compound and polish with a rotary can produce excellent results, but you must be very carefull when using them. You can burn through edges easily, especially on bumper covers. You can also swirl up your paint pretty bad if you don't use the right pads and materials. Work on small areas at a time and overlap your work. Never stop in one spot, always keep the machine moving! Always buff off of an edge, meaning the pad should be rotating off of the edge, not twards it. You'll never burn an edge that way. Seams where bumber covers meet the body and pannels meet other pannels (ie. door to fender) should be buffed longways along the seam, not across them.

A wool pad used with compound is very agressive and should only be used after wet sanding or on very poor surfaces. Buffing speed with a wool pad should be around ~1000 RPM's.

A yellow foam waffle pad used for a compound is less agressive and usually cleans up minor oxidation and produces a nice clean finish. The yellow foam waffle pad will put more of a shine on your finish when it's used with a good compound. The buffer can be run at ~1500 RPM's with a yellow foam waffle pad.

A black foam waffle pad is very soft and should be used with a swirl mark remover (polish) as the last step to remove any swirl marks that may be left by the yellow pad compound. The buffer can be run at ~1500 RPM's with a black foam pad.

Be sure to use good products when cleaning your paint. We use 3M products at the body shop. Perfect It III compound followed by a black pad with 3M's swirl mark remover will give you a beautifull glass like finish when done correctly. Even black comes up perfect with these products. Remember to put a coat of Carnuba wax (by hand) on your newly restored finish to seal it. Always follow the application directions on the products your using.

These are the basic steps to restore your finish using a rotory buffer:

On very poor finishes or after wet sanding new paint -
Wool pad compound, ~1000 RPM's followed by a yellow foam pad compound @ ~1500 RPMs to bring up a shine followed by a black foam pad used with a swirl mark remover @ ~1500 RPM's. If your cars finish is in pretty good shape, but just needs a good deep cleaning start with the yellow foam waffle pad compound and then proceed to the black pad with a swirl mark remover. Remember to seal your new finish with a good quality Carnuba wax.

The Makita is a very good machine, it's buffing speed range goes from 600 RPMs up to 3000 RPMs. You should never be above 2500 RPM's when your working on automotive finishes. Some buffers don't go down as low as 600 RPMs as the Makita does. It's also nice and light which makes it easier to control. The trigger is variable so you can slowly spin up to your set buffing speed. This comes in handy so you don't spray the buffing compounds all over the place as you spread the material onto the area your working on.

One of the most common complaints is that people sometimes don't get the results they want when machine polishing. Here are a few tips:

a) ALWAYS use the right polish for your finish. In other words, size up your finish before buying a polish. More oft than not, some people will either use too light of a polish which will have virtually no effect on a moderately swirled finish or too aggressive a polish/pad and introduce a lot of marring which will add more work. For example, I used Meguiar's Dual Action Cleaner Polish and the Sonus Yellow cutting pad on my freinds uncle's '36 Ford and it got rid of a lot of swirling.

Many polishes require the user to work them in thoroughly. That means many polishes have to be worked in to the point that they look like they are disappearing or dusting. The reason for this is that you want to break down the abrasives in your polish so that you can get the desired results.

c) If you are using a rotary, do not exceed 1500 RPM...EVER.