Morris Minor Owners Club

For many years I have used well known branded polishes and waxes in conjunction with soft cloths and the tried and tested elbow grease to get the car looking reasonable. However, I am now bestowed with the gift of a professional variable speed polisher. It looks a bit like an angle grinder, but with an assortment of sponges and bonnets. Before I let it loose on the car, can anyone offer some guidance on how to use the thing - what sponges to use, what speed (1,000 - 3,000 rpm), what polish, and whether to put it on the sponge or the bodywork?. All advice gratefully received. Thank you.

Mine is only a basic one - I bought it to try to stop my red vauxhall from turning pink - a well known problem with vauxhall's red paint - apparently... I used T cut on the polishing mop - and it worked well - but I imagine it's all too easy to cut right down through the paint to the undercoats - so gang warily..... Oh and within a couple of months the red was turning pink again - so I traded the car!

It depends alot on the type of paint you have on your car for what type of sponge, obviously firmer type sponges are used on harder 2k type paints, and softer ones on softer paint for example cellulose, i painted my car in 2k and moped it with a pink sponge, and used fine cutting 3m paste but i soaked the sponge in water and wet the panel to stop it getting the paint too hot and taking too much off, i just took it nice and easy and set the mop to about 2500rpm, a small section at a time with the paste on the wet sponge however i am no expert.
You can use G3 paste but i believe this will take off quite alot of paint fairly quickly, i went to a local paint suppliers and got as much advice as possible its well worth asking and they will point you in the right direction and sell you the right bits and pieces and the sponges are less than a tenner, once done give it a right good polish.
Just be careful you don't hit the primer, perhaps start on an area that is out of sight for a bit of practice or even an old spare panel.
Once i had soaked the sponge i spun it away from me to get rid of the excess water first, then used cutting paste, it came up well, obviously be careful not to get water in the tool or you could end up with your hair standing up straight!
good luck

As for your red vauxhall bmc, i t cutted a red maestro years ago, 2 days later it was pink again, so i hit it with the old red colour magic, and sold it sharpish, i hope when it rained they didn't end up with a red driveway! i went to buy t cut the other day and the shop owner said he has stopped selling it due to it being poor quality, i was gutted as it was always such a good product.

Keep the sponge wet and keep moving the mop head to avoid burning the paint!

I would start with G3 then go down to a finer polish such as Autoglym paint renovator.

You REALLY need to protect the paint after abrading it like this or it will fade again and not protect the car so, next stage should be a glaze followed by a high quality carnauba wax. Can then simply wax three or four times in the rest of the year.

john, whats that g3 stuff like? easy/good to use? did you use it just on old paintwork? or have you used it on improving new paintwork? is it fairly coarse? i am interested to know.
cheers
Andy

Don't expect to do the whole car with a polisher, just the flatter bits.
Raised bits like where the pinstripe goes need to be done by hand or you'll take the paint off the edges in no time.

Andy, I've used it for both old paintwork and for polishing up new paintwork. It feels coarser than the Autoglym, so I use G3 for the first pass and a finer abrasive for the second pass. It seems easy to use with a mop. As said above, be careful on the edges!

For new paintwork, removing orange peel etc would be better to wet sand the fully hardened paint with 1200, then 1500, then 2000 grit paper to remove the orange peel before compounding with the MOP.