My car is starting to annoy me. Every time I wash it, I stare at all of the imperfections in the paint, including the random blue paint all over the passenger side rocker panel and rear rim (now front). There'* so many little minute scratches, hairlines on the hood and any straight panel when looked at at an angle in the sun. ScratchX does not prevail... what should I do? I have a buffer, but it is not orbital.

Get a Porter Cable random orbital (Meguiars has one that is a rebadged Porter Cable) or the new Ultimate Detailing Machine which is the same sort of machine with a little more power. Then once you have some experience you could make the jump to a rotary, but you should get some scrap panels or a crappy car to practice on first. A random orbital is very easy to use, no worry about ruining the paint.

Go and see the how tos for the porter cable polisher

http://www.autogeek.net/

good stuff

this is what i use takes out about anything

http://www.northerntool.com/images/p...1591886_lg.jpg

use a very soft pad.. the pad should not do the work that wax should
get a heavy diamond cut wax to cut into the clearcoat dont press hard let the weight of the polisher do the work. unless its a very bad spot. then after that get like a butter wax or light polish and polish it. if it leaves swirl marks get some hand polish and go at it. i use turtlewax ice. its like 16 bucks at walmart, i usualy buy from pro.

but u can burn your paint. dont stay in one spot for a long time. keep it even

Compiling christmas list still... is this what I want???

http://www.autopia-carcare.com/udm-daspol-na.html

Edit: What Meguiars cleaners/polishes/waxes should I add to that? Only thing I have at the moment is the cleaner wax, and very very little of my gold class, which I LOVE. I'm dumping the turtle wax ice.

I think some Menzerna polishes and a good wax should do the trick. Start hanging around autopia.com and you should be able to find a wax that fits the bill. I like my Collinite 476 for protection and it looks pretty good too.
Grant

if you are going to spend 200 id get a makita

this http://www.detailsupplyoutlet.com/item.htm?item_num=143

the best pads are the ones that look like waffles. theya re very soft. and that is what you want. get a good cutting polish and a fine polish your car will be bling.

Yea, personally I would skip the PC/UDM and go straight to the rotary. I love Makita tools and would buy that one myself but the Metabo is supposed to be great too. I jumped right into using a rotary and am glad I did, its not has hard as people make it out to be. You do have to be careful but just use your head. If you have experience with other power tools and have a good understanding of the actual process taking place(removing small amounts of clearcoat) then you should be fine. Good luck with whatever you do.
Grant

putertopia:
Another option is to come to one of the meets and work on the finish at the meet.

Usually I bring my gear with me to a meet and offer to work on any care there. It usually ends up with the car owner doing the work. It is an excellent way to see if you want to purchase a polishing machine.

That would be awesome, but for the life of me I haven't been able to find any meets within a 2-3 hour timeframe (other than NY). But I also didn't know there were any members here as close as you are (I'm 15 min from MD border)