Autogeek Boat Detail 5-15-15

[ihaveacamaro]

On May 15th, I got to detail a boat with Mike Phillips and a rag tag crew of detailers @ Autogeek! It was a ton of fun, but lots of hard work and here is a journey of what we went through. Thanks for looking :)


http://i.imgur.com/Vm3wt7c.jpg

Got to the Autogeek headquarters early in the morning around 8:30 AM ready for a long, but fun and rewarding day. Had to drive about an hour and a half to get there.

Note: some of these processes and products are talked about in Mike Phillips' upcoming book so I can't say more than I've written.

Note 2: I'm not an employee of AG nor was I paid to do this. I did get free pizza from the owner of the boat though so that was nice.


http://i.imgur.com/HkP818B.jpg


Here's the boat in the initial condition. Doesn't look awful... but we didn't shine a light yet. All the graphics were scheduled for removal.



http://i.imgur.com/v0vv8uB.jpg


Bam! Hologram and swirl city! Yikes... this is going to take some work.

The wavy lines that look custom are holograms. The dullness and circular scratches are swirls.



http://i.imgur.com/dh0vCa5.jpg


Here's a little before and after to keep you interested in viewing the rest of the album ;) I'd say our crew did some spectacular work!


http://i.imgur.com/RpkshoZ.jpg


Removing the graphics. You usually get some residue and leftover stuff you have to remove with a heat gun/adhesive remover.


http://i.imgur.com/BmN1wSx.jpg


Finally removed all the graphics. You can see the ghosting in the paint. You can make it look less noticeable, but you can never truly remove it all the way.

And DAMN! Who ordered that fresh box of holograms with a side of swirls, jeez!



http://i.imgur.com/78h65Kl.jpg


Yeah, under the graphics is what the paint should look like. Everywhere around is an insane amount of scratches and swirls.


http://i.imgur.com/zSEKs6Y.jpg


These towels were a casualty of war that we as detailers wage on swirls and scratches of all kinds!


http://i.imgur.com/Bv2aGnF.jpg


Here I am sanding with 1000 grit on a porter cable


http://i.imgur.com/XdciRMd.jpg


Yay sanding!



http://i.imgur.com/786P2Uj.jpg


You can see the "A" not sanded yet and everywhere else sanded. The ghosting looks better, but will never go away 100%


http://i.imgur.com/yJs59gl.jpg


Mike Phillips doing cleaner wax on the white paint above the black gel coat.


http://i.imgur.com/WK8eRRs.jpg


About to use a rotary. Gel Coats like them. To be fair, I suck at using a rotary. I've only put about 5 hours on one and they are just not easy to use compared to a DA machine. Give me my Rupes 21 all day everyday! Much better in my opinion.


http://i.imgur.com/mWBSAuu.jpg


The "10 at 10" technique of laying down a bead to pick up with the rotary machine. Product is a compound meant for gel coats, can't say much more than that due to the book coming out.


http://i.imgur.com/uNLIwuL.jpg



Yay sanding marks are slowly going away and proper color and depth of the gel coat paint is returning.


http://i.imgur.com/fUDL5zy.jpg


Here's where we started cracking on.... so not many pictures of this side anymore. On this side of the boat we did rotary, followed by Rupes 21 and the same compound.

A compound that cuts depending on pad and machine used?! It was good stuff ;) You'll have to wait until Mike releases his book or talks about it on the forums to know what was used though. We were bound to silence!


http://i.imgur.com/RJWKeSd.jpg


Around lunch time we had a visitor. Autogeek seems some really fun stuff during the day lol. Never a dull moment!


http://i.imgur.com/VqaSR41.jpg


After lunch we got to the other side. As you can probably see, I was sweaty and tired. Detailing boats is hard work, even in the A/C!!! Can't imagine doing it outside!

This side was done with 1000 grit followed by 3000 grit and really only needed the Rupes to remove those but sometimes a Rotary was used.


http://i.imgur.com/8544LGr.jpg


After this, Mike goes did you just take pictures of me?! Oops oh well :D


http://i.imgur.com/tTDNYAZ.jpg


The part that the light is hitting is where we left the original condition of the boat and this is the result. Fantastic!! The black areas that we have done (to the left and right) looks like a new paintjob!

The part that we did not touch HAS NOT BEEN SANDED. That's how swirled up it was before!


http://i.imgur.com/DYao7cO.jpg


Another angle


http://i.imgur.com/F0Pgpgb.jpg


I'm so amazed by this that I needed to include 3 pictures at different angles lol


http://i.imgur.com/23N5jV7.jpg


And now that area was cleaned up.


http://i.imgur.com/wyNQUAG.jpg


After putting on the Marine 31 coating, here's the final result!!!!

50 man hours, 7 people, great times!

Thanks for viewing! :)

[dcjredline]

AWESOME! Very cool.

[Angus]

Wow, now that was a project!! Nice turn around! Looks like a brandnew boat. :dblthumb2:

Any idea how much that detail cost the owner? A single day turn around like that couldn't have been cheap.

[Mike Phillips]

Nice write-up Roshan!

Buffing out severely neglected boats is a TON of work especially if using the old fashioned approach.

The system we used to restore the gel-coat finish and remove the ghosting from the graphics, (a common problem for boat owners), greatly reduced the need for hours of working with rotary buffers which also means it greatly reduced the muscle normally needed to do this type of work.

I think I had over 500 pictures on my camera from this project for the new book and I happy to say I was able to go through all of them before leaving for Californial to shoot the new Autogeek TV commercials.

Thanks for helping with this project Roshan, you did a great job as did the rest of the team.

I'll try to add the "team shot" today from this project.


:dblthumb2:

[ihaveacamaro]

AWESOME! Very cool.

Thanks!!


Wow, now that was a project!! Nice turn around! Looks like a brandnew boat. :dblthumb2:

Any idea how much that detail cost the owner? A single day turn around like that couldn't have been cheap.

I believe it was pro bono because it was used in Mike's book.


Nice write-up Roshan!

Buffing out severely neglected boats is a TON of work especially if using the old fashioned approach.

The system we used to restore the gel-coat finish and remove the ghosting from the graphics, (a common problem for boat owners), greatly reduced the need for hours of working with rotary buffers which also means it greatly reduced the muscle normally needed to do this type of work.

I think I had over 500 pictures on my camera from this project for the new book and I happy to say I was able to go through all of them before leaving for Californial to shoot the new Autogeek TV commercials.

Thanks for helping with this project Roshan, you did a great job as did the rest of the team.

I'll try to add the "team shot" today from this project.


:dblthumb2:

Can't wait to see it!

[Mp0wer]

This picture says it all...amazing job !!!

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/05/41061798f54e4b662760033b942cd4c7.jpg