiting as well. If you apply too much pressure to the PC, it will stop (or sometimes nearly stop) orbiting. Although the vibration does aid in producing results (hence the term "dual-action"), it is the orbiting IMPO which does the bulk of the work.

So, you want to make these tick marks on your plate (or pads) so you can make sure you don't stop it from orbiting too much or too often.
You want to use the full "dual-action" of that Dual-Action PC!

-Heather

 

Here are what I mean by tick marks on your plate:

 

so on the Griots DVD, is he using too much pressure since the pad is hardly rotating much of the time?

looking forward to sitting back tonight with a glass of wine and watching OctaneGuy's DVD which I think is getting delivered today

 

I'm still waiting for my copy of the DVD, but one thing you can do is learn how to gauge the pressure. With the Porter Cable polisher, go to a bathroom scale and press down with the PC (with backing plate and foam pad) until it reads 15 to 20 pounds and that's the pressure you want. Put a piece of plastic down and turn the buffer on and you can also get a feel by the sound of it as you reach the 15 to 20 pound range.

Mike Phillips was the first person to demonstrate this method--we did this on our DVD and years prior over on Meguiarsonline.com, and recently others have started showing this same demo on their videos without giving back proper credit.

Ok signing off till tonight--got work to do out in the field........

Richard

 

i mark my pads with the wax/polish i use with a sharpie... and that also
works as my marker to see how fast the pad is spinning.

and i got that tip from the Griots video too. i think that 15min
video does well.

 

What OctaneGuy and I are illustrating here is that (once again!) there are different ways of achieving the same goal. There are honestly upteen variations out there. Sure, some of them are what I would call "bad" variations because they are really myths and simply don't work! However, there are also several very legitimate variations that really do the same thing, but in different ways.

We teach that you should always keep the plate/pad orbiting for the best results. OctaneGuy and Mike Phillips teach that you should vary this a bit. Only our locals have seen our results (just realizing I should show you some photos sometime too!) and all of you have seen several examples of OctaneGuy's results... it's obvious that both techniques work great! They're just different.

I have to say, it's almost eerie how similar our and OctaneGuy's techniques are- considering we just met him on NAM not that long ago! Even so, we're likely to have some differences in techniques from time to time too.

By the way, I like umberto's strategy... sitting back with a glass of wine to watch a detailing DVD! Now THAT's the way to learn.

-Heather

 

Great...now I have to go out and buy a scale...for my car detailing!

Actually I've read that you should just use the weight of the machine, not really pressing much at all, similar to advice for a dremel. 20lbs is certainly much more.

 

Heather - Perhaps Richard is your long lost twin brother, separated at birth by **** gypsies and forced to work the detailing shops in sub-Sahara Africa only to be later sold to a traveling midget circus touring Eastern Europe where he caught the eye of a less than attractive baroness who for reasons unknown decided buy out his remaining indentured years from the circus and to move to Southern California to grow oranges at which point he escaped during a daring midnight run through the orange grove chased by half-rabid Scottish Deerhounds only to wind-up cleaning cars again in some sleazy rat infested detailing sweat shop while dreaming of one day having his own detailing business and selling DVDs on NAM...
Or not. Just a thought.

 

This is exactly what we teach. I think avoiding added pressure is very important in obtaining good results. But again, to each his own as long as it works!

To be honest, when I first read quite awhile back that OctaneGuy teaches to add pressure I couldn't understand how that could possibly work. Then, I saw photos of his work and decided that I don't need to understand everything to believe it works! He can have his way and I'll have mine, and that's just fine (poetic, yes I know).

-Heather

 

oh? jk

 

I think you're on to something!! But what happened to me? Did the **** gypsies just leave me with our parents? Hmmm, some flaws to your story, as well done as it is...

-Heather

 

Hey! You can't edit a quote and still call it a quote!!

It's nice you left the rhyming in though.

-Heather

 

Well using the Meguiar's pads, if you just use the weight of the machine, you won't get anywhere. The only time we only use the weight of the machine is when using a finishing pad and applying a wax. If the end goal is to evenly distribute a wax, then yes, the weight of the machine with the softest pad, on speed 3 is what you do. If you're trying to remove swirls, 15 to 20 pounds with the Yellow W8006 Polishing pad is a must. If you only apply the pressure of the machine, you won't do any work because the PC is so gentle.

Hahaha, yes, Heather and I have much in common that NAMers don't even realize. Muuuhaaaaaaaaaaaa.

LOL. We'll I was super active on the detailing forum of Meguiarsonline.com in the consumer/pro forums for the past 3 years as well as other enthusiast detail forums, before making a stronger precence over here on NAM. I was more of a lurker in the Detailing101 forum before I went pro.

Differences are a good thing. As long as we are all happy with the end results! How we get there is a personal preference---unless you're ("you" is a general term--not Heather-- doing it wrong and just spinning your wheels...er buffing wheels???

 

you wearing a bra or something?