Paint Rehab with the Mothers PowerBall
Mother’s PowerBall is buffed paint on the cheap.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- The PowerBall 4Paint comes with a four-ounce bottle of Mothers FX Synwax, which we have found to work great on most applications except extreme swirls and scratches.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- As you can see, the black sheet metal we have has seen better days, but with a bit of electric elbow grease and some Mothers love, we will get the shininess back.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- We remove all of the ancillary items, such as the taillights and dash, before we get to buffing.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- We then clean off the tanks and fender with some solvent to get the grease and dirt off of the surfaces we are about to polish.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- The PowerBall 4Paint has a stoutly designed steel shank on it that mates to the drill motor’s chuck.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- We picked up a $30 Black & Decker electric drill motor and quickly installed the PowerBall 4Paint, but any cordless drill would work as well.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- We put a rather small amount of the Mother’s FX Synwax onto the top and face of the PowerBall 4Paint.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- With light-to-medium pressure we made sure every surface of the sheet metal got the PowerBall 4Paint treatment. We started off with relatively slow rpms of the drill then worked our way up after the Synwax had coated all surfaces.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- The fender took a bit more care when using the PowerBall 4Paint due to the many angles and edges on it.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- After letting the FX Synwax set up a few minutes when the buffing was done, we then polished all of the surfaces with a clean and fluffy microfiber towel.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
- As you can see, the Mothers PowerBall 4Paint and FX Synwax made quick, easy, and cheap work of some dead and damaged old paint.
Words and Photos: Jeff G. Holt
So, your sweet paint job has seen better days and you don’t have the duckets to shell out to have some swanky detail job done to your bike? Well, my friends, instead of having a crappy-looking sled, you can just pick up a drill motor and a Mothers PowerBall 4Paint system for around $25 and get the same results as the pros. The PowerBall 4Paint has hundreds of gentle foam fingers that when slathered with a polishing wax and attached to your drill motor can rehab your road weary steed’s paint job in less than it takes to watch an episode of your favorite biker drama. They key to the PowerBall 4Paint’s success is both the material that the ball is made out of as well as the shape of the foam fingers, which makes short work of polishing and waxing compound surfaces, edges, and difficult, hard-to-reach areas that most motorcycles have. We used the included Mothers FX Synwax, which did a great job of buffing out the clear coat on our black bike, but we have used the PowerBall 4Paint with other liquids such as Mothers’ own California Gold Scratch Remover to remove heavy scratches and swirl marks with great ease. This really is a foolproof system, and we encourage even first-time paint players to indulge in some beautiful buffing.
Sources
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