Polishing machine, any recommendations?

[bodger00]

It all depends on what you want to achieve with the polisher. If you have heavy scratches then you are going to need more cutting pads and a heavier cut polish. However, if its only superficial stuff then a DAS 6 polisher and some Meguirs Speed Glaze and a low cut pad is all you need.

Sure the other smaller pads/backing plates and polishes can achieve much more but you have to start somewhere. Beware though machine polishing steals time - I took well over 11 hours on my first go

[autoperfection.com]

This is what we'd recommend for people just starting out:

For the actual machine, we'd recommend either the Kestral Sim 180 if you wanted to go for a rotary or the Kestral DAS-6 if you wanted an orbital.  Not sure if we’re going over what people already know (sorry if we are!) but basically the difference between the two is this... a rotary spins, which gets results quicker but can be trickier to use.  An orbital oscillates so is a lot safer on the paint but because of the action, doesn’t get results as quickly as a rotary would.
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/Kestrel-Sim-180-Machine-Polisher.html
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/Kestrel-Das-6-Orbital-Polisher.html

The DAS-6 comes with a 150mm backing pad anyway, but for the Sim 180 we’d recommend the 3M Rotary Backing Pad
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/3M-Rotary-Backing-Pad-M14-Fitting-09552-125mm.html

With regards to polishing pads, our recommendation is always 3M, simply because for us personally, we find them the best ones available.  There are a number of others that are good, but whenever we’ve tested new ones, we always end up going back to 3M.  We do all three 150mm and all three 75mm pads that make up the 3M colour code system, which is a range of 3M products that enable virtually all paint defect rectification work to be carried out with ease and confidence
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/3M-All-3-Polishing-Pads-Kit-150mm.html
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/3M-All-3-Polishing-Pads-Kit-75mm.html

If you’re buying all three polishes it can quite expensive, and whilst the products are well worth it, if you’re only doing one or two cars once or twice a year, it can maybe be a bit too much for what you need, so we do all three polishes in a sample kit (either 100ml or 250ml) which allows you to try out different combinations without investing in the big bottles straight away
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/3M-All-3-Sample-Kit-100ml.html
http://www.autoperfection.com/shop/3M-All-3-Sample-Kit-250ml.html

That should just about do you!  If you go for the above, you’ll have everything you need to get started with machine polishing and you can then simply add to your collection as you get more into and need a wider range of products!

Hope this helps

Taryn and Jim

[bodger00]

if you’re only doing one or two cars once or twice a year, it can maybe be a bit too much for what you need, so we do all three polishes in a sample kit (either 100ml or 250ml) which allows you to try out different combinations without investing in the big bottles straight away

Thats good advice. The big bottles last a long time. Go for a orbital though they are much safer.