Let the panel be your guide by Mike Phillips - Moving the polisher in the direction of the length of the panel

[Mike Phillips]

Let the panel be your guide by Mike Phillips - Moving the polisher in the direction of the length of the panel - NOT in a CROSSHATCH Pattern


Originally I called this The Yoda Technique for Buffing out a Car. I have re-named this article to reflect more clearly the concept.




Let the panel be your guide

Because some panels are long and thing, not large and flat, especially on modern cars which have a lot of various body panels and lots of different PLANES that make up each body panel, because of this, you can't always buff a panel using a crosshatch pattern.

Instead you simply run the polisher in the direction of the length of the panel or plane you're buffing out.

Section Passes when buffing a linear panel or linear plane

The word linear means,

resembling a straight line; having only one dimension of length


Often times the body panels on a car will be segmented or divided by not only the edges of the panel but also RAISED BODY LINES IN the panel that give the panel design. For this reason it does not come natural to try to buff out panels like these using a crosshatch pattern. Instead what I do and what I teach is to simply run the polisher in the direction of the length of the panel or plane (section of a panel).

In other words you're simply going to run the buffer back and forth, not back and forth and side-to-side.




Number of section passes when buffing a linear panel or plane

When I do this, I tend to do a few extra section passes instead of the normal 8 section passes when using a crosshatch pattern. So I would run the polisher back and forth over the panel or plane 10 to 12 section passes. This is usually a good baseline or target to ensure all the defects are removed assuming you dial-in how many section passes to do when you did your TEST SPOT.




Let the panel be your guide

In your best Yoda impersonation, say,

"Let the panel be your guide"





Overlapping when buffing in a linear motion

If the panel is wide enough, overlap your back-and-forth passes by about 50% if you can. If you can't then overlap as best as you can. If you cannot overlap at all - no worries as long as you're using an orbital polisher there won't be any issues.

[Mike Phillips]

Here's a brand new video where I explain and then demonstrate the practice of buffing out a panel or a section of a panel (a plane), using a back-n-forth pattern.


The first part of this video shares the best practice of counting your section passes. The part about buffing in a linear or back-n-forth pattern starts at the 5:30 minute time stamp.

[Rsurfer]

No Video!!