Review: RUPES Mark III BigFoot 21 Polisher by Mike Phillips

[dlc95]

I dont think so. He is bluntly saying that oscillation is more important than rotation as far as removing paint. It's right in the bold where I quoted his exact words.

Where does "if the pad doesn't rotate you're not doing anything" equate to pad rotation being of lesser (not no) importance compared to oscillation?

I think that's where I'm getting confused.

[Mike Phillips]

Shared here,

Disappointing Afternoon ... Need help with light scratch

[Mike Phillips]

Shared here,

Jeweling wax

[Mike Phillips]

As per the recent Rupes webinar on YouTube, rotation is secondary to oscillation when it comes to defect removal.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, especially the manufacturer. I certainly won't argue with their point of view.

What I will say is from years, dare I say decades of real-world detailing, that is out of all the guys that are known for teaching detailing classes I post more write-ups sharing cars I ACTUALLY detailed, (that's continued real-world experience, I never stopped detailing cars just because I teach classes), one thing I can tell you that I'm sure of (again - based on actually running a buffer around the entire car from start too finish to make an owner/customer happy), that in order to remove paint i.e. remove below surface defects, the pad/backing plate on ANY brand of free spinning orbital polisher, be it an 8mm all the way up to 21mm, must do 2 things,

1. Rotate
2. Oscillate

If it's only oscillating, while some may try to make the case that it's still removing defects, i.e. removing paint, it's doing it so slow that you will have to stand next to that car for a million years to get the job done.

Also my observation - when any brand of free spinning orbital polisher is not rotating the pad then the oscillation isn't really oscillation - from my eyes it always looks like all the pad is doing is vibrating or jiggling (weakly), against the paint.

Look - you're not going to remove swirls and scratches, at least not remove them in a timely manner if all the pad is doing is vibrating against the paint.


Paint is removed the most effectively when using a free spinning orbital polisher and the pad is both rotating and oscillating at the same time.


If this wasn't true, why do so many people complain about pad stalling?

The reason they are complaining is because they are frustrated because they are not getting the job done, (removing swirls and scratches), in a timely manner.

Pad stalling = no real work being performed.


This one of the reasons I almost always grab the BEAST and now the CBEAST when I detail a car. My goal is twofold, I want to do 2 things,

1: Do any correction and polishing work as fast as humanly possible..

2: Consistently produce professional quality results. (the word consistently is as important as the word produce)



RUPES and Makita have both introduced gear-driven orbital polishers, we can all guess as to why they introduced them?


My guess is because they both read the market and realized that "people" (that would be detailers, enthusiasts and body shop technicians), like me, want and for practicality reasons, NEED to do the correction and polishing steps as fast as possible while producing pro quality results.

Pro quality results = swirl free results


Think about it.




Everyone can come to their own conclusions because I've been doing this long enough to know that arguing is a waste of my time and I simply won't do it.



I just taught my second roadshow class for 2019 and I let everyone in this class use all the popular brands of tools, both free spinning and gear-driven and I let them come to their own conclusions as to whether free spinning versus gear-driven is better and faster.


I'll share this - they all leave my classes knowing, (not guessing or thinking), that pad rotation when the goal is defect removal is key to their success. If the pad isn't rotating - you are not doing anything.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

As per the recent Rupes webinar on YouTube, rotation is secondary to oscillation when it comes to defect removal.

I don’t believe that. I go off the results I get.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dlc95]

Hey guys, I get it.

But no one ever said anything about rotation being unnecessary, or unimportant, or unneeded, etc.

The manufacturer just made a value judgement on how they prioritized the the two actions.

[Rsurfer]

Hey guys, I get it.

But no one ever said anything about rotation being unnecessary, or unimportant, or unneeded, etc.

The manufacturer just made a value judgement on how they prioritized the the two actions.

If you don't have oscillation and only rotation..you have a rotary.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

If you don't have oscillation and only rotation..you have a rotary.

Yes, that shows how important rotation is. Rotary is the king of defect removal. Of course there has to be oscillation with a DA, but rotation is more important, IMO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SWETM]

Try to make it more clear for dlc95. He don't meen they said that it does not rotate in this case. But with a free spinning DA polisher you can get a lower rotation speed and yet it's correcting good. So in that case it seems like Rupes know that as it's just is spinning the correction is there. So this is not about stalling but when the polisher bogs down to a lower speed of rotation of the backing plate.

If you follow the spinning part when you have marked the backing plate it can be slow and you still get a good correction. At least on a longthrow polisher. And sure when you get the pad rotation stopped it don't do much. Take the Beast for an example the rotation speed is not so high even on full speed setting. It's only 480rpm on the highest setting and down to 160rpm. And this is not so big of a range of rpm either. That's why I think that they say the rotation is secondary and the oscillation is what does the heavy lifting with the correction.

And IIRC the CBeast has even a lower max rpm than the Beast. Or the Flex VRG3401 and the cordless VRG3401 for those who don't know about their nicknames.

From what I have read about the Beast vs Rupes Mille. Is that most think that the Beast corrects faster. And still is the rpm lower than the Mille. 160rpm-480rpm vs 265rpm-535rpm and the difference is a bigger oscillation with 8mm vs 5mm. And on both you have a constant rotations through the gear driven part. While the free spinning DA polisher can be haveing a big difference to how fast the pad is spinning. But if you would be able to get a constant speed on the rotation with 480rpm and an oscillation of 21mm. Would it be correcting faster than 480rpm and 8mm throw? I think that you would get a faster correction with the 21mm throw.

Also wondering if someone have been able to measure the rotation speed on a longthrow polisher while it's on the paint. I would think that's it's lower than 480rpm.

[Mike Phillips]

Hey guys, I get it.

But no one ever said anything about rotation being unnecessary, or unimportant, or unneeded, etc.

The manufacturer just made a value judgement on how they prioritized the the two actions.

I get it...


None of my comments are directed at them or their video or webinar, (whatever it was or is), I didn't watch it though I'm sure it's very good.


And ALL of my comments about lack of pad rotation with free spinning polishers are about ALL brands of free spinning polishers, not just RUPES. This would include tools like Porter Cable, FLEX and Griot's. Even Harbor Freight.

I used a Harbor Freight polisher once and my experience was that it is junk. I couldn't keep the pad rotating and neither could the owner. I believe we we're using basic foam polishing pads, perhaps Buff & Shine pads.


I have read and heard people say that pad rotation is not necessary for defect removal and I honestly have know idea what they are talking about.

Anyone that's ever used any brand of free spinning orbital polisher is able to figure it out pretty quickly that if the pad is not rotating, it's also not oscillating and they are basically standing there doing nothing.

When using a free spinning orbital polisher you want and need BOTH for effective paint removal and thus efficient defect removal.


I really like the BigFoot 21 Mark III and said so in my review. If I didn't like it - I wouldn't had said I liked it I would have just wrote the review and left it out.

Also - at all my classes, out of ALL the RUPES polishers, the BigFoot 21 Mark III is EASILY everyone's favorite.

I'll be sharing pictures from the recent Texas Roadshow Class and in the pictures you'll see this tool in action on 10 cars in 2 days.

10 cars detailed in 2 days! Texas Roadshow Detailing Class!




The BIG PICTURE is at the end of the day everyone figures out what they like the best for their style of polishing. The BEST way to figure out which tool is best for anyone is to attend one of my classes because I showcase all the cool tools.