TheWolf

BLACK FRIDAY 2019
 
Releasing Thursday In Store In Anaheim, California At 10:00am PST On November 21st
725 N. Shepard St. Anaheim, CA 92806
 
Releasing Thursday In Store In Denver, Colorado At 9:00am MST On November 21st
8225 N. Valley Hwy. Thornton, CO 80221
 
Releasing Online Friday (Time To Be Determined) November 22nd
AdamsPolishes.com
 

 
(not all new releases are shown, there will be some additional surprises)

Thank you for your input Wolf. That was my main concern was degrading the coating to which ill stick with my other option of using a rinseless wash. Thanks

@vollychief my son was diagnosed with an ASD (small hole) in his heart a few years ago.  Thankfully there was a fix and after Successful open heart surgery (shout out to the great Dr at NY Presbyterian!!)  repaired the hole.  After a few months he was cleared to play ANY sport.  
 For the past few years he has worn a chest guard for baseball and basketball. Below are the two options.  He usually wears the Evoshield for baseball and opts for the softer type one for basketball.  
The Evoshield is harder and gets custom fit to the chest.  Id opt for that, bc if u take and elbow to the chest it would def disperse the pressure.  

Nice job!

Took a couple days to shine up the wife's Compass.  The wheels were nasty!  It took a few times with TRC to get them back to black.  Washed, Clayed, Polished (Revive) and Americana Paste Wax.  I think Jeep hates detailers BTW....that honeycomb grill is ridiculous....
 
Tire and Jeep Before Pics:

 
 
AND here is the final product after all said and done:

Didn't notice the smushed pecan on the tire until after the pic  .

Cleaned up the Shine Stop getting ready for tomorrow's certification class!
 

Thursday night, did a Ceramic Waterless Wash on the Raptor, and a quick vacuum and application of Leather Conditioner, so that it was real shiny and smelling good for its oil change at the dealership.  Most of the service dept guys know that I use Adam's Polishes, so I like to make sure it looks good.  My service rep took his coworker out and told him, "you wanna see the cleanest truck that will ever roll through here?"
 
Today, did an inside and out detail on the little Rouge Sport.  H2O Guard & Gloss makes this metallic gray paint really pop!  So much easier to detail this little go-cart, compared to my big truck.
 

 

Thursday night, did a Ceramic Waterless Wash on the Raptor, and a quick vacuum and application of Leather Conditioner, so that it was real shiny and smelling good for its oil change at the dealership.  Most of the service dept guys know that I use Adam's Polishes, so I like to make sure it looks good.  My service rep took his coworker out and told him, "you wanna see the cleanest truck that will ever roll through here?"
 
Today, did an inside and out detail on the little Rouge Sport.  H2O Guard & Gloss makes this metallic gray paint really pop!  So much easier to detail this little go-cart, compared to my big truck.
 

 

Thursday night, did a Ceramic Waterless Wash on the Raptor, and a quick vacuum and application of Leather Conditioner, so that it was real shiny and smelling good for its oil change at the dealership.  Most of the service dept guys know that I use Adam's Polishes, so I like to make sure it looks good.  My service rep took his coworker out and told him, "you wanna see the cleanest truck that will ever roll through here?"
 
Today, did an inside and out detail on the little Rouge Sport.  H2O Guard & Gloss makes this metallic gray paint really pop!  So much easier to detail this little go-cart, compared to my big truck.
 

 

Thursday night, did a Ceramic Waterless Wash on the Raptor, and a quick vacuum and application of Leather Conditioner, so that it was real shiny and smelling good for its oil change at the dealership.  Most of the service dept guys know that I use Adam's Polishes, so I like to make sure it looks good.  My service rep took his coworker out and told him, "you wanna see the cleanest truck that will ever roll through here?"
 
Today, did an inside and out detail on the little Rouge Sport.  H2O Guard & Gloss makes this metallic gray paint really pop!  So much easier to detail this little go-cart, compared to my big truck.
 

 

Thursday night, did a Ceramic Waterless Wash on the Raptor, and a quick vacuum and application of Leather Conditioner, so that it was real shiny and smelling good for its oil change at the dealership.  Most of the service dept guys know that I use Adam's Polishes, so I like to make sure it looks good.  My service rep took his coworker out and told him, "you wanna see the cleanest truck that will ever roll through here?"
 
Today, did an inside and out detail on the little Rouge Sport.  H2O Guard & Gloss makes this metallic gray paint really pop!  So much easier to detail this little go-cart, compared to my big truck.
 

 

32 degrees is too cold to wash.  As long as the water does not freeze, then I wash.
 
I am not sure what you are asking about the H2O Guard & Gloss, but it can be applied as a standalone product.  It does not have to have any wax or sealant under it.  That being said, some people do use it as a topper over Paint Sealant, but it is fine to use it by itself.

Applying a silicone-based tire dressing like Tire Shine over the top of a water-based dressing like VRT is not recommended, since it would result in the Tire Shine being easily washed off.  The reason Tire Shine lasts longer than VRT is because the silicone soaks into and sticks to the tire rubber better than a water-based dressing.

Yes, you are in second place!
 
Sorry, I did not see the notification from your @mention because it was on Notification page 3 after all his Likes! 

I will take the Canadian one.  My available stickers are in the first post of this thread.  I will also trade for more if I have additional ones you want.

I sent you a PM.

Here is a pic showing the advantage of using a foam cannon to get the shampoo on the truck and save time. I started with a good pressure washer rinse and then foamed it with the MTM Foam Cannon using three ounces of Adam's Car Wash Shampoo and a half ounce of Rinseless Wash. I still use a bucket of clean water to rinse out the wash pad between panels.

I am still experimenting with the best foaming solution concentration to get the thickest foam with better hang-time with my pressure washer. For this pic, I was using DI water through the foam cannon. One downside to the quality of the sealant and wax on the truck is that the foam just slips right off!
 


Also a few pics during a recent rain storm showing the excellent beading.
 

 

By the way, Tate, here's one of the best forum articles on here, IMO, from @TheWolf about his Raptor... Check it out!
 
 

Wheel Cleaning and Polishing
 
While I routinely deep clean the wheels and tires twice a year when I take them off to rotate them, after 2.5 years they were in need of a machine polish to remove minor swirls and a few larger scratches from having fun in the sand dunes.
 
I lifted the truck with my new Ranger Quickjack to remove the wheels.
 

 
 
After pressure washing to remove most of the crud, I cleaned barrels of the wheels with All Purpose Cleaner, and used Tire & Rubber Cleaner on the backs of the tires.
 

 
 
Switching to the fronts, I hit them with the Foam Cannon using Strip Wash, then did the tires with Tire & Rubber Cleaner.
 

 
 
After drying with the Master Blaster Revolution, I brought them into the garage for inspection.  There were minor swirls as shown on this center cap.
 

 
 
The first step of machine polishing with the Rupes Nano was done using Correcting Polish and the Rupes Blue Coarse Pad.
 

 
 
The 1.5-inch pads on this little machine made it possible to polish the tight areas.
 

 
 
The second step of machine polishing with Finishing Polish and the Rupes Yellow Fine Pad.  This photo shows the use of the 2.75-inch pad for polishing the faces of the wheels
 

 
 
Level of correction was very good.
 

 

 
 
Next up, Ceramic Coating!
 
 

Finally got around to upgrading the lighting in the garage.
 
I started by replacing all the halogen bulbs in the 15 canister lights to LED bulbs (9W 4000K wide floods).  The light from these is whiter than the halogen bulbs, and they will not create all the heat that the old bulbs did.  These canister lights provide task lighting over the counters and above some of the stationary tools in the garage.
 

 
 
Next up was lots of lighting for detailing.  I chose the Utilitech Pro twin-tube 4-foot strip lights from Lowes.  These provide 3600 lumens using 40 watts, at a color temp of 4000K.  The selling point for me was the ability to link these together, end-to-end, with included connectors, which eliminates the need to have a ceiling junction box for each fixture.
 
Given the level of investment, and not quite sure how many I would need (even with calcs of lumens per square foot), I did a test install on the single car side of the garage with four of the fixtures.  The light output and color was good, and I ended up adding two more fixtures to this side for a total of six.
 

 
 
On the larger side of the garage, where I detail the Raptor and Explorer, I started with two rows down each side, each with five fixtures.  After installing these and evaluating the light level (for fear of having too much light and being blinded), I decided that the front and rear of the space needed more light, to give even light all the way around the vehicle.  I then added two more 4-foot fixtures, and a single 2-foot fixture to each end.  This resulted in a rectangle of light measuring 20-feet long by 10-feet wide.
 

 
 
In this area, there used to be four round surface-mount ceiling lights. In order to mount the new fistures where I wanted them, I could not use the old boxes, so I cut-in four new single-gang junction boxes for each run of lights, then pulled new wire from the old boxes to feed the new fixtures.  This is where the linkable lights saved lots of work, as it would have taken much more work to cut-in and wire 16 new junction boxes.
 
The strip lights and canister lights are on different switches, so they can be used as needed.
 

 
 
I still need to get some better junction box covers for the locations of the old ceiling lights.  The covers I bought are too flimsy and don't sit flat on the ceiling.
 
Before the conversion to LED, there was 1,815 watts of incandescent lighting providing 18,945 lumens.  After the upgrade, the total is 1,015 watts providing 89,550 lumens.  Nearly five times the light output using 44% less energy.

Thanks Ed, I'm glad you found the info here useful.
 
While you could use Waterless Wash instead of Rinseless Wash for the pre-soak, it would get really expensive. I typically use the full liter of solution for a front-end pre-soak, so using straight Waterless Wash with some Car Wash Shampoo mixed in would be costly.
 
The Rinseless Wash is a concentrate, so just a few ounces of it with a few ounces of Car Wash Shampoo mixed in with a liter of water is pretty cheap.
 
If you tried to dilute the Waterless Wash with water the same way, it would not be effective.

It doesn't suck, it BLOWS!    As in nearly 7000 cubic feet of air moved per minute!

Matte Vinyl Cleaning and Protection
 
Last month, a buddy from the Ford Raptor Forum brought his very impressive Raptor over so we could work on getting his matte vinyl cleaned up and protected.
 
Started with a full wash using the pressure washer and foam cannon, then dried with the Master Blaster.
 

 
 
After pulling it into the garage, we wiped down all the vinyl with Waterless Wash to clean off any remaining gunk, and to see what else was left behind. The wipe showed some additional bug guts and vertical streaks from some trim dressing.
 
To get all that cleaned out, we hand polished the vinyl with Revive Polish and Blue Hex Grip Applicators, then wiped off the residue with Waterless Wash.
 
To give the vinyl some protection, we applied H2O Guard & Gloss using the "Dry Application Method". In this method, the product is sprayed onto a wet towel, then wiped evenly onto the vinyl. Since matte vinyl is porous, just spraying the product directly onto the vinyl can lead to an uneven application that looks blotchy or streaky.
 
At the same time, we applied the H2O Guard & Gloss to the rest of the truck: paint, plastic and rubber trim, and glass. We then switched to some lower grade plush towels to apply to the wheels and to the Line-X on the flares, running boards, and light tower.
 
Since the matte vinyl is a little tricky with this product, there were still some streaks from the wiping. To address these, we went back over all the vinyl with a slightly damp portion of a clean towel, then wiped with a dry portion of the clean towel. Any more stubborn streaks were evened out with a damp towel that had just a few sprays of H2O Guard & Gloss. The small amount of product kind of reactivates the sealant to even it out.
 

 

 

 
Some additional tips for matte vinyl:
 
A neutral pH shampoo like Adam's Car Wash Shampoo is very important, since this is the product that will be used often to clean the vinyl.
 
Never wash, clean or apply products to vinyl when it is hot to the touch. Allow the vinyl to cool down and work in the shade or a garage.
 
Do not use abrasive polishes, clay bar, or machine polish matte vinyl.
 
When hand polishing with Revive, be careful along the edges to prevent build-up. Apply the product along the edges, not back-and-forth across the edges.
 
When trying to clean off visible stains or residue that are not removed by washing, start with the least aggressive method first: Waterless Wash wipe-down after a wash, Revive Hand Polish, or Brilliant Glaze. While the most stubborn stains might required diluted All Purpose Cleaner or diluted isopropyl alcohol, these two products should only be used as a last resort, since they can both cause damage if not done properly.
 
It takes some work and technique to apply the H2O Guard & Gloss. Another easier option for protection is VRT Dressing, but since it is water-based, it will only last a few washes or rains, while the H2O Guard & Gloss will provide about two months of protection.
 

The Lowrider Seat
 
When working on the lower rockers of cars, my detailing seat was too tall, so I would use the creeper to sit on instead of sitting on the floor, but it was a little big and awkward to move around.
 
So I got another Traxion ProGear Seat and modified it so that the seat is bolted directly to the frame, instead of using the adjustable cylinder post.  This makes the seat about 5-1/2 inches lower, and I am still able to move it around with my feet.
 

 
 
Removed the post plate on the bottom of the seat, then used it to mark the frame, and drilled out the holes.  Then got some longer bolts to go through the frame and into the nuts in the seat bottom.
 

 
 
I also added some bottle holders so I don't have to put them down on the floor, where they get knocked over.
 

 
 
These Tamrac bottle holders have a flap for attaching to a belt.
 

 
 
I cut the stitches in the seam on the cover to a width that would allow the flap to slip inside, then added a stitch on each side of the flap to keep the cover from coming apart.
 

 
 
Loaded up some black Shoe Goo into a small craft syringe.
 

 
 
Injected some into the cover on both sides of the flap, to make sure it stays in place.
 

 

 
 
Added some more to the back of the bottle holder.
 

 
 
Taped them in place overnight to let the adhesive dry.
 

 
 
The bottle holders are handy, so I ordered some more to put on the other stool.