Can anyone recommend an inexpensive (less than $100) buffer, or do they not exist. I have no experience running one so I don't want to ruin my paint but I'm tired of applying and removing everything by hand. Any and all suggestions appreciated.

 

Sometimes the porter cable you can get around $100 but you will also have to buy a velcro back plating as well as foam pads which will bring the price well above $100.

 

What's wrong with the $30-$50 range of buffers? I have seen several at K-mart and Wal-mart and they look ok. What's the big difference? Is it worth it to get a cordless buffer instead of a corded one?

 

All the cheap buffers use bonnets and not foam pads. The terry cloth bonnets will swirl your paint nicely. The foam bonents tear easily.

Also, the pad size compared to motor size is way to high. They have weak motors. You need to be able to apply pressure to the buffer to get a little heat built up to work the polish down. If you apply pressure to one of these buffers they'll slow down and you can even get them to come to a stop on the paint.

I'd go with a DeWalt DW443 Right angle random orbital sander. A little more expensive than the PC but it has a more powerful motor, is capable of faster speeds for polishing, and comes with a velcro pad and balancing weight for a 6" pad.

The Pc is not a bad choice though.

 

I bought my buffer from Wal-Mart for $18. It is corded and it appears to work just fine. I can put allot of pressure on it with out stoping. Granted it does not go that fast when I have this pressure but it still does the job. I bought a foam bonnet for the wax application and a wool bonnet for the removal. Both of these you can buy at Pep-boys for $5.00 a pice. The maker of the bonnet is the turtle wax company. All I know is that $30 is allot cheaper than $100 for about the same amount of quality. Now if this is a show truck you have already spent mega bucks so what the heck get the $150 buffer. It all depends on how **** you want to be

 

I wouldn't say they are they same quality. I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say DeWalt is a lot better quality than anything you can get for $30. I doubt a $30 one has a variable speed control and even if it does it probably doesn't have as wide of a range of speeds. It's motor is also probably a lot smaller.

You won't be able to do any polishing with a $30 buffer. You need pressure and heat to polish. My buffer on 6800OPM doesn't create a lot of heat so I doubt a $30 on is creating any. Wax aplication is about all you can do and the pads for them are so big it is hard to apply wax with them in tight areas.

How long can you run your $30 one under pressure before it gets hot? I've run mine for hours on end when I used it to wax a car and then turned around and used it to polish a boat and wax it. It wasn't even getting warm by then and I was running it on full speed with pressure the whole time.

The $30 buffers are only good for buffing off wax if you can get a good bonnet. For polishing then PC, DeWalt, or Cyclo. If you have an air compressor that can supply a lot of air, then there are pneumatic buffers.

I'm sorry, I'm **** about my equipment.

 

All I use mine for is my truck. I don't know about the buffer but after applying a cleaner wax and a polish I am tired and not moving fast. A person can spend mega $ and time on their truck if they want to but i guess what I am trying to say is how nice do you really want it? for me a nice shine from a $30 buffer is good for me. I would be actually real scared with a high speed buffer. What are the chances of scorcing your paint if you do not know what you are doing? Just too much $ and risk for me. I will leave that up to the pro's

 

I have a nice Black & Decker random orbit sander already. Are you saying I can just use it with a foam pad? Is there any special kind of foam I should look for?

Also, why is the bonnet style of pad bad?

 

Does it have a hook and loop back? Like Velcro? You can get both 5" foam pads and 6" foam pads from properautocare.com

A bonnet is the piece of fabric (can be terry cloth, foam, microfiber) with elastic band in it. You streach it over the buffer's surface. Usually some pieces of foam or wool. This will give you the surface that contacts the paint.

 

This is not a high speed buffer. If you wanna use something dangerous, then you can try a rotary buffer. It will heat up the surface of the paint to over a 100 degrees in a second.

I've only heard of one horror story from using a buffer like mine. That was the person was coming around a hood scoop and the back plating on the buffer hit the edge of it and chipped the paint. That was his fault for being careless. These buffers are not dagerous if you don't get carried away. I've held mine on high speed with a lot of pressure in one spot just to test out how much heat they make. I put my hand on the area and it was just slightly warm! If I did it the same way with my rotary, then there would be a nice big burn spot.

Another nice features of these buffers is their versatility. I can use a small wool pad for extra cutting action (taking out sanding marks). I can get numerous types of foam pads for it. I can get terry cloth bonnets and microfiber bonnets for it. I have both and use the microfiber bonnets for buffing off Klasse SG. I can get scrub brushes for it. Quickly put one of those on it and I can now scrub my interior carpet. You get what you pay for.

 

Intel,
You are talking about OPM's w/ a buffer and some not being fast enough or having a strong enough motor, but aren't they all faster and create more heat than doing it all by hand??? Right now I do everthing by hand and I think my truck looks good, but w/ a buffer (even a cheaper one) wouldn't it look better? Last thing, I open my door and it hit a chain link fence, right on the edge of the door, now there are two ruff spots there, how do I remove these??

 

Intel used both of his buffers on my truck and the pressure he was apply to his orbital would have made a $30 buffer quit moving. It did an excellent job and I wouldnt trust a $30 on my truck.

 

Beastie, Yhea, I wish we got before and after pictures of the results there. Did a nice job at removing all those swirls you had. Next time I'll have to do the whole truck

cnote, To answer your questions, Yes, any buffer will create more heat than by doing it by hand but the quality just isn't there on them. The $30 buffer is really only good for applying wax and buffing it off and I still wouldn't even trust it to do that. A $30 buffer won't be able to apply a polish and break it down. No way, now how.

Did the fence chip your paint? I usually don't like doing much around the edge of panels because they paint is extremely thin. Without looking at it, the only thing I can suggest is to try to carefully polish it out by hand.