# MacAllister dual action polisher/sander £30 from B&Q - any good?



## golfgti.man

Hi, I'm new to the forum but have been doing some background reading on tools/pads/products and am specifically interested in purchasing a dual action (to reduce likelihood of newbie cooking the paintwork) polishing machine...

I don't really want to spend ~£150 on a PC or G220 so I started doing some searching around and stumbled across a dual action MacAllister tool being sold at B&Q for £30.

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav/n...qrefcmp=AW&bqrefcre=AW_AFFILIATES&affid=64216

I went to my local shop and sure enough it's a dual action orbital sander, 450W, ranging from 2500 rpm to 11000 rpm. It has 125mm and 150mm backings.

Has anyone bought one and what are their thoughts on it?

(I actually bought it, knowing I can return it if negative reviews come flooding in. Would appreciate early feedback so I can order pads etc for this weekend while my wife is away!)


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## Captain Morgan

I'm sure that these have been looked at before and the opm is way way to high.

as a comparison a rotary (I know opm and rpm are not the same) is useful in the 600-1800rpm range.

your device starts at 2500 opm but the high end is way to high
udm's/G220's run ~ 2500-6000opm

hth


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## X7LDA

This sounds promising as per other post..

Sure you just need to watch how high you turn it up though??

Max 6000 and you should be fine no?


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## golfgti.man

Just thought I'd post this in case people are interested in a cheap dual action alternative.

I used the MacAllister dual action at the weekend and it works a treat... I was quite worried that it would be too intense but that wasn't the case. I tried it on setting 1 but needed to turn it up to setting 2 to get a light cut done effectively.

It took me a while to get the backing plate off as the bolt was on super tight and then I fitted a backing plate from elitecarcare.co.uk which is designed to fit the PC. I took a chance on this as I didn't know the thread size.


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## -ROM-

It would be nice if possibly davekg could try one of these at a meet or something to give his opinion on it, compared with Pc, G220 etc.


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## golfgti.man

I guess it's worthwhile pointing out that I am a novice at this... so my experience in relation to other devices is non existent... but based on the results I've achieved so far as a novice, I'm happy.


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## farcrygamer

As all other small throw RO machines (bosch pex 270, pex 400....) it can do the job for finishing with light polishes and lighter correction of mild swirls with something like pb ssr 2.5 and lake country orange pad. It is capable of braking the polish down nicely. It's very good for things like AG SRP Klasse AIO application ...

IMHO if you really want something like that it would be better to go for sme lighter machine such as bosch pex 270.:wave:


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## Simon01

rmorgan84 said:


> It would be nice if possibly davekg could try one of these at a meet or something to give his opinion on it, compared with Pc, G220 etc.


Its in the distance yet but we are talking on a breakdown of a few machines from novice to pro machines :thumb:


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## treaclesponge

Wax-It said:


> Its in the distance yet but we are talking on a breakdown of a few machines from novice to pro machines :thumb:


That would be very interesting to see. As a novice and total newbie to the machine polishing world I wouldn't want to nip out and spend on a G220 when I could splash £30 down at B&Q to get my eye in first.


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## _daveR

Is THIS the one we are talking about?


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## VIPER

Okay, here's the rub - these dual action sanders, used with care and with the correct pad/polish combos are more than capable of dealing with minor swirl removal in the same way as the specialist 'detailing' DA machine polishers (which are way overpriced imo.) The relatively high OPM is not an issue as the throw is smaller to compensate (but some are really high with the slowest speeds being more than the highest settings on the 'detailing' ones, so choose one that has a low starting speed that falls well within the parameters of the aforementioned machines). I've used a Silverline one a few times and had no problems with it whatsoever. The only downside to these is the fixed 125mm backing plate which restricts you to using 6" and above pads, and the fact that that they can be a bit noisy.


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