Detailing World

Nightmare - Avenged sevenfold

HC1001 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:22:26 GMT

Evening all,

Been waiting ages to get my hands on their new album and managed to have a good listen today when stuck in traffic trying to get home from the Trafford centre (Bloody M62 :mad:), anywho so far very impressed with the tracks, mixed bag of some old style A7X and some suprises. Nice message about Jimmy in the booklet too (RIP).

First song on the album..........(Explicit content "Swearing")

YouTube- Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare (Official...

My fav A7X song is Seize the day and I hope some tracks of this album come close and I'll be a happy man.

Any other Avenged fans on DW?

Cheers

H

Cabriolet Roof Maintenance?

james_19742000 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:18:49 GMT

Hi all,

Recently taken on a new car with a Cabriolet roof, its a 2003 New Beetle, roof is in good condition, and after some advice from here on how to get the best out of the AG roof cleaner and protector I am keen to maintain the roof properly without too much damage to the current protection, I gave it a good clean using the cleaner and after some advice on here applied about 3 coats of the protector working it in with a sponge once the roof had thoroughly dried, it seems to be having teh desired effect, it beads nicely etc.

Anyway, what do you guys do to maintain the roof on a weekly basis for example, obviously you cant use the AG kit everytime, so whats best?

I was thinking along the lines of rinsing with a spray setting on the pressure washer, then a thin coat of snow foam followed by another rinse, pat dry with a towel and then allow to finish drying naturally? Or does it really need washing on a regular basis like that? Or can you just use the brush from a bog standard dust pan and brush set to give it a brush and have done with it??

Any ideas chaps as I just want to maintain it properly, so thoughts and suggestions please, and just so people know what sort of car it is, heres a pic of it :thumb:

Thanks in advance, James.

PS if this is in the wrong section then please move accordingly.

A worthwhile investment??

DiamondShine — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:18:20 GMT

Just looking on ebay and the are several 'valeting' :rolleyes: cough businesses for sale at the mo!

This one comes complete with washing up liquid and grubby sponges

What is it with putting things on the floor?! :eek:

wash list

ST3V3O — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:18:13 GMT

hi

im washing my car this sunday and going to get it shining like new apart from rust lol.

what im going to do is

wash arches and wheels
rinse wheels then whole car
wash car
rinse off
dry
wax
dress plastics and tyres
give final buff .

anything else i should do ?

also what do i use to wash the arches with ? i can get a presure sprayer for a �1 so i just need to know what stuff to use in it .

thanks

rust prevention

E21_ross — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:11:55 GMT

i have just ordered some ferrosol and dynax S50 to help prevent rust forming in the arches of my car (1982 bmw) and was wondering whether it's ok to apply them straight away. there is a very (very) small amount of rust present and was wondering if i just clean up the area so there is no mud/grit etc there (wash, degrease, and possibly clay) would it be ok to just put the ferrosol on, then the S-50, or do i need to get some deox-C and put that on first?

the corrosion present really is a small amount.

thanks in advance guys,

Ross.

Selling/advertising a car - tips and precautions?

johnnyguitar — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:04:26 GMT

My neighbour has asked me to sell her car for her - I've cleaned it up, got all the relevant bits of paper (she'll have to sign the V5C anyway) and have taken all the pics.

Where do the good folk of DW recommend advertising a car (this is not an attempt at an under the radar car sales post either!!) these days? I have already stuck an ad up on Gumtree because it's free and have looked at ebay classified ads (8 quid) but, other than Autotrader (3 weeks on the web and a tiny magazine advert), I don't know where else to look. It's not a Piston Heads sort of car if you know what I mean, although I assume you can advertise anything on there.

Also, apart from making it clear that if prospective buyers turn up without insurance, then they don't get a test drive and making sure the buyer knows it's sold as seen, is there anything else to consider (apart from the obvious paperwork and money stuff)? I have a duplicate book that I (rarely) use for writing temporary invoices - I was planning on writing out an invoice with the agreed price, car details and 'sold as seen' and giving a copy to the buyer and one to Claire (neighbour and owner) - good idea?

All tips received with appreciation! :thumb:

Delux 'Fluffy' drying towels

alexandjen — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:48:20 GMT

Arrived today with thanks, fast delivery and great service, dying to get out there and use them now :thumb::detailer:

Auto Detox: Alpina Roadster S

Auto Detox — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:47:32 GMT

BMW Alpina Roadster S ~ 2 day enhancement detail

This is quite a rare car on the UK roads & looks lovely sporting Toledo paintwork

Quest for the 2 days tidy up the paintwork, clean the engine bay & treat the interior not a lot of work to do then !

I had already pre-inspected the car a number of weeks ago & the car was booked in on a convenient date which just happened to be the happy couples anniversary so no pressure to get the best result I could then

On arrival day 1

Cheeky kitty lounging on the roof

Interior not too bad just in need of a good clean & leather treatment

Ok on to the good stuff, engine pre-soaked in G101 4:1

Rinsed off after a short while

Another soaking & agitated with a selection of detail brushes quick dry with work mf cloths

Door shuts all round next job, using the same process as the engine. Pre soak, rinse with washer re apply cleaner & work it with Envy detail brush rinsed out & dried with work towel

Keeping with the above theme, wheel arches thoroughly rinsed with the jet wash apc applied & worked with a long handled vikan brush before finally thoroughly rinsed with the washer once more

Tyres too

Alloys next, pre jet washed, acid free cleaner applied & worked with mini Ez brush & detail brush for the faces a good rinse off & tar remover applied for tar spots

Before

During

After

Repeated all round, roof was the start of the body work wet down, 303 fabric cleaner & a soft bristled brush hit the spot

Good rinse down to finish.

Before working the panel gaps, grills, seals etc I gave the car a good jet wash down before working my way round the car with a boards hair brush & apc

Another good rinse of the entire vehicle prior to laying down some foam

Thoroughly jet washed off, washed double bucket method & onto tar removal

Small section at a time was worked on & rinsed, clay with mild grey clay before moving on final jet wash down, pure filtered water rinse to finish the wash stage

Roof dried

Paintwork dried with a super Rubbish Boys drying towel mmmm nice ! ha ha

Paint inspected with the 3M Sungun

2 stage polishing routine via the Metabo rotary polisher was completed over the 2 days

Cheeky 50:50

Finished shots under the 3M Sungun once more & prior to wax

Cleaner fluid applied by hand

Last of my BOS applied

All the other complimenting detail taken care of alloys sealed, arches dressed, pipes polished, engine dressed. Interior was detailed leather cleaned, plastics too, glass the whole caboodle

Finally the paintwork was Migliore QD wiped down leaving here looking like this in the gloomy Sunday evening sun ( or lack of ! ha ha )

& me messing in the engine bay...

Thanks for taking the time to look

Regards
Barry
Auto Detox

www.autodetoxdetailing.co.uk

Local detailer needed for Newbie

L.Davis — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:47:05 GMT

As a :newbie: I am looking to get my BMW 850 (Black) detailed with paint correction etc ready for the Gaydon show in Aug. I live in Twickenham so any suggestion please. Also any idea of cost and timescales etc (how long is a piece of string)

detailing supplyer in surrey area

kristvs — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:43:07 GMT

hi peeps does anybody know if there is a walk in detailing shop in the surrey area to get products ie; da pads/polishe's/compounds. any help would be great.

cheers chris

Miglior Detailing Ltd: Biggest Post Yet?? 30 hr Correction

JPC — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:40:24 GMT

Hi guys, thanks for checking out another write up of mine. This is a big one, probably one of my Longest! Grab a brew and have a good read! I hope you think it will be worth your time!

Last week we had in a Vauxhall VXR Nurburgring Edition. 1 of only 835 made. The car was created in celebration of their 8.35 time set around the Nurburgring. I’m sure many of you have seen one of these on DW, namely VXR Marc's which in my opinion, was a beautiful car and everything he did to it was exquisitely done!

So, the owner wanted a full 3 day exterior correction with and interior light detail also! No stone was left unturned on this one! There was about 30 hours spent on this car.

The car was only a 2008 car with 20k on the clock, but it had seen a hard life in terms of car washes.

Upon Arrival

On with the washing. Autosmart G101 on the arches & tyres, Smart wheels on the wheels. Plus various wheels and mits to clean up all the areas. The door shuts, engine bay and filler cap were also cleaned with G101.

Foamed with APC and left to dwell

The car was washed with the normal two bucket method but being a white car, that had never been properly cleaned, there was a lot left on there!

First Stage of our 3 stage contamination attack was tardis! :)

Panel by panel, we got rid of the tar to leave this...

Pretty clean right?

Iron cut says not!!

Iron applied and left to dwell a few minutes

Bit of a 50/50 with iron cut haha!

So once the iron cut was rinsed off, and I took off my gas mask, I rolled the car in the unit and clayed with Sonus extra fine clay and Chem guys speed wide (I think) as a lube.

Now the car was in the unit and dry and completely clean, I got a better chance to take a look at the defects in the paint. The whole car was covered in very deep marks, mainly from brushes at car washes.

So, this really took away from the finish, it spoiled the colour, and the marks were that bad, it was distracting!

Lots of paint readings were taken and I was satisfied it was all sound. It had one of the most uniform paint I had seen in a while. Only differing (on my gauge) by about 15 microns around the car.

It took me about 2 hours to find a good combo for this paint, well; I was continually making small changes around the car. I’m pretty sure the front and rear bumper have been painted in a different facility during production. They were visual different and reacted very differently to a successful combo used around the rest of the car.

The first day saw me complete the wet work, establish a good combo for polishing, complete masking the vinyls, correct the bonnet, roof and front and rear bumper. Finishing at 7.30pm that doesn’t sound like much, but the rear bumper alone took me about 3 hours to polish and refine!

I mainly used 3m Extra fine Cut with a Yellow 3m polishing pad for the correction. Most areas needed two hit, which was fine, anything more aggressive was a bit too much, and created more problems that it was worth. I settled for two passes of Extra fine, checking for drop back and wiping down with IPA. This turned out well, as you can see below.

As you can see above, the bonnet was corrected with the vinyl masked. This was because I was getting up to about 2100rpm with the Makita. I’m not really one for chancing it and risking catching one of the vinyls. I also wanted to correct right up to the vinyl, rather than shying away when I got close. Masking these up was the best policy!

Once I had completed the areas away from the vinyl, I removed the tape, and did a lighter pass on a spot pad with the same combo. This sorted the vinyl out fine, but did leave a few RDS in-between the vinyl. Not something I could really help. It wasn’t dreadful, but more like a 90% correction, rather than the 99% ish I was getting previously.

Before

After

You can just make out one of the RDS's underneath the light source. No doubt a MUCH improved finish! These shots are all Pre-refining.

Right, so from now on I will let the pics do the talking!

Front bumper before

After

Under the sun gun

If you are wondering what the orange peel is about, well, it was a bit different from the rest of the car. The camera is on manual focus here to make sure I am focused on the paintwork rather than the light source. Very difficult manoeuvre this; you need three hands to hold the sun gun and focus!

Rear tailgate and bumper

Of course, checks with the sun gun after IPA wipe!

Now the boot lid is done, that rear bumper needs sorting! Eeak! I did a pretty pants job of photographing this; I was so involved with it, being plastic and so so many different areas to correct with the spot pads!

Rear lights

Now onto the sides of the car, I was cracking on now during the second day so I didn’t take too many pics! I’ve already included far too many! But I hope your enjoying reading, well done for making it this far!

Sun gun and IPA check to see proper progress

Carrying on....

There was a mark which appears to have come from a water blade in the past. This was machined quite a lot; this was surrounded by 3 others. These were removed but there was one stubborn one. I took about 8-9 microns off trying to remove this, but I phoned the owner and explained it was better to minimize it rather than carrying on with the removal. He was fine with that.

So once the sides were finished, all sorts of area like a pillars, door tops, and the front lights, as I didn’t do those when I finished the front bumper. Then the car was refined with Swissvax Cleaner Fluid Pro on a blue 3m Pad.

Mirrors.

That’s the correction pretty much out of the way.

After an in-depth job like that, there’s always bound to be a few bits out of place (and a few empty red bull cans!) I can’t stand an untidy workplace so after dressing the engine bay, I cleaned up!

Ahh, much better!

So on to the final straight, dressing waxing and polishing! Probably the most rewarding part of the job, when everything comes together.

Arches dressed with 303

Wheels polished and waxed with Swissvax Cleaner fluid and Swissvax Autobahn. Tyres dressed with Swissvax Pneu.

The car was sealed with Jeff's Werkstatt Acrylic Prime sealant.

After that had cured, I applied two more coats of Werkstatt Jet trigger!

Nice and thin!

The plastics here were treated with Gtechniq C4

Once the sealant was on, it was left to cure. Then I set about the interior. Not too many pics of this...

All the owners various bits were packed away neatly in our Black carrier bags!

They look like bloody bin bags there, but there not! They are very thick and a nice touch I think! :)

The interior was vacuumed, carbon fibre dash inserts were also hand polished with Swissvax cleaner fluid and treated with the Werkstatt.

The dash was dusted and wiped with mild APC then dressed with Jeff’s Satin Prot. Lovely product!

Engine bay dressed with 303

Looking nice now!

The door shuts were polished with Swissvax cleaner fluid then sealed with Werkstatt acrylic

Interior Done!

The exhaust was polished with Swissvax Metal polish.

Now we are all done, here are some pics with the Sun gun around the car

Some beading and other random shots I took during the three days!

And now the afters!

Total working Time: 31 hours!

Thanks for reading if you got to the end!!

Feel free to fire away with any questions or comments! ;)

Swissvax Detailer: Covering Manchester, Lancashire and North West

Big, bigger, biggest! Volvo Volvo FE S 4x2R truck

nicknameless — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:38:56 GMT

This is one of the two trucks of my work. I am working in a wholesale hardware and tools.
They knew that my hobby to clean cars. They asked if I wanted to do the trucks.

In total: 38 man-hours :shock:

- Wash with Armor All shampoo
- Rotary + different pads, yellow, white, black, red
- Monello Mezzo (same as Menzerna Power Finish PO 85 RD 3.02)
- Menzerna Super Finish
- Meguiars D151 Paint Reconditioning Cream
- Collinite #845
- Poorboys World Trim Restorer
- Meguiars Gold Class Endurance High Gloss Tire Protection Gel
- Different cheap mf cloths

Something missing.... some shine!

On reflection, we washed the truck anyway, it was very necessary because there are quite a lot of dust on the truck

Hmmmm, how are we going to do a washmitt and 2 buckets is too slow, so I look at my work and came back with .............. a large mortar shell and a room sweeper :D

Now everyone will say we're crazy, but hey, the truck still had to be polished, so a scratch or swirl more or less does not even matter anymore.

The old logos were still visible

Another piece of the clay to have tried to see how much pollution was over. Turned out pretty bad.
Of course we have the truck is not treated with clay, this is impossible ....

Test spot with Meguiars D151 Paint Reconditioning Cream

The orange pad after a few hits

A few rooms scaffolding put there for the top

Before

After

Before

After

Poorboys World SYN1. Beta version. Is not officially on the market

After a few hits with an orange hexlogic pad

The result was not good. A few hits with Monello Mezzo on a yellow pad

Finished.

And again, proof that the SYN1 splashes like crazy. It is known to Poorboys Wolrd. I've got a bottle's to try this product.
A while the final version will appear on the market soon

Even on the tires...

Same as Red Bull energy drink

50/50

Difference between trailer and cab is clearly visible

Cab taped. There is much tape used. 3 rolls of 50 meters

Before

After

This path is written off, no more cutting. Where the Lake Country's merry go, this is after a job is already dead ...

Door already done.

Before

After

This is a friend of my: his nickname: Mister Detail :D

Headlight before

Headlight after

50/50

Before

After

That's me

Almost finished

Finished!

black as black is supposed to be

That we deserved!

Next weekend (30-07-2010) the other one :D

Gr. Patrick

You Pro Detailers must be like Terminators........

badman1972 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:36:44 GMT

...........you guys must be indestructable like Terminators with backs made of steel:doublesho
After years spent bodybuilding, it has come as something of a shock after polishing just the bonnet and roof of my Scoob that my lower back was giving me more grief than it ever has following a series of sets of heavy Deadlifts :confused:

So pleased I only have 2 cars to care for these days - No idea how you guys do this day in day out, but f**k me, maximum respect to you all and will definitely be looking to pay someone next time either of mine needs machine work ;)

I think I need a lie down.........................and more Carling!!!

Does businesses not want custom nowadays?

Grizzle — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:25:03 GMT

I've sent 4-5 emails regarding various things/items (nothing valeting or detailing related) and i've had zero reply's.

I dont know if its just me but i try and reply to any emails within the hour, anyone else get frustrated?

Oi! That's My Picture!!

carcare — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:22:31 GMT

Hi Folks,

I have been running a small valeting business for the last 8 years and over that time I have keep a photo record of some of my work, as many of you probably do.
Now. It came to my attention via email last night (thank you again) that a photo of mine, and other individuals, had appeared on a valeting business website in their Pictures basically saying "these are cars we've cleaned". I was at first surprised to see this image in someone else's Gallery, then rather angry that 8 hours of my hard work were so easily passed of by somebody else. Clicking the image revealed a Google image page showing my site behind it.

What would you people suggest my next course of action?

For your information google horshamvaleting