shane@detailedreflections

I haven’t posted up my many pics of our work lately since we’ve been cranking out some routine work and I’ve been super busy with the family for the holidays. I’m getting back at it though and will have some photos after this weekend. We are installing a five year coating on a Honda CR-V today. This week we are finishing up that Corvette Grand Sport and picking up his Jeep to do! And in other exciting news, here’s the latest bit of photo gear to enhance our images. A Benro Carbon Gimbal head. The camera has my Sigma 150-600 on it now, but the gimbal head will provide easy movement and nice stability for images! The next imaging tool for us I think is going to be a drone for video purposes. Hopefully soon...

@Liralen I’m not a dessert person, but you always tease the sweet tooth I have with your baking!

This. Using a leaf blower is fine...provided it’s dedicated to the task at hand. I promise no serious detailer is using the same leaf blower they do the yard with on their clients cars. I wouldn’t even risk having to redo what we just did by doing that. We use our master blaster and have had no issues with it. So the moral is...if you’re using a leaf blower buy one dedicated to the task and only use it for the task.

It really depends on how heavy you want to use it. Our twenty gallon is fine for the most part. It’s not continuous use for us, but it’s adequate. Ideally you want 5.2-6.4 cfm at 90 psi. Ours is about 4 cfm at 90 psi. Ultimately it depends on what you want to do. Being not continuous use, it works just fine for us.

The MC1385 is a great machine. It’s what we started with actually. I sold it to a member here. The tornador works on a different principal. Air and chemical. It pulls things to the surface where the steamer helps to loosen them. It has no removing power. Once you use it, you’ll find constant niches for it and use it more and more.

Our tool is not a knock off. We use our tools...A LOT so I’m hesitant about knock off products. Our tool has been through the ringer. Our is the black. And the reality is we don’t use the vac attachment. It’s still unused. That being said, if we didn’t have an extractor it would probably be used all the time. We have a MyTee hot water extractor so that does the final cleanup duty. Between that and our 135psi steamer, we have most things covered. We use diluted APC mostly. We have used carpet and upholstery cleaner in it too. But APC is the go to. The compressor is a 20 gallon Husky that’s 4 cfm at 90psi. It’s a little underpowered for continuous use, but with our workflow it typically has time to recover without delaying our process. When we bought a tornador and put it to use, I wondered why we didn’t get one sooner. We use it that much.

So some people have inquired about the tornador tool recently and if it’s good, or how it works. We had a vehicle in with some light dog hair and I thought to snap a quick video of it in action. Any serious detailer should consider having this tool in their toolbox! We use it on EVERY detail we do. Great for door jambs, carpets, etc. 22268E88-2B8D-4245-B88D-2EAC01D9CC60.MOV

You can dilute APC (old and new). We dilute it way down when we use it our tornador tool. Typically for carpets, we use the extractor and carpet and upholstery cleaner as opposed to APC. As far as Adam’s APC goes, it’s pretty safe. It’s a decent product. It’s not the strongest out there. We actually switched to a different brand of APC that works really well and a better price point. So it’s a win-win from a business point of view. Plenty of people use a bunch of different dilutions of different products with good results. Experimenting for your situation is the way to go.

He asks all the right questions. You can do a lot with a one step polish provided the right combination of tools. Pads have a huge impact on the cutting power. Your question does need some clarification though. When you say one step, are you talking about a single step of polish? Or a 1-Step that’s an all in one polish? The all in one polishes are aimed at those detailing for dollars. Acceptable improvement and some protection all in one nice neat step. In order to do that, sacrifices are all around. It will never polish as well as a true polish. And never protect like a true sealant. It’s a land of compromises to get a bit of each in one bottle. I’m not going to blindly agree with this way of thinking. Two steps isn’t better than one when a finer polish is all that’s needed. At that point you’re taking clear coat off for no good reason. Ideally you don’t want to lose more than 1/3 of the clearcoat over the life of the vehicle in order to keep UV protection at it’s best. On dark cars, if we compound or even use a more aggressive polish, we always follow with finishing polish. On lighter cars it becomes less essential overall. The best way to begin is to find a spot that represents the most damage or the average damage to the paint and do a test spot. Just a 2’x2’ spot will do. Try the least aggressive and see if you’re happy. If not, move to the next step until you find the right combination of pad/polish or compound and then go to town on the entire vehicle. You ALWAYS want to go least to most aggressive. With time and experience with different damages and paints, you can look at vehicles and have an idea what they need.

You can try a fine polish. You want to go least to most aggressive. Do a test spot and see how it looks. One word on water spots though...polish them. Then put the car in the sun for a few hours and see if they come back. Continue to do this until they’re gone. It’s essentially a heat cycle to bring them back out if they’re still there. Once they’re gone after a heat cycle, layer your protection products on.

Polishing by hand will never be comparable to machine. I guess the bigger question is what tools and products do you have at your disposal? And what’s your budget that you’re willing to put into it? You may be able to get a detailer to polish out those small spots for a reasonable fee. I would do it for a client if they wanted. Just pay for time and some materials. Not free, but it’s an option.

Your cyclo can get a decent portion of that if you’re careful. It’s not ideal, but neither is purchasing a small Rupes machine. They’re expensive for sure. We use ours all the time, but if you’re not going to use it all the time, I’d skip it. The plastic is generally pretty soft. Is it hand polish soft? I don’t know about that since we’ve never tried to do it by hand. But some finishing polish on a DA will make quick work. Hopefully the dealer gave you some discount for going through with the deal after not following your instructions? I know when we bought our new vehicles this summer they gave me a hard time about not wanting them washed saying “it makes him twitch to see them go out like that.” I told him his twitching was better than mine since if I twitch, we walk on the deal. Needless to say we got to pick them up dirty.

You can treat PPF like paint for the most part. Typically PPF clients tend to swing for the fences and go ceramic over it. Depending on which XPEL product he has, it should have a hydrophobic layer manufactured into it. This year at SEMA the trend was to install PPF specific coatings. We are still waiting for ours to be able to be ordered. Past practice has always been to use paint coatings over it. We haven’t seen adverse results so I’m honestly not sure what the PPF specific products will add. It could be a solution looking for a problem. Time will tell, but whatever you use on your paint I’d use on the film to keep a uniform appearance.

You’d cringe at the colors of some of our towels. We toss them when they don’t feel good any more. The color doesn’t matter. No two of ours are the same unless they’re brand new.

You could coat them with paint coating. Just know that paint coating doesn’t stand up to heat like wheel coating does which may shorten the lifespan of the coating.

Thanks. Glass is VERY hard to polish out. It’s way harder than paint and requires glass polishes. CarPro makes a product called CeriGlass that works well. But plan to spend a considerable amount of time polishing it and you’ll need rayon glass pads. Probably easier to get new glass honestly. Using a foam pad and finishing polish is more of a good glass cleaner than anything else.

You ask questions without simple answers. There are significant differences between a consumer grade coating such as Adams and a pro grade coating like Opti Coat Pro (or others). One big difference is for a lot of the pro grade coatings, you should be able to assume the installer has experience and has been trained to install it properly. As an installer, we have a proper installation bay that aids in ensuring a good application without high spots. The pro grade coatings tend to be more durable as well. Our flagship coating offers nine years of durability. The next one down offers five years. It is available to consumers, but there is no warranty unless installed by an accredited installer. Ceramic coatings generally aren’t difficult to work with. They just take patience and facilities for the best results. And knowledge of the entire detailing process. Which way to go depends on your goals, comfort, facilities and equipment. Fill in those blanks and we can offer more guidance.

There aren’t any products to avoid on the scratch. If it’s deep, you will want to get it taken care of to prevent further body and paint issues down the line due to the elements.

Thank you. We are a very small, appointment only operation. But we pride ourselves on quality and not quantity. It’s a formula that works for us. Thanks for the compliment.

Two? We put three on this particular coating since it’s pretty unforgiving to work with in regard to high spots. They potentially require wet sanding to eliminate. With two to three of us on a coating, we can knock one out in 10-15 hours depending on the condition when it comes in. And this one has three layers of ceramic on it. I believe the total was 14 hours and it was a bit slower than normal since we couldn’t put it in the very well lit coating bay. We have over 100,000 lumens of light in that bay so it’s easy to catch high spots and we aren’t moving portable lights around. The other benefit we have is access to multiple polishers, pads and and polishes and compounds to use. Our operation has a number of distinct advantages over what most hobbyists have available for tools and equipment. For wheels off (which this was) we have a lift. Things of that nature have a huge impact on our finished product.

One of my coworkers at the firehouse picked up a new truck and wanted us to ceramic coat it for him. We got it with 900 miles on it and after giving it some polishing with a one step polish (not an all in one), it was ready to go. Now it's protected inside and out with a glass coating, window tints and a nine year coating. I've included photo data for the photo people! ISO 4000, 85mm, f/7.1, 1/100 ISO 7200, 85mm, f/10, 1/100 ISO 110, 85mm, f/10, 1/100 ISO 100, 85mm, f/10, 1/125 ISO 100, 85mm, f/10, 1/125 ISO 125, 35mm, f/10, 1/80 ISO 125, 35mm, f/10, 1/100 ISO 125, 35mm, f/10, 1/100 ISO 125, 35mm, f/10, 1/200 ISO 125, 35mm, f/14, 1/125 ISO 125, 85mm, f/14, 1/100 ISO 100, 85mm, f/8, 1/125 ISO 100, 85mm, f/8, 1/125

Temperature can have an effect on how easy/hard product goes on or comes off. If it’s cold, they can definitely be a bit stubborn. Same when it’s hot. If you have stubborn product, a shot of detail spray will often times help remove it. As for the water, that will always get into seams when washing. The best way to eliminate it is to use a blower to push it all out.

Yes. You can. Although wheel coating would be our choice for engine treatments due to heat.

Are you looking for a polish? Or a maintenance spray? For polish, start with revive. Xpel is a self healing film, so shouldn’t need polishing. If you use a more aggressive polish or polisher, you risk marring since the films are soft. For a topper, treat it like paint. Detail spray, boost, etc.

Happy thanksgiving. Enjoy the day with family and friends.