rdf
08-26-2012, 09:51 PM
I've done my cars, and those of family and friends, for a while. No pay, just for fun and to help them out. Got started in 2005 or so with Klasse twins (and used AG as an info source back then, too). Recently my brother asked me to help him with his wife's Lexus. He has his own PC, so we both worked on it. I had learned a lot of good ideas, good procedures, best practices, etc from the forum and from Mike's videos, and passed those along to him. We used Blackfire products, and they were very pleased. They met friends for lunch in the next few days, and the friends said hey, your car looks great, what did you do? My brother briefly explained the process to them.
Next day I get a text from my brother saying his friend wanted to know if I'd work on his truck. He told the friend I don't know if he's interested, we can check. I talked with him, explained I'm not a pro, here's what I do. He said he wanted to proceed. It was to be exterior only.
He drives it up, and it's this white F250 Heavy Duty Supercab 4x4 behemoth. I discovered that I am too short to work on something like that. :-) But, I did what I could.
Since the gurus here like DG501 for white pearl paint, I used 501, 601, and 105. (I know I'll get the "worthless w/o pics" banner, but ok, this is more of a "tell" than a "show" for Show N Shine ... He picked it up early, so no after shots. I was still working on it as he drove up. Besides ... it's white. Not sure I could've shown much in a pic.) In addition to the 501 combo on the paint, I did Klasse AIO on the wheels, the metal portion of the nerf bars, the gigantic mass of chromed plastic on the nose, the mirror brackets, and the light lenses. I was putting PERL on the tires and he and his wife drove up to reclaim the truck. They seemed happy with the way it looked. (He's had a local shop do a couple of details for him. He commented, not in a bad way, that I had kept it "a lot longer than they do." Yes, I'm old, and slow, and had it for parts of two days; Friday afternoon and most of Saturday.)
The money was nice, but the two best moments were: My brother telling me he got a text from the friend saying "My truck looks unbelievable", and his wife saying "When will you be rested up and ready to do another one?"
Next day I get a text from my brother saying his friend wanted to know if I'd work on his truck. He told the friend I don't know if he's interested, we can check. I talked with him, explained I'm not a pro, here's what I do. He said he wanted to proceed. It was to be exterior only.
He drives it up, and it's this white F250 Heavy Duty Supercab 4x4 behemoth. I discovered that I am too short to work on something like that. :-) But, I did what I could.
Since the gurus here like DG501 for white pearl paint, I used 501, 601, and 105. (I know I'll get the "worthless w/o pics" banner, but ok, this is more of a "tell" than a "show" for Show N Shine ... He picked it up early, so no after shots. I was still working on it as he drove up. Besides ... it's white. Not sure I could've shown much in a pic.) In addition to the 501 combo on the paint, I did Klasse AIO on the wheels, the metal portion of the nerf bars, the gigantic mass of chromed plastic on the nose, the mirror brackets, and the light lenses. I was putting PERL on the tires and he and his wife drove up to reclaim the truck. They seemed happy with the way it looked. (He's had a local shop do a couple of details for him. He commented, not in a bad way, that I had kept it "a lot longer than they do." Yes, I'm old, and slow, and had it for parts of two days; Friday afternoon and most of Saturday.)
The money was nice, but the two best moments were: My brother telling me he got a text from the friend saying "My truck looks unbelievable", and his wife saying "When will you be rested up and ready to do another one?"