lovenhim
08-26-2018, 09:58 AM
AUTO DETAILING FOR BLIND FOLKS
I thought that I would type about what I did and how I did it. Kinda vague right? I thought I would type a little bit about cleaning on my Mom’s/Step Dad’s 2008 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4. The truck has 123,000 miles on it and was purchased used back in 2016. It replaced a red 2004 Pontiac Vibe GT. Somehow a little hatchback is not much of a hobby farm vehicle. It is hard to carry feed for:
two horses
two pot belly pigs
a few ducks and geese
five dogs
twenty chickens
I almost forgot, the hay for the horses. Somehow all of that does not fit inside a hatchback.
I was born with Optic Atrophy. My eyes and brain are fine but the patch cable between them is not. I am very near sited and do not have depth perception. My vision numbers are 20/800 or 20/1600 depending on the test used. There is no usable or measurable vision in the right. I am not black blind. In public I use a white cane. Now I am goofy and like comedy so when I was at my state rehab center for the blind they gave me what I called a “stick”. They tell me that it is not a sick…..as a stick is made of wood, it is a cane. OK, fine, however I have no idea why when blind people take mobility at a blind school they give us all pool cue “sticks”. With the tip on that thing you could not miss. Since I could not call it a stick, I named it “Bob”. This was because of the use of the word by the comedian Rowan Atkinson. YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOdfNwD9cEA&frags=pl%2Cwn)
I have always washed and waxed my parents vehicles over the years by hand. I have been washing and waxing for family since 1987 all by hand. I have always used retail level products and never knew about the professional grade stuff until I came to the forum. If I did not end up cleaning their cars, they would end up being cleaned with kitchen chemicals or taking a tour of various swirl factories around the area.
With the 2008 Dodge I had full control of what I did with it and I was left alone to do it with no one watching over me. I broke the project up in to three days and I have a total of twenty hours in cleaning the truck. In cleaning this truck I went through the entire Weird Al Yankovic album catalog, That is fifteen albums. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/####/Squeeze_Box:_The_Complete_Works_of_%22Weird_Al%22_ Yankovic)
Day one:
Brushed and vacuumed the interior
Cleaned the cloth seats, carpets, dash, plastics, etc with diluted Simple Green
Cleaned badly faded exterior black plastics with Simple Green and a soft tire brush
Day Two:
Washed the truck with Meguiars Gold Class.
Cleaned wheels and tires with Whesley’s Bleach White and a soft brush
Dried the truck with a very nice Griots microfiber drying towel. It was donated to me and was just awesome in how it worked. I was use to towels or a cheap parts store drying towel. The Griots towel dried with one pass of the towel.The wheels and tires were dried using old microfiber cloths.
I used a retail Mothers clay bar kit to clay the entire truck including the glass, chrome bumpers, headlights, and tail lights.
A Mothers Power Ball was used on the wheels and bumpers with Mothers Chrome Polish. Here is my tip, forget the cordless drill unless you have a lot of batteries. I used a $20 Hyper Touch Walmart 3/8 corded drill. Constant power and no dead batteries.
Now, on to the part that includes a $49 Harbor Freight DA polisher and more donated gear by forum members. I was sent an assortment of 5.5 inch pads. I do not know what they were so in order to use them I sorted them by how they felt to touch. The products used on the truck were Mothers Professional Rubbing Compound, Mothers Professional Polishing Compound, and Mothers California Gold Synthetic Wax. I tried a test spot using what felt like a medium pad and the polish. It did not remove the crates and swirls. I then tried a more aggressive pad but not my most aggressive, and the compound. That did the trick the best that I could tell. I ended up using who knows what pad or who knows what cut with the Mothers compound. Here comes a tricky bit because of my eye site. I could not tell if the compound or polish was buffing off or running dry, or hazing too much. To be safe I sprayed the panel with Mothers Instant Detailer to make sure things did not dry out on me. I was not aggressive with the compound. I did not do passes until it looked good. I could not tell that kind of detail. I simply did four section passes at speed level 5. Even though the truck was under a car port, I was running into some sun issues and could not get all of the truck out of the sun. I only did part of the polishing on that truck using a less aggressive pad of I have no idea what, three section passes on speed four. I also sprayed the panel with Mothers Instant Detailer to make sure things did not dry out on me.
Day Three:
I finished up the polishing of the truck. Then I went to the wax. I used Mothers California Gold Synthetic Wax with a Meguiars black foam pad on the DA. I applied the wax using speed two. I cleaned the glass with Invisible Glass and treated all the black plastics and tires with Mothers Back To Black.
In using the DA polisher I had to use some there senses to make up for the lack of site. I did use a fat black line on the backing plate and it did help. I had to use feel and sound to help with what they eyes did not see. For example, if the pad was not flat the machine would vibrate more and the sound would change. Sure enough that black line was not moving. I just adjusted my technique. Same thing on the sharp body line of the front finders and bedsides.
Products Used:
Meguiars Gold Class car wash
unknown wash mitt
Firemans style hose nossle
Mothers Professional compound and polish
Mothers synthetic wax
Whesleys Bleach White
Mothers tire, wheel, and wheel well brushes
Various buffing pads (donated)
Griots drying towel (donated)
Gyeon microfiber cloths (donated)
Mothers clay bar kit
Mothers Back To Black
Invisible Glass
Ear Plugs. (That DA is Noisy)
Drank a gallon of water a day.
I had a lot of fun cleaning on that truck. Yes, it was work but it was also therapy. I had three nice days of right at 80 for the high. Now, it is back in the low 90s so our black Nissan hatchback will have to wait a bit longer. I wanted to do the truck first as I knew it would take a lot longer plus it was in worse shape. Thus making the Nissan job faster and less work. Do the harder stuff first. Thanks to everyone for all of the help and support. This is a fun hobby and it is also a way that I can give back to my parents by helping them out.
https://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/redirect-to/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2F jsrdrnr%2F44263356131%2Fin%2Fphotostream%2F
I Just Finished My First Detail With A DA Polisher (https://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/auto-detailing-101-a/120568-i-just-finished-my-first-detail-da-polisher.html)
I thought that I would type about what I did and how I did it. Kinda vague right? I thought I would type a little bit about cleaning on my Mom’s/Step Dad’s 2008 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4. The truck has 123,000 miles on it and was purchased used back in 2016. It replaced a red 2004 Pontiac Vibe GT. Somehow a little hatchback is not much of a hobby farm vehicle. It is hard to carry feed for:
two horses
two pot belly pigs
a few ducks and geese
five dogs
twenty chickens
I almost forgot, the hay for the horses. Somehow all of that does not fit inside a hatchback.
I was born with Optic Atrophy. My eyes and brain are fine but the patch cable between them is not. I am very near sited and do not have depth perception. My vision numbers are 20/800 or 20/1600 depending on the test used. There is no usable or measurable vision in the right. I am not black blind. In public I use a white cane. Now I am goofy and like comedy so when I was at my state rehab center for the blind they gave me what I called a “stick”. They tell me that it is not a sick…..as a stick is made of wood, it is a cane. OK, fine, however I have no idea why when blind people take mobility at a blind school they give us all pool cue “sticks”. With the tip on that thing you could not miss. Since I could not call it a stick, I named it “Bob”. This was because of the use of the word by the comedian Rowan Atkinson. YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOdfNwD9cEA&frags=pl%2Cwn)
I have always washed and waxed my parents vehicles over the years by hand. I have been washing and waxing for family since 1987 all by hand. I have always used retail level products and never knew about the professional grade stuff until I came to the forum. If I did not end up cleaning their cars, they would end up being cleaned with kitchen chemicals or taking a tour of various swirl factories around the area.
With the 2008 Dodge I had full control of what I did with it and I was left alone to do it with no one watching over me. I broke the project up in to three days and I have a total of twenty hours in cleaning the truck. In cleaning this truck I went through the entire Weird Al Yankovic album catalog, That is fifteen albums. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/####/Squeeze_Box:_The_Complete_Works_of_%22Weird_Al%22_ Yankovic)
Day one:
Brushed and vacuumed the interior
Cleaned the cloth seats, carpets, dash, plastics, etc with diluted Simple Green
Cleaned badly faded exterior black plastics with Simple Green and a soft tire brush
Day Two:
Washed the truck with Meguiars Gold Class.
Cleaned wheels and tires with Whesley’s Bleach White and a soft brush
Dried the truck with a very nice Griots microfiber drying towel. It was donated to me and was just awesome in how it worked. I was use to towels or a cheap parts store drying towel. The Griots towel dried with one pass of the towel.The wheels and tires were dried using old microfiber cloths.
I used a retail Mothers clay bar kit to clay the entire truck including the glass, chrome bumpers, headlights, and tail lights.
A Mothers Power Ball was used on the wheels and bumpers with Mothers Chrome Polish. Here is my tip, forget the cordless drill unless you have a lot of batteries. I used a $20 Hyper Touch Walmart 3/8 corded drill. Constant power and no dead batteries.
Now, on to the part that includes a $49 Harbor Freight DA polisher and more donated gear by forum members. I was sent an assortment of 5.5 inch pads. I do not know what they were so in order to use them I sorted them by how they felt to touch. The products used on the truck were Mothers Professional Rubbing Compound, Mothers Professional Polishing Compound, and Mothers California Gold Synthetic Wax. I tried a test spot using what felt like a medium pad and the polish. It did not remove the crates and swirls. I then tried a more aggressive pad but not my most aggressive, and the compound. That did the trick the best that I could tell. I ended up using who knows what pad or who knows what cut with the Mothers compound. Here comes a tricky bit because of my eye site. I could not tell if the compound or polish was buffing off or running dry, or hazing too much. To be safe I sprayed the panel with Mothers Instant Detailer to make sure things did not dry out on me. I was not aggressive with the compound. I did not do passes until it looked good. I could not tell that kind of detail. I simply did four section passes at speed level 5. Even though the truck was under a car port, I was running into some sun issues and could not get all of the truck out of the sun. I only did part of the polishing on that truck using a less aggressive pad of I have no idea what, three section passes on speed four. I also sprayed the panel with Mothers Instant Detailer to make sure things did not dry out on me.
Day Three:
I finished up the polishing of the truck. Then I went to the wax. I used Mothers California Gold Synthetic Wax with a Meguiars black foam pad on the DA. I applied the wax using speed two. I cleaned the glass with Invisible Glass and treated all the black plastics and tires with Mothers Back To Black.
In using the DA polisher I had to use some there senses to make up for the lack of site. I did use a fat black line on the backing plate and it did help. I had to use feel and sound to help with what they eyes did not see. For example, if the pad was not flat the machine would vibrate more and the sound would change. Sure enough that black line was not moving. I just adjusted my technique. Same thing on the sharp body line of the front finders and bedsides.
Products Used:
Meguiars Gold Class car wash
unknown wash mitt
Firemans style hose nossle
Mothers Professional compound and polish
Mothers synthetic wax
Whesleys Bleach White
Mothers tire, wheel, and wheel well brushes
Various buffing pads (donated)
Griots drying towel (donated)
Gyeon microfiber cloths (donated)
Mothers clay bar kit
Mothers Back To Black
Invisible Glass
Ear Plugs. (That DA is Noisy)
Drank a gallon of water a day.
I had a lot of fun cleaning on that truck. Yes, it was work but it was also therapy. I had three nice days of right at 80 for the high. Now, it is back in the low 90s so our black Nissan hatchback will have to wait a bit longer. I wanted to do the truck first as I knew it would take a lot longer plus it was in worse shape. Thus making the Nissan job faster and less work. Do the harder stuff first. Thanks to everyone for all of the help and support. This is a fun hobby and it is also a way that I can give back to my parents by helping them out.
https://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/redirect-to/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2F jsrdrnr%2F44263356131%2Fin%2Fphotostream%2F
I Just Finished My First Detail With A DA Polisher (https://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/auto-detailing-101-a/120568-i-just-finished-my-first-detail-da-polisher.html)