# Bosch Random Orbital Sander as a polisher...?



## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

Hi lads,

Has anyone got any experience with random orbital sanders with 125mm velcro plates?

Mate from Australia told me about the possibility of using them as a RO car polisher.

He claimed he saw some nicely finished cars done with Bosch pex 400ae

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro.jsp?cId=100377&ts=60159&id=70144#

and another pic:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/scascone/132_3288-1.jpg

I am quite suspicious about that and was just wondering weather anyone here tried something like that?

I am practicing with my orange silverline rotary on some scrap bonnet but wanted to try some RO polisher in the mean time as i am still to scared to touch my car with a rotary.

Any thoughts will be gratefully appreciated.

cheers:thumb:

igor :newbie:


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## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

Is it possible that no one tried something like that bosch


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## ZoranC (Jun 9, 2007)

I'm using Bosch, but more powerful one, 1250DEVS.


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## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

cheers mate:thumb: 

how is your experience with it? what pads are you using with it? what sort of work can be done with it?

worth buying one in addition to rotary or better to wait for 240v UDM?

Sorry for asking to many questions but i have no other choice :newbie: 

all the best

igor


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## Ronnie (Nov 15, 2006)

I am using a Dewalt 433 RO sander it only takes 6" pads but I find i very good the speed is higher and the throw is less than a PC but the results are the same... I say go for it


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## Tricky Red (Mar 3, 2007)

Ronnie said:


> I am using a Dewalt 433 RO sander it only takes 6" pads but I find i very good the speed is higher and the throw is less than a PC but the results are the same... I say go for it


Don't take offence on this but is it actually a 443 not a 433 as I have taken your advice on this previously and the 433 is a belt sander.?


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## Ska (Jan 11, 2007)

I've used the bosch 400ae on my VAG paint with some megs pads before - it was good for bringing back a shine but can't correct defects like say a PC or rotary. These machines have more oscillating movements than rotating so not sure if they are able to break down the polish correctly.


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## Ronnie (Nov 15, 2006)

Tricky Red said:


> Don't take offence on this but is it actually a 443 not a 433 as I have taken your advice on this previously and the 433 is a belt sander.?


oops that was a bad slip of the tongue sorry and well spotted thats why I have no paint left on the car :thumb:


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## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

Thanks a lot guys for your replies.

So, if i understood you well that kind machine shouldn't do any harm if used with 6.5"pads?

The only reason why i thought about this is that I am to lazy to buy the 110v transformer, change the plugs, cables and so on for the PC or UDM.

Anyway for 57 pounds I might give it a try. If so i'll let you now the results with pix.

:thumb:


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## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

Ska said:


> I've used the bosch 400ae on my VAG paint with some megs pads before - it was good for bringing back a shine but can't correct defects like say a PC or rotary. These machines have more oscillating movements than rotating so not sure if they are able to break down the polish correctly.


Is it possible to exchange the backing plate for some of the popular ones for pc or just with bosch OEM one?

what polishes did you try to use with that machine? If the performace is so poor probably it wouldn't be good for anything stronger than klasse AIO or something like that?

What are you using on your VAG paint with the rotary? I also have vag group car skoda octavia in dark green metalic with some minor swirls and a few scratches. I noticed that most people use menzerna range for vag paint.

cheers

igor:wave:


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## Ska (Jan 11, 2007)

IIRC you can only use the backing plate that on there. I tried using megs 83 with the cutting pad which brightened things up but could only get rid of about 40% of swirls and hardly any defect correction. Having said that I was polishing what IMHO is one of hardest paints I have ever seen.
I'm using the Menzerna range as well again with megs cutting and polishing pads (i have menz 5" pads but use them for spot defet correction as they are relatively firm, so difficult to follow the curved contours) ; some areas required power gloss but most correction happened with two passes of IP once with cutting pad and then the polishing pad. FF did nothing really again remember the paint on my car is almost 10 years old so all things relative:thumb:


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## ZoranC (Jun 9, 2007)

farcrygamer said:


> how is your experience with it? what pads are you using with it? what sort of work can be done with it?


It is my #2 choice for all-in-one tool for majority of work out there (#1 being Flex XC 3401 VRG). What I mean by that is if one understands some things can be corrected only by rotary (and that 1250DEVS is not as powerful as XC 3401 VRG either) one will be happy with it because it can in my opinion correct better than PC/UDM while it vibrates much less than PC/UDM.



farcrygamer said:


> worth buying one in addition to rotary or better to wait for 240v UDM?


Depends on what goal you are trying to achieve. I still keep my PC and it's descendants around for spot buffing and carpet cleaning.

P.S. I use number of 6.5" flat pads from various resellers, but all made by Lake Country Mfg.


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## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

Thank you so much for such a detailed replies.

Where did you source your machine from? 

I haven't been able to find that blue bosch RO in us on line stores at all.

cheers

igor


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## brendans225 (Jun 24, 2007)

i had a bosch pex400ae, but sold it

dunno if its the case in the UK, but in australia, alot of users of the bosch found problems with the pads sticking to the bosch backing plate - these included both the edge and ccs pads

its an ok machine, but it does have very little cutting power imo - although it will be ideal for someone just starting out


cheers,
Brendan


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## farcrygamer (Sep 6, 2007)

After long thinking about that bosch machine i decided to place a safer bet and ordered a porter cable :speechles

I found the cheapest PC so far for only $99.99 with $56 shipping to UK. Now i only hope that customs charge wont be to high.

Somebody will probably find this link useful as it's realy the cheapest PC i ever heard of:

http://www.tools-plus.com/porter-cable-7424.html

Thank you all for great advices and help on this matter.

Cheers:thumb:


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## Keefe (Jun 30, 2008)

farcrygamer said:


> Is it possible that no one tried something like that bosch


That's not true. I have a Bosch 270AE. It's a capable DA. Bosch makes its own wool and foam pads too.


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## aussiedriver (Oct 7, 2008)

I use the same Bosch 270AE machine, but like the posts above, I'm finding even simple swirls are hard to remove using Megs 8006 pad and Megs #9 swirl remover on new BMW paint. I'm thinking it might be time to upgrade machine????


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## maersk (Sep 6, 2007)

I also use PEX270 and find it excellent even on hard german paint - use a Sonus DAS pad (scratch or swirl buster)


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## joske (Oct 15, 2008)

I use a bosch PEX400AE and i get very nice results with this machine,
but i think i will switch to a meguiars G220 because this has got more bite
8mm travel L->R and the bosch only got 5mm
and the bosch is a bit noisy too


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## 1999grad (Oct 10, 2008)

Just tried for the first time my new Bosch PEX 400 AE today, and found it nice for beginners. Unfortunately, there were several more powerful polishers in action nearby (it was a detailing meeting) and, well, I was disappointed to see that my little Bosch didn't achieve any defect correction and only got rid of some of the swirls (I was using 3M Fast Cut and Fast Cut Plus and Lake's orange light cutting pad). A more experienced detailer said that my machine was good only for finishing and spreading wax. I think he was right. 

I really really liked the Flex XC 3401 and the Festool RAP 150.03 which I had the chance to use, among others (including Maks and Mets). 2 really wonderful machines, not too powerful and comfortable to use.


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## maersk (Sep 6, 2007)

Just don't see how they can possibly say that.........................

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=83874


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## parish (Jun 29, 2006)

farcrygamer said:


> Thanks a lot guys for your replies.
> 
> So, if i understood you well that kind machine shouldn't do any harm if used with 6.5"pads?
> 
> ...


If you can stretch to another £30 I'd go for the Kestrel DA from Clean Your Car - http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/polis...trel-das-6-dual-action-polisher/prod_519.html

It's 240v and the backing plate is removable using the same thread as the PC, UDM, and G220 so you can fit the smaller backing plate for use with 4" spot pads


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## -Kev- (Oct 30, 2007)

maersk said:


> Just don't see how they can possibly say that.........................
> 
> http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=83874


the bosch one probably has'nt got the power to do deffect correction like a g220 or a kestrel DA.


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## geert dr (Jul 13, 2007)

When i started detailing cars that BOSCH orbital sander was recommended by users on the belgian MEGUIARSforum !
Before takin it to my cars paintwork i practiced on a trunkpanel that dated from 1967 wich still had the original paint,but was extremily oxydized.

The panel looked like this!










After 2passes with m83 on a Meg's polishingpad and 1pass with m80 this was the result !










If you can achieve this then you can do some good correction work on a paint that is in better condition, removing swirls and scratches is possible !
I still use it after rotarybuffing to refine the finish!

Here's a mate of mine using it on his Ford Fiesta.










The only downside of the machine is that the backingplate is eating its way into the Meg's polishing pad , no problem with LC pads however because the velcro backing on them is larger !


















LCpads


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## maersk (Sep 6, 2007)

Well done geert dr! :wave: :thumb:


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

I don't think it's a case of having the 'power' to do correction with the 'sanders' as opposed to the specialist detailing machines. Okay they generally have smaller offset throws to the random orbits and that means they will take longer to achieve the correction, so it's just a case of choosing the correct pad and a polish with decent working time to suit these machines.


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## diesel_dog (May 14, 2008)

Is the idea to get rotary motion with one of these or put much pressure on just to give oscillating power, sorry for the dumb ass question.


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

diesel_dog said:


> Is the idea to get rotary motion with one of these or put much pressure on just to give oscillating power, sorry for the dumb ass question.


Don't apologise, mate - not a dumb question. It's ideal to get as fast a spinning motion as you can whilst still keeping sufficient pressure on the panel to actually polish. Minimum really is 1 rev per second, but on both my machines, even with the correct pressure against the panel, I can normally sustain 3,4,5 or more revs. If the pad is only oscillating and not spinning then either the user is putting far too much pressure on, or there's a problem with the machine such as something fouling the backing plate and preventing it spinning or an overgreased main bearing.


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## diesel_dog (May 14, 2008)

Thank's very much Pit Viper, that explains why my bonnet didnt really come up as i was putting quite a bit of pressure on thinking the oscillation would be enough, many many thanks.


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