Hello all what’s the collectives opinion on the Lidl Parkside offering, I have read that some polishers are difficult to use, and if you are not careful you could do more damage than good. With that in mind has anybody used the Lidl polisher and is it any good for the novice occasional Detailer (polisher).
Link to polisher

You can do damage by using too harsh a cutting compound or a too abrasive pad. The problem with these cheaper polishers is they are generally a fixed speed either on or off. This isnt much good when you are first starting as at first you really only want to work the polish into the paint at low speed. Also depends on the polish/compound you are using, different products require different RPM's to work correctly.

I'm not saying its unusable but will be a bit messy and you wont have as much control as with a more expensive variable speed polisher. Still beats doing it by hand

Also remember that by using one of these machine polishers you are going to make your paint/lacquer thinner each time until you are down to bare metal or rub through the lacquer, both of which will be expensive to fix.

that is why the pros take a paint depth reading first.

i know lots of people use them and are fine, its just a word of caution when they are overused or used incorrectly.

I bought one of the Silverline polishers from toolstation, it's not DA but it does have the speed control which is useful. It seems a bit more than what mine cost though.

I have had one for years, but I only use it with T cut it's all I have ever needed to use so far, you can still burn through the paint with it if you are not careful though, I will be purchasing a proper machine soon as I need to use proper compound, so having said all that, spend an extra £40-50 on top of the Lidl one and then you are sortd

I have a Makita that I use for polishing aluminium.


It has some sort of witchcraft circuit that keeps the speed constant.
For instance; if you set it to 750rpm and hold it in mid air it does 750rpm. If you then touch it on the job
it still does 750rpm. If you push a bit harder, yup, still 750rpm.

A lesser tool varies its speed depending how hard you push, so on first touch and on lift off it's possible
to damage paint.

That's how I understand it anyway.



Everyone spends their money how they see fit.
I was in the pub the other night with a bloke who drives a brand new car (Golf) and has two holiday cruses
each year, and he jeered at me for having a second hand iPhone 4 that cost me £100.
"Waddoyawant that for? My phone'll make calls. Whatmoredoyawant."

Shrug

Paul G

Unlikely that you will do much damage with an orbital DA polisher, unless you do something really daft.....

Its rotary polishers that can catch out the unwary.

Can't imagine the linked one being much cop though, you need something like a DAS-6 (approx £80.00)

I bought one years ago its okay for Light polishing (t cutting etc) and waxing work