Machine Polishing, For Dummies

I'm not too experienced, but it's not too tricky to get passable results.

To get best results, I usually wash, clay, machine polish and then wax.

If in doubt, why not buy a couple of large panels (bonnet etc) from a scrapyard or similar and practice on them? Biggest thing to look for is ensuring the polishing pad continues to spin and that you don't rub through on edges.

Finally, look out for details such as washer nozzles. A friend broke one off my P6 when machine polishing the bonnet

Edit: If it is a new paint job and has some orange peel, you might be better off hitting it with (wet) 2000 wet & dry first.

Perfect, thanks for the tips lads! There’s a couple old transit panels knocking about for a practice that I’d never even thought about. I’ll give it a go and update with results

I’m in a similar situation fulvia1436, a mate who served his time as a panel beater/painter is lending me a polisher but he’s not done anything like that in a solid 10 years but he recommended a lot of water too. Any and all tips are helpful at this point 

2K black, nothing fancy 

I’m sure it got 2 good coats, never wet and dried before either so I’m being very cautious if over cautious 

It is single stage paint and it got 2 fairly thick coats

You need very little water.
An old kitchen cleaner trigger spray bottle is useful.

Run the rotary mop on its slowest setting and keep it there, always keep it moving and let the mop do the work - don't press on it.

A few drops of water flicked off wet fingers is enough or a very light mist from the aforementioned trigger spray. Put some cutting compound on your paint and rub it around with the mop head switched off to spread it over the area you are going to polish. Start the mop while it is on the panel (good mops have a slow start) as this stops spraying compound everywhere and also burning the paint.

Only polish a small area at a time 1-2 square feet is plenty, moving on to the next bit once that area is done. If you get too much water on the panel you will spray compound everywhere, you walls,floor,ceiling!!

If you do go over edges always make sure the mop is running OFF the edge, NEVER spinning towards the edge as spinning towards will catch and burn paint off in no time.

Good idea is to mask up the last 1cm of all edges and do those by hand afterwards.

Exactly what he said ^^^

Pretty much same as I would have done a good few years ago when I worked in a commercial body shop.

www.autopaint-pro.co.uk/1k-acrylic-paint-for-a-spray-gun-direct-gloss-no-clearcoat-required-675-c.asp
All the blurb says it's easy to polish