HS Buffing Bumpercovers Q's???

redfirepearlgt

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Hey detail guru's I just bought a Porter Cable 7424XP DA orbital buffer and Meguiars 105,205, and pad starter kit from Autopia at a good price and 4.95 shipping.

Q: How does one go about buffing the bumper covers? Do I do them by hand? Do I use a 4" back plate and pad setup? Or can I do them after masking and prep work with the 5" pads? My big concern is getting proper sectional passe correct without marring, and still removing swirling and light scratches.

Any advice would be appreciated.

On my current project - 2014 Oxford White Mustang GT w/charcoal stripes:

Spent an entire day practicing on my 99 F150 DD and got confident enough to prep the Mustang and begin by doing the hood. So far I have the hood and roof complete. I must admit while I am getting respectable results from the Meguiars 105 and 205 they generate a lot of dust which I hate. So after this car is complete I will be looking into something like Blackfire, Pinnacle, or the Wolf whatever it's called product line and Lake Country foam pads vice Meguiars.

New found respect for detailing shops. Of course they are using heavier duty buffers and pad cleaning equipment which reduces time quite a bit, but still all the taping off and prep work is so time consuming, not to mention cleanup.
 

redfirepearlgt

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Thanks. That is what I was leaning toward but didn't know if that would be overly aggressive with all of the sharp edges and small areas. I'll look into a 4 inch pad set.
 

redfirepearlgt

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Yip. I am. Taking about 1 - 1.5 hours per panel (hood counts as 2 lg panels). I am warn out. This isn't for the faint of heart in 90 degree weather. Sure wish I had a garage I could do it in. No room in mine outside of parking the car and it is almost empty.
 

Sky Render

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I only have 5" pads. I'm too cheap to buy an entire second set of 4" pads. I just mask off the areas I don't want to touch.

When polishing/waxing/sealing, I often do the front bumpers by hand.
 

redfirepearlgt

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^^^ Thanks Sky. Appreciate the feedback. I have 5" pads as well and tried a small area two night back and it did a pretty nice job. Thankfully I have stripes tip to tip so aside from masking them off there is a lot less bumper to do.....just more masking.
 

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