Meguiar's South Africa

Ok, where to start...

First off thanks again to Greg and the Meguiars team for hosting us for the day and the use of their pads, machines and products as well as for lunch and refreshments and the samples they provided for those who asked

Thanks also goes out to Newco for providing us with a demo Flex 3401 for the day, Woodie for use of his DeWalt 443 (is a 443 if I am not mistaken ?) and Springbok for the use of his G220. Makita BO6040 and 9227 rotary belonged to Meguiars'. Last but not least, a big thanks to Siya for providing the elbow grease

Quick pic of the DA machines (DeWalt was hiding in Woodie's boot.....fear of the forced rotation DA's and the new ninja kid 'G220' )




Of the 3 pictured machines the Flex is by far the most ergonomic (IMHO) and also surprisingly one of the lightest. Whilst we didn't weigh the individual machines the Makita felt the heaviest (probably as a result of the large metal dust collector) followed closely by the Flex and G220 which felt to be of a similar weight.

Here we have Rustbucket preparing the panel for us with a quick wash down and clay with Meguiars Fine Detail Clay.




The clean panel was then taped up and sectioned into 5 (more or less) equally sized parts and then scuffed up with a scotch pad. Only after rubbing them with the pad did I realise how severely a scotch pad can destroy your paint

Something I only though of afterwards would have been to scuff up the entire panel prior to taping to ensure a more even and consistent surface for each section. Doing it in sections meant I probably used slightly varying degrees of pressure with the scotch pad as can be seen in the following pic.



1st up we hit the panel with a Meg's polishing pad and M83 limited to 2 minutes per machine for each section to try keep things fair. Woodie ran his DeWalt, Siya his 6040, myself the Flex, Springbok his G220 and Rusty let rip with the 9227. One drawback we realised after the 1st pass was that we all probably used varying degrees of pressure on the machines.

Here are some close up before and afters for each section.

DeWalt 443 before and after



Makita 6040 before and after



Flex 3401 before and after



G220 before and after



9227 rotary before and after



From the 1st pass we see that the 6040 achieved the best correction, even edging out the rotary. Due to the fact that the 6040 bested the rotary I can only conclude that either a.) the panel was not scuffed evenly b.) that the results were skewed as a result of different individuals applying different amounts of pressure, etc or c.) a rotary isn't all it's made out to be As a result of this, as well as the fact that the scuff marks were still very much alive and well, we decided to let Siya manhandle each machine with a Meg's cutting pad and some new Ultra Cut compound.

Here are the pics, again after a single 2 min pass with Ultra cut on a red cutting pad with Siya operating all the machines. Pics were taken inside and then again outside for a better view in direct sunlight.

DeWalt 443



Makita 6040



Flex 3401



G220



Makita 9227 rotary



At the end of the day the results were surprising but in all honesty I think the test was flawed in many ways (IMHO). Only afterwards having had a think about how we did things did I realise we should have made a few changes and done a few things differently.

Despite the errors I feel we made, I think I will put the results down as inconclusive but a good 1st attempt. To be fair and despite the shortcomings and inconsistencies of this test, the Makita 6040 clearly won hands down, besting even the rotary. Chatting with Siya afterwards it was clear he had his own thoughts and opinions about this but I will let him explain as he was the only one to use all 5 machines back to back on the day

Once again thanks to everyone for allowing us this opportunity, stay tuned for v2 of the buffer test soon

Thanks for your input Siya, I am sure everyone appreciates it

What are your thoughts regarding the validity and accuracy of the results from this test by the way ?

IMHO I think the test and it's results are flawed and pretty inconclusive, there are a number of things I would do differently in the next test. My reasoning behind doubting the accuracy of the results we achieved is based purely on the fact that the Makita 9227C rotary was beaten in terms of correction capabilities by both forced rotation DA's as well as the G220.

Having had a think abouot this afterwards I can name a few aspects where I think we went wrong :

1.) Scuffing the sections individually as opposed to doing the entire panel.
2.) Keep the working sizes the same.
3.) Have the same individual operate the buffers through both passes to ensure consistent pressure is used throughout.
4.) Correcting 1/2 of each section initially and then correcting the other 1/2 with a different machine to eliminate inconsistencies in the actual sections being polished.

Those are just a few off the top of my head

Discuss

**insert popcorn smiley here**