Off the top of my head....
Put your phone away. You cannot work and use a phone at the same time.
There's two ways to wash a car, been typing and talking about this for years. The gentle wash and the aggressive wash. The gentle wash is for AFTER you've detailed a car, that's where you're careful so as not to put scratches back into the paint. The aggressive wash is to get the car surgically clean BEFORE you do a major paint correction etc. WHEN doing the aggressive wash, do all the things to the car that get the car messy BEFORE washing the car, this would include,
Headlight correction
Engine an engine bay cleaning
Glass polishing - usually topical cleaning but also when removing wiper marks, its and general scratches.
Then start with the wheels, tires and wheel wells and AFTER doing the 4 wheels and tires, then start at the top and work your way down.
If doing a chemical decontamination, start with this, then foam then wash and rinse.
If doing mechanical decontamination, after rinsing (after the chemical decontamination and normal washing to remove loose dirt), then re-foam and do the mechanical decontamination step.
The point being, do ALL the things that get the car surgically clean WHILE THE CAR IS WET.
Then dry the car, use air to blow out all cracks and crevices.
Next tape off anything you don't want to detail later after you're done and tired. In other words, tape off any crappy plastic found on new BIC cars.
Next do your test spot. Make damn sure the results you get in your test spot are the results you hope for and dream about.
Repeat the process dialed-in during the test spot to the rest of the car. Start with the roof and then work down to horizontal panels. For some cars and for some projects, there is a benefit to knocking out the roof from start to finish before doing the hood and trunk lid. I have an article on this topic.
After horizontal surfaces, knock out vertical panels.
Tips to help speed up the buffing process.
PRE INSEPCT ALL PAINT WIPING TOWELS BEFORE YOU START. Don't waste time inspecting one towel at a time.
Have LOTS of pads for the correction step. Here's the deal on lots of pads,
DRY clean pads cut faster then wet soggy pads. (think about it). By switching to a clean dry pad OFTEN you do two things,
1: You remove defects faster.
2: You remove defects more effectively.
This --> Wet, soggy pads don't cut.
The end results for changing pads often is you get UMR and this means uniform appearance over the entire car.
Use a gear-driven orbital polisher. This will save you time as you don't have to waste time monitoring if the pad is rotating or not. I've seen guru experts "try" to argue that a pad does not have to rotate on a free spinning oribital polisher in order to remove defects or in other words, remove paint. I call B.S. Always have, always will.
Anytime I want to knock a car out fast I use a gear-driven orbital. Anytime you see me using a free spinning orbital I'm usually catering to the tools or the person I'm addressing. In the real world, I'm all about speed and keeping my quality high and I use gear-driven orbitals for most details.
The primary difference between a less costly tool and a more costly tool is the speed in which you can turn and churn pads and products and get the job done.
Waxes - Machine apply.
Synthetic sealants - Machine apply.
Ceramic paint coatings - have GREAT towels for the chemical stripping step and lots of them.
Ceramic paint coatings "application" - Have a GREAT inspection light to make sure you've removed any and all high spots so they don't come back to bite you in the butt later on.
The above is just off the top of my head and it's 6:30am in the morning as I typed this out and I haven't even had my coffee yet.
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Originally Posted by snowracer21
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