The Best Polishers for Beginners 

Wow!!! Thank you for the kind words. I've always worked really hard at helping others in this industry and it's very rewarding to read a comment like yours and know that I've had a positive effect. -Mike Phillips

Great background story and thank you for taking one of my classes in the past. For anyone reading this into the future, I continue to teach the most hands-on detailing classes on planet Earth and I promise not only will you learn a LOT - but you'll make new friends and have a lot of fun too! Plus, I always bring in the COOLEST cars for my classes to train on. -Mike Phillips

Hi Mike hope you doing well, how to reach you please ? Need to start learning,,, Thank you..​@@MikePhillips-Dr.Beasleys

The early Meguiar's G100 polishers were simply Porter Cable polishers with a Meguiar's *sticker* over the Porter Cable sticker. LOL - That said, the Porter Cable or G100 have been responsible for MILLIONS of cars being de-swirled and polished to perfection. RUPES and FLEX stand on the shoulders of Porter Cable. Thanks for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

Wow! Thank you for the kind words, especially in the context of how many huge and popular Detailing RU-vidrs there are in the game. Thanks for watching and commenting! -Mike Phillips

Agree, quality tools that will get the job done. Thanks for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

Thanks for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

The Porter Cable 7424XP is a well-built and capable polisher. MILLIONS of cars have been de-swirled using this infamous too. Thank you for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

@@mikephillipsrealworlddetailing I’m looking for a cordless polisher do you have any recommendations? I am thinking of the dewalt as I’m a dewalt fan and have several 20v max batteries already

Once you go down the road by buying a specific brand of tool and then start acquiring more and more of their batteries, it makes "simple" sense to continue down this path. So take a look at the DeWALT cordless polishers. DeWalt makes great tools. I'm sure whatever they release for the public has had plenty of testing and they feel confident in the tool or tools. -Mike Phillips

@@DrBeasleys thanks Mike

Yes. You get the power of a gear-driven rotary, (most people don't describe a rotary this way but they ARE gear-driven and zero pad stalling), with the more gentle abrading orbital action. Best of all, no wasting time trying to maintain pad rotation. I'm a big fan of gear-driven orbital polishers but it's important to note that with softer paints it is normally easier to finish out nicer and more consistently using a free spinning random orbital polisher. And of course, the MOST IMPORTANT factor when it comes to polishing paint, gelcoat and plastics is the abrasive technology. Thanks for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

@@mikephillipsrealworlddetailing Thank you, master Mike.

Hi James, just to point out, this was not a video on the best polishers, it was a video on entry level polishers and like the old saying goes, * "you get what you pay for"*. Machine polishing, car paint or even boats for HOURS is going to be physically hard on a human no matter what. The SMOOTHEST polishers on the market are the RUPES free spinning random orbital polishes, like the BigFoot 15mm and 21mm polishers. I've been to the RUPES manufacturing plant in Milan, Italy, and seen these tools assembled in person. Low to no vibration is the goal for RUPES engineers to make their tools as vibration-free as possible. There are a lot of copies of the RUPES design, and some of these, if they were copied closely, are probably also very low vibration, for example the Griot's BOSS polishers. The downside of any brand of free spinning random orbital polisher is the pad stalling aspect. So, you can trade low vibration for a slower process or deal with the vibration for tools like the Harbor Freight Hercules Forced Rotation Dual Action polisher or tools like the FLEX BEAST family of tools, which like the Harbor Freight version, are 8mm gear-driven orbital polishers. These have ZERO pad stalling, but the tool themselves will require more hand, arm, back and leg muscles to operate and control for hours. My suggestion for a decent polisher at a low price would be the Griot's Garage G9 - this is a 9mm free spinning random orbital polisher, but it's very well built and probably the best bang for the buck for quiet and smooth operation for hours. For a high-end polisher, my guess is the new RUPES Mark V BigFoot 15mm free spinning random orbital polisher either in corded or cordless models, will be the smoothest, lowest vibration polisher on the market today. But just to add, if some company has copied the RUPES mechanical design to the T - these copies would probably also be low vibration and probably cost less. Don't know if the above helps, but thanks for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

@@mikephillipsrealworlddetailing Thank you for the reply Mike - I'm going to go look at Rupes. There's 3 or 4 polishers here, but they all are very very hard on the hands for any extended use. When you finish a vehicle, you can be sure your hands will be aching the next day.

I don't see us bringing out our own polisher anytime soon. To be honest, there's not a lot of profit in the tool manufacturing world until you do it on a LARGE scale and already have access to all the various resources required to actually manufacture a tool from scratch. This is why you see other companies contract with large tool manufactures to bring out an existing tool only with their own branding colors and names. Great question. Thank you for watching and commenting. -Mike Phillips

I've seen these, probably tested them, from memory, they're pretty weak to try and do paint correction. What you want to do is mark the side of your buffing pad and then when using it on the highest speed setting - look to see if you're able to maintain pad rotation and pad oscillation. If you can - then you can use it to remove swirls and scratches. If not - then we call tools that can't do paint correction - Wax Spreaders". Thanks for watching and commenting! -Mike Phillips

First, thanks for watching and commenting. Second - Sound like you bought the HF Long Stroke *BEFORE* watching this video. It's all good. I'm sure their 20mm Long Stroke free spinning random orbital polisher will work great on larger, flatter panels, it will just struggle to maintain pad rotation when buffing out curves. Your purchase is why I included the 20mm in this video, I wasn't recommending, it I was just sharing it so when people that watch this video go to HF and see BOTH polishers, no one will think I wasn't aware of it. Heck even the 6" Harbor Freight polisher I recommend for a budget, entry level polisher struggles with maintaining pad rotation and pad oscillation and it's a 8mm short stroke polisher. They real key to getting great results from any polisher is to put some time behind the tool. -Mike Phillips

​@@mikephillipsrealworlddetailing I've used the 20mm and it's ok but i find it really loud and it has a lot of vibration because of the 20mm throw. I almost prefer a rotary over a da at least for heavy cutting.

@@faststang85 - I hear you brother. When I need to do heavy paint correction or like in the example I shared on my Facebook and Instagram pages, removing sanding scratches after sanding down a car to remove orange peel, I always use a rotary polisher and follow with an orbital polisher. Because this video, and the matching article, (see below), is targeted at beginners, I think it's safer to start an absolute newbie out with a simple DA polisher and as they become comfortable with machine paint correction and gain some experience, then let them jump up to a rotary. I teach the rotary polisher as the FIRST tool my students learn in our classes. It's a vital skill to possess. But in this context, I limited the tools to orbital polishers. There will be plenty of rotary polisher videos and articles in the future. Thanks for watching and commenting! -Mike Phillips

@@mikephillipsrealworlddetailing thanks for the response! I've known who you are for years now but I never knew you had a yt page. I'm slowly going through your videos. What I'd like to get better at is knowing what pads are best to use with what compound as there are many different types that say they're for finishing, polishing etc. I'd call myself decent at buffing but im no pro and I think my biggest struggle has been with getting swirls out completely and light as sometimes the paint will look great from one direction and the other I'll see defects still also i tend to use more product than i see others use when ive tried with less i have trouble getting defects out.

@@faststang85 - Totally get it. We have a video coming up on buffing pads. I'm in the process of acquiring a LOT of the best and different types of pads on the market. Stay tuned. This will be a LIVE broadcast video, and also an article. Below is the link to all our LIVE broadcast videos, and these are interesting, because you never know what's going to happen when you go LIVE. Plus, you can interact in REAL TIME if you're able to watch. The good news is all our LIVE classes are archived here on the Dr. Beasly's RU-vid Channel. *LIVE - UNEDITED Video Classes* www.youtube.com/@DrBeasleys/streams Mike