Harbor Freight recently came out with a new machine called the Hercules Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher. Being an 8MM gear-driven orbital polisher, it has a lot in common with the Flex XC3401VRG (AKA “The Beast”) with one major difference — at $129.99, it’s almost $300 cheaper. This makes it an attractive option for DIYers and beginners in paintwork correction who don’t want to break the bank.
Of course, with that kind of a discount, you might be wondering whether this tool is actually effective at polishing cars. After all, cheaper tools are known to wear out more quickly and produce inferior results. Thankfully, I’ve got the answer for you. As an expert on forced rotation DA polishers (I literally wrote the book on Flex’s Beast) I’ve got a pretty good idea of what makes a high quality tool that will produce show car results. Let’s dig in.
What is a Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher?
The Hercules Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher is a 8mm forced rotation (AKA gear driven) orbital polisher. This means this tool will both rotate and oscillate a buffing pad at the same time (dual action) in an 8mm orbit stroke with zero chance of pad stalling.
The pad won’t stall because the machine forces rotation no matter how hard you press against the paint surface. Free-spinning DA polishers, on the other hand, have a free spinning spindle with a counterweight. When the tool is brought up to speed, the spinning counterweight creates inertia and this is what maintains pad rotation and pad oscillation.
Why Use a Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher?
Free spinning random orbital polishers are great because they’re safe to use, operate smoothly and finish out beautifully even on softer paints. The downside? If you press too hard and the pad stalls, the tool stops polishing and becomes effectively useless. In order to remove swirls, scratches, water spots and/or oxidation, you need to maintain pad rotation and pad oscillation. When the pad stops rotating and/or oscillating, you’re simply wasting time.
Forced rotation polishers, on the other hand, are forced to rotate and won’t stall under pressure. This means you can plow through the paint correction process as fast as humanly possible while maintaining pro-quality results. That’s why gear-driven polishers are so great!
Unboxing and Inspecting Features
Upon opening the box, there’s basically the tool and two plastic screws for holding on the plastic cap on the head of the tool incase you choose to use the tool without the bail handle plus an owner’s manual.
Forward Bail Handle
Like the tool this was modeled after, the FLEX XC 3401 VRG, the HF Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher has a forward bail handle. This is a hard plastic handle that offers a solid way to hold onto and guide the head of the polisher when polishing a panel.
Aluminum housing
6″ backing plate
Soft start speed control trigger
Speed lock button
Variable 6-speed adjustment dial
Forward soft rubber tool rest
Brush replacement port
Ergonomic soft grip handle
Fresh air intake grill
Exhaust air grill
Gear lock-up button
25’Rubber power cord
Just for fun, I used my 25′ tape measure to check, and the cord is in fact 25′ long.
Backing plate attachment bolt
Lubricating the felt compression ring
Being a copy of the original FLEX XC 3401 VRG, I figured it would have the felt compression ring behind the backing plate. While Harbor Freight does not state or recommend this felt compression ring needs to be lubricated, my experience is, it does in fact need to be lubricated. The reason why is to reduce friction and create slippage for anytime you’re pressing hard against the head of the polisher when doing heavy paint correction.
To access the felt compression ring, press the gear lockup button on the top head of the polisher to lockup the gears and then loosen the backing plate bolt using the included hex head wrench.
Using a light oil (in this example I’m using Air Tool Oil, but any quality lubricating oil will work) apply the oil directly onto the felt ring.
Tip: Periodically Flip Felt Ring & Re-Lubricate
The felt ring is a wear part, I’m not sure where you can get a replacement. One thing you can do however is periodically remove the felt compression ring and flip it over and then reinstall and lubricate the felt compression ring. To remove the felt ring, use a pointy instrument — I normally use a ordinary thumbtack. Be careful not to STRETCH the felt ring as this will make re-inserting it into the channel in the head of the polisher difficult.
Reinstalling the Backing Plate
When reinstalling the backing plate, it’s vitally important that you align the slotted hole in the backing plate with the slotted drive spindle. If you don’t properly align the slotted backing plate to the slotted spindle, and tighten the bolt down, you will damage the gear set inside the head of the tool as well as the gears on the backing plate.
If you look closely, you can see the slot in the backing plate is correctly aligned and the backing plate bolt can now be installed and tightened.
IMPORTANT: Always re-install the flat washer first, followed by the lock washer.
Using the included hex head wrench, tighten the backing plate to the tool until snug.
Testing the Harbor Freight Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher on a 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud
Now that I’ve lubricated the felt ring, it’s time to take the HF Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher for a test drive. To punish and torture this tool, I’m going to use it for the polishing step on this 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. This is a HUGE car with plenty of real-estate in the way of body panels. Using a large car like this will provide me with plenty of hands-on time behind this tool so I can share my real-world experience in this review.
This should be fun — a $100.00 tool to detail a $100,000.00 car!
After prepping the car with a full wash and inspection, I started polishing using a wool pad on a rotary polisher. This is necessary when polishing deeper scratches — an orbital polisher isn’t aggressive enough to do the job.
Once the rotary step was complete, it was time to get hands-on with the Harbor Freight Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher to remove any holograms instilled by the rotary and finish the paint to a brilliant gloss.
PRO: Zero Pad Stalling
In the below picture, I’m using only the edge of the buffing pad to polish the panel between the windshield and the hood. Like I mentioned above, no pad stalling is the major benefit to using a gear-driven orbital polisher. If I were using a free spinning random orbital polisher, I would not be able to maintain pad rotation when using just the outer portion of the buffing pad.
Being able to adjust how I hold this tool to tackle all of the body panels, no matter what the shape or size, is a real time-saver. With free spinning random orbital polishers, I would have to use multiple tools that range in size and thus range in pad size, to perform all the paint correction on this car.
PRO: Smooth Operation and Little Vibration
A lot of times cheaper tools are hard to handle due to the vibration, typically resulting from poor build quality. The Harbor Freight Dual Action Forced Rotation Polisher is an exception. I was both surprised and impressed with how smooth this tool felt even when buffing on the highest speed setting.
PRO: Time-Saving
Here’s another example where I take advantage of the gear-driven aspect of this polisher. You can see how I’m tipping the polisher to do focused, intense polishing work on the paint next to the chrome grill. You cannot do this easily or efficiently with free spinning random orbital polishers as the pads on free spinning random orbital polishers will tend to simply stall or stop rotating and oscillating. Being able to use a single tool and tackle any body panel saves a lot of time since I don’t have to stop buffing with one tool, grab a different tool and start up again.
Doing Show Car Work? Finish With a Random Orbital
Forced rotation tools are great, but they don’t always finish out as nicely as you’d like. In this case, because I was aiming for show car quality results, I switched over to one of my favorite free spinning random orbital polishers, the RUPES BigFoot 21, to perfect the paint with Dr. Beasley’s NSP 45 and prepare the paint for the installation of the Dr. Beasley’s Nano-Resin MX Ceramic Coating. This isn’t necessary in most cases, but for a high end classic car like this, the extra step is worth it.
Final Results Using the Harbor Freight Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher
After around 9 hours of rotary cutting and 10 hours of orbital polishing with the Harbor Freight Forced Rotation Dual Action Orbital Polisher, the work is completed.
Final Review of the Harbor Freight Hercules Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher
Being a long-time user of other gear-driven orbital polishers, I was impressed with the power and smooth operation for this new tool from Harbor Freight. The build-quality appears to be very good. I wouldn’t say this tool is as good as the tool it is copied after, but for enthusiast car detailers, that only need a tool like this once a year or so, it’s a great bang for your buck. Time will tell if the internal components like the bearings, gears, motor and electronic components will hold up to the kind of rigorous use by professionals that use and abuse their tools 6 days a week.
If you’re new to machine polishing or ready to move up from a free spinning random orbital polisher to a gear-driven orbital polisher, then at a suggested retail price of $129.99 the Hercules brand, Forced Rotation Dual-Action Polisher is a great option to consider.
Plus, with Harbor Freight warranty, they guarantee this tool to be free from defects in materials and workmanship 90 days from the date of purchase. You also have the option to purchase an extended warranty, which is what I did as we will be using this tool in our detailing classes where it will be used and abused by students learning paint correction.
Homeward bound
I have to admit, I was happy to see this behemoth of a car leave. While I love a challenge… I think I love a challenge on much smaller cars. 🙂
Final thoughts…
Doing the paint correction on a luxurious car like this stately 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud is a huge undertaking. Possessing the experience and skill level to use a rotary polisher was essential to getting the job done in a timely manner. That said, I could have done the entire job using only the Harbor Freight Forced Rotation Dual Action Polisher. The primary difference would be it would take more time and a lot more pads.
If you’re reading this and tackling a project like this or any detailing project and you have questions, feel free to reach out and contact me, I’m happy to help see you through to success in your garage.
Here at Dr. Beasley’s we are strongly pro-education, and our detailing classes cover all the tools, pads and products necessary to tackle projects like this. If you would like to take your detailing skills and knowledge to a higher level, you can get more information about our classes like dates, locations, topics and pricing by clicking the link below.
Click here to for more information on Dr. Beasley’s Future of Detailing Classes
Mike Phillips
Cell: 760-515-0444
mike@drbeasleys.com
Hope to see you at a future class!
