Hi all,
Some ramblings I thought I would add to this discussion.
The title to my how-to book is,
"The Art of Polishing Paint"
That's because I believe that the kind of work bcgreen does and the kind of work I try to do is truly an art form.
Anybody can wax a car, you know, like in the "Karate Kid", Wax-on, Wax-off, (I had a chance to buy those domain names, I hesitated and they were gone within a day or two).
It takes passion, the right tools, and the very human element of "caring" to produce a flawless finish.
That is why the only way you can take a diamond in the ruff and turn it into a Glistening Gemstone is to more or less, in your mind, adopt the car as your own. You can only put the kind of blood, sweat and tears into your labor of love if in fact you truly care about the thing you are doing, it has to be your passion.
It's crazy, I know. When I got to the point where I was never doing it for the money but instead I was doing it for
* The challenge of salvaging somebody else's toy (The typical customer I have worked for usually owns something really cool with a butchered finish, simply put, if someone can't fix it with a quality buff-out, it will have to be repainted.
* The self-satisfaction of "just doing it", (to borrow a line from "Nike")
I would often stand back before beginning to tape-off the car and ask myself, why?
I guess the answer is kind of like the answer the mountain climber gives, "because it's there".
I can tell you one thing, once you start, there is no turning back. As soon as you bring your buffer down on even one panel it's over, your committed. That's when your muscles kick in to overdrive and your focused determination override's everything, including lunch and breaks. (On the first day, I rarely stop once I begin except to down a Pepsi)
I would never want to discount any of my previous customers, or hurt their feelings, but the money has never been worth the work, it's a personal thing.
Here's a little story (I tell lots of little stories in the book, most are to teach a lesson however)
One of the hardest cars I ever buffed out was Terry Cook's highly customized, 1956 Lincoln Premier called the "Titanic". (Terry Cook is the former editor of Hot Rod magazine)
Here is a link to the car in case you have never seen or heard of it. The fender skirts alone are 9 feet long. I must say, with a 460 ford, it is a lot of fun to drive around considering it was my transportation while I was in Carmel for the Pebble Beach Concours d'elegance.
http://www.baldwinmotors.com/titanic.html
Two years ago, Terry had the car repainted and then ,"saved" the freshly painted car for me to sand down and buff out. While I appreciate the sentiment, I prefer to sand down a car with in a day or two after it has been painted, not 2 months later after the paint has "Case-Hardened".
Man O' Man, the paint on this car was "HARD".
I almost didn't do it. I did a "Test Spot", (covered in excruciating detail in my how-to book) and then stood back and shook my head, No! I wasn't going to do it.
My shop was the third floor in an 5 floor parking garage. I had a bucket of water, (no hose), and two 8' florescent lights. I got the car about 4:00 or 5:00pm. A couple more hours and it would be dark, very dark inside the parking garage.
I sat down and ate a sandwich and thought about it for a while and then decided, yes, I would do it.
I started sanding it down at approximately 6:00pm. I used the Meguiar's Unigrit #1500 paper, followed by the #2000 grit.
After sanding I put the finish through three very thorough machine buffing procedures followed by three hand steps. After I wiped that last coat of polish off, I pulled all of the tape and paper off and then detailed it out, (to me, polishing paint is polishing paint, detailing is something you do with a toothbrush).
I worked throughout the night, I never stopped until it was completely "done" which was 3:00pm the next day.
As soon as I was finished, the car was pulled out into the very middle of a car show in Monterey, CA on a eye blinding bright, hot August day. It was on display for the RM Auction to be held that weekend. I couldn't believe where they parked it, it was smack dab in the middle of a concrete arena with now shade anywhere. It was surrounded my mostly original and restored cars. Because of it's color and what it was, a 50's custom it stood out like a sore thumb. If I had made a mistake, it was going to show up big time.
Thankfully, Meguiar's proved itself, yet again in my eyes and the thousands of people that were there.
The next night it went to "Cars and Cigars" where it was placed under very bright outdoor lights, I'm not sure what kind, but very very bright. I prepped Scrape for both of these show also, thankfully it was still looking good since the last polishing job.
Now that I look back, I'm glad I chose to buff it out even though it was a lot of hard work.
Because the paint was so hard I had to really push on my trusty Makita buffer in order to get my sanding marks out. I pushed so hard, I put a crack in one of the stantions in my artificial leg in the process. To get through the rest of the weekend I put two stainless steel hose clamps around the cracked stantion and crossed my fingers that it would hold until I got back to Oregon.
But I digress.
Point being,
After calling on hundreds of body shops and detail shops and seeing how production work is done, and then talking with thousands of your average "Joe Consumers", about their car's finish, what they have and what they actually want. I could see that there is a huge chasm between the two sides.
I know from experience that a lot of the folks in the body shop and detailing industries want to do their best work but for reasons out of their control, they are unable to. For the most part, Speed is King, and usually, not always, but usually the cheapest products on the market are the products of choice, not by the workers but by the shop managers or the detail shop owners. Wool pads last longer than foam buffing pads so while they cost about the same to purchase initially, the wool pad is cheaper because it last so much longer. It also instill it's own scratch called buffer swirl.
The reason achieving a totally flawless finish is hard is because the thing your are working on is a thin oil-based "film" that is easily dulled and/or easily scratched. If creating totally, swirl-free flawless finishes were easy, everyone could do it. It's not, it takes experience, care and the right tools. And that's where Meguiar's fits in. They make the right tools. I would never tackle a job like Terry Cook's Titanic if I didn't have an arsenal of Meguiar's tools, (products) at my side.
Now while it's true I now work for Meguiar's as a writer, the above is simply the testimony of a satisfied customer. Anybody that knows me know I always tell people to use what they like. If they don't have a product or a system, then I am more than happy to show them what works for me. I did this before I went to work for Meguiar's and yes, I do it now that I do work for Meguiar's.
On my computer monitor I have a little saying taped on the top of my computer monitor that I read everyday before I begin thinking and typing, it says,
"A Professional Salesperson solves their customer's problem".
If you can solve somebody's problem, they sell themselves on your products. At least that's what I believe, I don't ever try to "sell" anyone, I just try to solve their problems, (paint polishing problems that is).
Take are all, I'm not sure when the next workshop will be, I hope soon, their fun to do, until then,
I have copy to write,
Mike Phillips