PHOKUS

Let us know how it goes!

Curious to know what towels you prefer to use.

LPS works well on pretty much any clean surface. I am agreed with others that Quick Sealant may be the very best option for this use-case. In and Out spray works for smooth surfaces, but doesn't last long. My car has a piano black honeycomb grille and using In and Out spray lasts for a day, maybe two. It basically just evaporates. You could also look at Ceramic Booster rather than Quick Sealant. I have zero experience with this product for the moment, but if it does what Adam says it will do (it's guaranteed, after all), it would be the cat's meow for difficult-to-clean areas like grilles - regardless what type of surface you're dealing with. Silica does not care if its metal, paint, plastic, glass, etc. In fact, I will be ordering the CPS along with Ceramic Booster, and I will use the booster on my grille. Should work pretty nicely.

The black areas in the photos look more like bare plastic rather than paint. Probably molded smooth and shiny to look like paint (Piano Black). After a thorough cleaning, you can use LPS, CPC, or maybe even CTC depending on the type of plastic. I would probably go with CTC if it's bare plastic. This will give maximum protection.

I am going to go out on a limb here and state that the test is invalid because both cars were prepped differently, and were likely not exposed to the same environmental conditions. The number of washes is only a single variable among dozens, if not hundreds, found in a comparison like this. If you prefer one sealant over the other, then go with that. But declaring the need for a price reduction based on little else than fleeting observation isn't the best way to articulate an argument or lend it credibility.

The Porter Cable is a workhorse, but a small one. In terms of correcting power, the new lines of Rupes Bigfoot, Flex, and Adam's Swirl Killer are far ahead of the trusty PC 7424. What might take the Rupes LHR15Mk2 2 passes takes 4-6 passes on the PC. Additionally, the Orange Foam pad is more a 'Medium' cut. The Orange MF pad is your 'Fast' cut choice from Adam's line. I have found several vehicles with incredibly hard clear, taking 4-5 passes with my Rupes + Orange MF on PCP. I simply prefer to spend as little time correcting as I can get away with, so I use the product most appropriate to the situation. You learned a very important lesson in paint correction. These are the most important lessons you can learn, and this is example of why lots of experienced detailers recommend starting with the PC. Now, experienced detailers will likely be recommending the Swirl Killer as a starter polisher. That's awesome!

Glass Sealant is less a sealant and more like a hydrophobic coating. GS is more hydrophobic than LPS, which is what makes it preferential to LPS. No reason you can't use LPS on glass. I use it on mine - both car and house.

You're good to go.

I can suggest three main points to consider once you've made the leap into small business ownership: Marketing - this is your lifeblood. This is how you convince Joe Public to take a chance and spend some of their hard-earned cash on YOU. You may be the best detailer on the planet, but if your marketing plan fails your business will fail. Know your strengths. Play them up. Never give a quote without inspecting the vehicle first. This is incredibly important. You want to be seen as a professional? BE a professional. A mechanic isn't going to give you a repair estimate without inspecting the vehicle first, and neither should you. Paint correction IS repair. Base your estimate on the amount of time you expect the detail to take. This is not to say you can't offer base rates for things like a wash and wax or interior detail. I call these 'base rates' with the expectation that the vehicle isn't outlandishly filthy or doesn't have gum, tar, and soda on every seat and carpet in the vehicle. Know your audience. ​Tailor your work to your customer's expectations rather than your own. 90% of my customers don't care that I spent 6 hours polishing their paint to a mirror finish. Knowing that the customer values, for instance, spotless windows and black tires rather than perfect paint allows me to effectively use my time to make my customer happy the first time around. So you get the paint to a 'good' state rather than 'perfect', and you make the windows and tires perfect instead. Building a business is difficult. It's fraught with challenges and pitfalls. But it also can pay off BIG. I STRONGLY urge you learn as much about running a business as you learn about the business you're in. Learn your competitors' businesses. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Have fun every day - running a business is as much about selling yourself as it is about selling your product or service. I wish you the very best of luck and good fortune as you build your business!

Great work, Bob! My favorite OCD pic was the spray nozzles on the inside of the door. So perfect.

I am an efficiency-crazed lunatic with some major neatness OCD. I am also an Adam's Addict. It's getting colder and I started thinking about how I can be more efficient with my space and my time. Here's what I came up with! I centralized all my reserve product. WIth my wagon and its larger wheels, I can cart my detailing supplies just about anywhere with ease. Inside the black bag is my Rupes 15, pads, polishes, gloves, clay, wax. Inside the tool caddy are my oft-used products, interior brushes, etc. The big deal here is that I now make one trip to move everything instead of three or four. What does your detailing lair look like?

If you encounter severely foggy windows, you could get water beading and condensation running down the inside of your glass. I've never had this issue, but it's worth noting.

Glass is a particularly interesting topic of detailing to me. As such, I spend a lot of time researching the 'whys' and 'hows' of glass cleaning and optic clarity. The number one and two questions friends and customers ask me is, "How do you get my windows so CLEAN?" and "Why did my windows get so dirty so quickly??" I've stated before that the real issue is not on the outside, but on the inside. Of course some people just have sticky (dirty) outer glass and the contaminants are incredibly deep in the pores of the glass and difficult to remove. But most of the complaints of dirty and streaky glass come from what's on the inside glass. Adam's glass towels are sticky on dirty glass for a reason. The thousands of microfibers on the piled side of the new Glass Towels are slipping in and out of the pores of the glass, grabbing contaminants as you move the towel. For the detailer, this should be an immediate clue that the glass needs decontaminated and the glass pores sealed. For outside glass, the process required to decontaminate depends on the type of decontamination. On new cars, the culprit is almost always rail dust/industrial fallout. I would start with a wheel cleaner to dissolve any iron, rinse, strip wash, rinse, then clay, wash and rinse, then glass polish, wash and rinse, dry, then seal. The sealant will last for MUCH longer as well, provided you follow standard paint protection maintenance (don't use harsh chemicals to wash). I have had glass sealant last for as long as 2 months on freshly decontaminated glass. Inside glass can usually be decontaminated using any organic-based soap. Dish soap is commonly used. I have also had very good luck using diluted Adam's Car Shampoo in distilled water. Inside glass can be sealed and I recommend it after decontamination as it makes subsequent cleaning that much faster and easier. As to the question about why inside glass gets so dirty so quickly...well it's a dirty topic. Off-gassing, environmental factors such as sunlight and ambient temperatures, poor HVAC filtering, rolling down windows, and most notably, the occupants, all contribute to dirty automobile interiors and glass. Human beings, as it turns out, are filthy creatures. We shed skin, we perspire, we breathe and cough, and we sneeze. All normal functions, but each of these functions plays a role in how quickly your inside glass (and every other surface) gets contaminated. The oils and moisture we expel from our bodies adhere to the interior surfaces and glass very well. These contaminants build up until we notice them and try to clean the glass. In my daily driver, it takes about a week before I notice the cloudiness in my interior glass. Yeah, like I said. FILTHY, we are! The new Adams Glass Towels are certainly effective. But they are most effective when the same mentality is applied to glass maintenance as is taken with paint maintenance. Right tool, right chemical, right process, and your glass will come out perfect every time. Edited for clarity.

Focus ST Forums is where I learned about Adam's Polishes from a lengthy detailing post from TheRyan. In general I was very much into car care, but took a lot of bad advice as good advice. "Soap is soap" and "Wax is wax" were two common pearls of wisdom I came to embrace. After several years of trying this product and that product, searching for what would make my ride look its best (and ultimately leading to general disappointment) I finally found Adams through the forum I noted above. Then someone linked one of Adam's videos. I was stunned. I watched every Adam's video I could find and I started off with Adam's Essentials Wash Kit. The results I started seeing just from proper technique combined with superior products blew my mind. I have spent more money with Adam's than I care to disclose - but I don't regret a single cent of it, which I cannot say about the pile of crappy OTC products now stuffed in a box. Great thread idea!

Technique, pads, and product play a role in the results moreso than the DA polisher. The quality and power of the DA polisher will determine how fast you get those results with what effort. Make sense?

I think your approach has some merit, but different areas of the vehicle almost always require different levels of correction. Before I even pull out my equipment and products, I assess the condition of the paint. I don't own a paint gauge (yet), so I visually inspect the entire car. Then I look for signs of repainted panels and ask the owner if the vehicle has ever been repaired. Then I give a quote if this is a customer's vehicle. I mark the worst areas with painter's tape, and take note of areas which need little or no correction. There's no sense in making four passes if it only needs one or two. Then I tape off a test section in an area needing heavy correction and start compound polishing with foam. This gives me an opportunity to see how the paint reacts to compounding and if I need to get a more aggressive pad. I agree that working slower is more in line with the 'touch it right, touch it once' mentality. I also think a bit more preparation and thoughtfulness before you begin can save time in the long run. Cheers!

Correct. What I like to do with the cannon is foam the entire vehicle and let it drip until I can see most of the paint. Then foam it again. Then hand wash using the foam on the vehicle and two rinse buckets for the wash media. Using this method with strip wash leaves the paint bare. It's ready to clay (if needed) and correct at this point.

No need to add APC to Strip Wash. Do check the lubricity of your wash water, and add more Strip Wash as needed. 1-2 oz for a few gallons of water is plenty in my experience.

I learned on a PC. They are durable, capable, inexpensive machines and an incredible value. If I have two words for anyone new to compounding and polishing: Residue Control. You either need to clean the pad you're using, or swap out the pad. I use four pads on a sedan, six pads on a truck or van. It's a larger up front investment, but your pads last four times longer. The upside to managing residue is better, quicker results for less effort. Less wear on your arms, less wear on your machine and pads. When your compounding pad fills up with residue (a combination of polish and clear or paint), it can no longer cut effectively. Heat builds up on the surface of the pad, causing the polish to flash prematurely. Friction increases tremendously, and those forces are pushed to the hook and loop fasteners. Heat builds up very quidkly here and eventually you'll have pad failure where the heat has either broken down the adhesives keeping the pad together, or melts the hook and loop. I am not trying to scare you off of pursuing paint correction - quite the opposite. I want you to be more prepared than I was so you see the best results for as little effort as possible. So you can focus on the technique rather than how tired your arms are from trying to remove residue. Ask me how I know.

Thank you all for the kind words!

Lack of residue control is what is causing the PCP to be difficult to remove. Sure the heat contributes, you should be compounding and polishing in the shade whenever possible, but the residue is the real problem. With the age of your beautiful 'Vette, I'd be willing to bet you're pulling some dead clear off. All that dead clear plus the product goes into the pad and goes right back onto your paint, making the residue VERY difficult to remove. Either clean your pad every couple of panels, or switch the pad out. If not wiping reside between stages, I would highly recommend using several pads for each stage. The reside from the previous stage just gets buried in the pad.