shmedley

Hi Chris,
 
 

We have something possibly in the works, but I can't guarantee it will happen. That's all I can say for now.

Hi, I'm in Minooka, next to Joliet.

Welcome to your newest addiction from a fellow Illinois resident. Where in the state are you at?

I had the honor of working on a buddies 1977 Pontiac Trans Am SE yesterday, Yup, a real Bandit TA! I brought Kyle along with me. Several of you may recognize Kyle, he's been working for me at some of the Carlisle Events recently, and really knows how to run a polisher.
Mike had bought the car off eBay almost two years ago and after closely looking it over, decided it needed a bit of work.

 

A full Rotisserie Restoration ensued.

 

After 15 months it was out of paint, Cut and Buffed and back into Mike's garage.

Mike wanted to get the paint much closer to perfect before the yards of graphics are applied, and that's where Kyle and I stepped in. Mike owns a Porter cable, and has all the Adam's products to do the job, but was aware of the time it would take him to do the complete correction with the tools he had by himself. He cleaned and clayed the car prior to our arrival.
I loaded the Magnum up with about everything we'd need on Friday evening and picked up Kyle early Sayurday morning. We got to Mike's at 9:00am, unloaded the Magnum and looked over the TA.
The car looked really nice to start with and we were excited to get started.
First order of business was to start taping off places we didn't want to touch with a machine.

 

I placed Adam's Swirl Killer into Mike's hands and we worked a test area to figure what we were going to have to do to correct the paint to his satisfaction.

It took Heavy Correcting Compound on a Blue Foam Pad, followed by Paint Correcting Polish on an Orange Foam Pad, and finished off with Paint Finishing Polish on a White Foam Pad. In several areas we started with the Blue Microfiber Pad in Place of the Blue Foam.
The rear deck lid, spoiler and surrounding areas were in need of extra attention, so while Mike and I sorted out a plan, Kyle jumped right in. Here he is with the Rupes Mini. Kyle switched back and forth between the Rupes Mini and Adam's Swirl Killer Mini. Kyle noted a slight weight increase in the Swirl Killer Mini but found Adam's machine to not have quite as much vibration as the Rupes. He liked both equally.

Here he is with the Swirl Killer Mini on the rear bumper.

Mike stuck with the 15mm Long Throw Swirl Killer

Kyle used the 15mm Rupes Bigfoot Mark II and I with my 15mm Rupes Bigfoot LHR ES

The Rupes iBird Nano also came in handy inside the front fender vents and in the recessed area of the rear bumper at the license plate where even the Mini's were too big to reach completely.
 
A local fire company was holding a chicken bar-b-q not far from Mike's place, and while we worked Mike's wife went out and brought us each a half chicken dinner for lunch!
A Panel Kyle was working Before Heavy Correcting Compound

After Paint Correcting Polish

Same panel finished with Paint Finishing Polish

Another panel Kyle was working
Before

During

After

The white specks are dust and there's a slight bit of polish residue creating a haze at around 8:00 in this above pic, but believe me, the paint was like a mirror.
 
Here's a couple videos Kyle made of the front bumper while he was working it


We wrapped up around 5:00pm, eight hours work, with three guys, equals 24 man hours on this car. She came out looking sweet!

You can, but be careful. Original means just that, it ain't comin back !! No clear coat means no extra protection between your pad/polish and the paint so go slow. If you take your time it will come out great ! Here are some pics of 2 rare cars I did that were trashed, all original paint, the Mustang was in a storage container for 12 years before it saw the light of day ! All Adams products used to perfect these beauties !

Brilliant Glaze on the inside of the window is the best product hack ever!  Tried it for the first time a few weeks ago and is now part of my normal routine.

If only one, it would be detail spray, followed by one of everything else. You say you have 10 different companies product on your shelf, I think you could ditch all of it and go with equivalent duty Adams products, if like a lot of us, you will wish you had done it sooner. Yes, the products, and company, are that good.

Had a great day at work! Stopped off at Stop and Shop for some Prime Rib for tomorrow's dinner, went and got into the Jeep and smelled chewing gum, really fresh chewing gum! Picked up my right butt cheek and found I had sat in some fresh gum! Flipping great! Pants are shot and the perforated leather in the Jeep didn't look to good. Got 99% of the gum off the seat so I go grab some Total interior Detailer to clean the seat up and make all happy again. I spray the MF towel and lay the bottle down on the Weather Tech floor mat. I wipe the seat down and I go to grab the bottle and notice half the bottle leaked out onto the floor mat!!! Not happy, but the seat is clean!
The moral of the story is, no matter how good the day is going there is always time to get kicked in the ding ding!!

How can you tell something would scratch from a screenshot from a live video feed? Just a suggestion to maybe wait to try something out before jumping to conclusions.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks for the constructive feedback guys 
 
Here's some early hi-res pictures to Adamsforums members first, since I love you guys so much, despite the negative feedback 
 
New Premium Microfiber Wash Sponge. It's a foam sponge wrapped in essentially a microfiber material very similar to our Single Soft Towels.

 
New Adam's Ultra Plush Drying Towel
 

 
New Adam's Wood Coasters
 

All coming soon. More info to follow. The white bags from the Instagram story are just small shopping bags to put products in for walk-in customers, events, etc.

Was able to hang my sign this past weekend.  Had to rearrange a few things (as you can see... I have several signs.  )
I'm very pleased with how it looks on the wall and thanks again to Dan for the great promotion for the forum members.
 

Welcome to your newest addiction from a local Illinois resident

I was at the Barrett-Jackson auction for a few days last week/weekend and had the opportunity to detail this crazy creation from Bairs Customs!

It's a on-off custom build, 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner. Sherwin-Williams custom paint color-Purple Rage, blown big inch hemi, discs all the way around, plenty of carbon fiber, big wheels, etc thru and thru.

This was the debut of the vehicle and it was being shown in the Dodge booth/area of the auction. It was fresh out of the shop and paint booth and had a few issues. Sanding marks, some scratches and plenty of swirls.

It needed to look GREAT for the display as well as for it's debut at the Palm Beach Cars and Coffee on Sunday.

It was cut with Adam's polishes fast correcting compound, MF pads, Swirl Killer polisher (both 15mm full size and their mini) along with Adam's correcting polish and finishing polish with the corresponding pads.

It took some time to cover all the real estate, but in the end, the results were worth it!!

Some pics:
 
 











 

Brown tires and wheels covered in brake dust. My fiancée just gives me this "look" and says, "Dustin, not everyone can have $4000 worth of Adam's supplies." And yes, I've tallied my stash lol.

Oh dear lord...I'd need my own whole thread to cover all my quirks and vices.

I would never join a club that would have a person like me as a member.

I can't tell you how many people came up to me at car shows now and ask me what I use on my car. Last year. This did not happen and I was using the regular store bought stuff. Today was only my second show this season with around 150 cars.
 
I placed in the top ten and that surprised the heck out of me because I had a ton of competition and three Mustangs in show.  This is apparently a Ford loving area I live in and I'm kinda use to it by now. today my car looked awesome.
 
Had a coat of patriot on it and two coats of brilliant glaze. VRT on the tires and In and out spray on all the black molding. wipers and fog light bezels. Finished it off with the leather conditioner and Glaze on all the exterior glass.
 
People asked me what I used  I opened my trunk and pulled out my Adams detail bag and let them see and smell . Packed full of Adams products.
 
For those of you taking your car to shows I would highly recommend the patriot wax and Brilliant Glaze together.       
 
 

Thanks for all the love. Shmedley, I'm from Round lake. It's close to Gurnee. Are you in Illinois also?

Just for you guys hehe

right after politicians and road salt 

WAX RE-MELT
 
My tub of Americana Paste Wax was about half used up, and had really broken up.  This wax is not the new version, but about 2 years old. 
 
To re-melt it, I used a double-boiler, adding just enough water to the level that the wax container, without the lid, just started to float.
 

 
 
With the heat on medium, I watched the wax to see when the smallest specs just started to melt, then reduced the heat to low.
 

 

 
 
On low heat, it took about 20 minutes for the wax to completely melt.  It is important to melt the wax VERY slowly, with just enough heat to get it right over the melting temperature.  Using higher heat to melt faster can degrade the wax.  Do not leave unattended on the stove, watch for melting and adjust the heat as low as possible.
 

 
 
Note that if you have just a few cracks in the wax, you can still get it onto an applicator, so I would not re-melt for that.  But if it is broken into chunks like this one, then the only way to get it onto an applicator is to rub a chunk onto the face of the foam.  In short, only re-melt if really needed.
 
Once melted, I carefully removed it and let it cool off and solidify.
 

 

 
 
Also, be very, very careful with melted wax.  At 180+ degrees it can cause severe burns and will stick to the skin, causing even more damage.  Take special care, and do not leave unattended on the stove where a child could get hurt.
 
One last tip, this is best done when the lady of the house is out.  You don't want to get in trouble for using her cookware for detailing stuff, and you certainly don't want to let her know that you can actually run the stove by yourself. 

Weather's lookin' good, hot, but no rain during the show this year I'm ready, anyone else?
 Replaced my no longer operational $91.00, on back order from Chrysler, 3rd brake light:

Simple enough to replace, only had to remove the upper spoiler to get to it:

Which required the removal of all the tail gate's inner panels to get to the three nuts and four plastic, one way, push pins:

Wet sanded some new paint and body work:

 

A little buff and polish, I needed a bit stronger cut than PCP to completely remove all the 3,000 grit sanding marks, so a compound was used on a firmer open cell foam pad to start. She finished down nicely with PCP and an orange microfiber pad followed up with PFP on a white foam pad:

Not too shabby for a 110,000 mile nine year old car that sits outside 24/7/365!

 

 
Stop on by the trailer, we'll be at the end of the Midway in Row IE in spaces 126-130. You can't miss us, look for the large inflatable Detail Spray Bottle.

I have unwanted Adam's products. The bills.

Thank you everyone for the kind words, just doing our part. My friend Santino and I picked up the puppy at the animal hospital last night and delivered her to her new owners. She's a great dog, super friendly but quiet and alert. She rode on my lap the whole way to the new owner's house while Santino was driving. It was difficult not to keep her for myself!