afwfjustin

As you see in the thread title, I'm ready to go to the next step. A lot of you have seen my past detail work with the porter cable although I haven't posted much in awhile in this forum as I've been boost crazy lately.

The porter cable is a great tool but once you've "mastered" it, you realize that it takes a painstaking amount of time to do an entire car correctly. To really get the scratches/swirls out of a normal everyday car takes around 6-8 hours with a dual action polisher, and I want to do it faster so it's time to go rotory.

Where is the cheapest place to get a nice rotory? I'm looking at the Makita polishers as they make great tools and I'm familiar with the name. I don't want to go crazy and spend 3-4 hundred dollars right now as my turbo conquests have drained me financially. Any suggestions as far as other brands in the 150-200 dollar price range? Any suggestions on pads besides the Edge pads (I've used them a lot with my PC and like them).

I'm a rotary newbie but I'm confident that I can use it safely with a few test runs on my own car and random scrap fenders/bumpers that I've kept for awhile to learn on. Any advice from you veterans?

Also, does anyone have a discount code for autogeek?

RFGrouse

Seriously look at phil's metabo. It is much easier to learn on than the makita.

also spend about 200 on pads.

detailersdomain

I can get the Makita hit me up I haven't put it up on the site yet but my master distributor has them in stock ready to go.

diabolus2k

I think I paid something like $180 for my Hitachi rotary over a year ago. For the s2k, I'd recommend picking up a couple light cutting and finishing/finessing pads. Those are the only pads I've been using on my rotary for the past few months. My light polishing and heavy cutting pads have been collecting dust...

HankookS2K

DEWALT DW849 FTW!

roughly around 200 dollars. I have had it for about 3 years now.

rpm speed between 1000 and 3000rpm

MikeyC

My understanding is that the DeWalt is much heavier than the Makita, Metabo, or Hitachi.

Carbon Blue

dont UDMs hi anywhere from 2000-6000rpms?? I would have said check out the cyclo, but that seems a little out of your price range, your next best bet would be the metabo/makita

Ubetit

My old BD 6138/Dewalt 849 seemed so much heavier and less powerful than my new Hitachi. The Metabo is even lighter.

MikeyC

No the UDM does up to 6,000 OPMs. OPM is orbits per minute which is a measurement not relatable to RPM.