Dislikes: 0
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Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Originally Posted by Dr_Pain
Good Lord Mike! You are a BEAST!
Well I didn't take any breaks and believe it or not I move pretty fast, my artificial leg is not what slows me down when moving around a detailing project.
Originally Posted by Dr_Pain
To make it under 4 hrs you had to have forgotten to do the roof,
And just to be honest, you're partially correct in that I did not buff out the roof but not because I forgot it but because I was limited to only 4 hours.
I washed it VERY good. Actually washed the entire Tahoe very good, it was ####-n-span clean after washing and drying.
When I got up on the Werner work platforms to wash the roof the first thing I noticed is that the paint was filled with massive larger water spot rings over the entire roof.
So not only did I not buff it out but it doesn't look like anyone else ever has either.
So to be fair I wanted to buff the roof out using the Optimum Polish and then seal with the Optimum Car Wax but I didn't have the time after taking care of the entire rest of the outside.
I did buff the top outside visible edges and also told the owner that I didn't get to the roof and he was okay with this.
Remember, all he wanted was for me to clean her up. He's going to trade it in as soon as the 2015's arrive.
As an aside comment, I owned a 2004 Honda Pilot in black, bought it new in 2004 and for the first year I kept it up like a show car. After the first year, especially living in the Mojave Desert where it's windy and dusty, (sand everywhere), and finding out it was too much work to maintain a show car finish on a grocery getter. I did good the first year but after a year the excitement of the "new car" wore off as did my passion for machine polishing every square inch of an SUV.
I could do it for a 1957 Chevy, but not a daily driver, go to Costco grocery getter and towards the end of owning it I reduced my time waxing the roof to about ever other car wash/detail session. This means I would always wash it really well but only wax the roof every other wash.
The above all said, if I could have had the car till 10:00pm I could have easily knocked out the roof. Easily.
Had I had the time for the roof I still would have finished in 5 hours or less... no problem.
So I did what I could with the time I had and still made my customer happy and his wife too. Keep in mind in the next few weeks or months, the next time this Tahoe is washed I can guarantee you it will be taken through an automatic car wash.
This is why it's important to know your customer and don't promise to put a show car finish on a daily driver. It's a waste of your time, money and resources and your customer won't appreciate it anyways.
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Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
I'm at awww, nice job, I have a simular job for myself. My Black Sliverado crew cab. Since it's my truck I would like to know the right products and the full process of getting all of the swirls out
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Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Originally Posted by 04Golf
The time it would take me to wash, clay, tape off the car, polish, clean pads, inspect work etc. would take me 8hrs on 1 step.
I agree.
If I had done all of what you just listed it would have taken a lot longer.
I didn't clay the entire car. I used the Nanoskin Wash Mitt on the hood and the tops of the front fenders. Remember, the owner said, "It's not that bad". Another way of saying this is he thought it was in pretty good shape. I took into account everything I would need to do to clean her up in 4 hours and did just what I could do, no more, no less.
For pad cleaning, I went through three pads, two 6.5" and 1 5". Mostly I used the 5" to do some edging and work the thin panels. To save time I hit everything with the 6.5" pads and had both polishers plugged in and on a car next to where I was working.
I also buffed out the plastic end caps, and the tail lights and headlights.
I didn't tape anything off, instead I was just very careful and there wasn't that much trim that would stain on this upscale model anyways.
Inspect my work? I buffed out he hood really good and did 5-6 section passes over the rest of the body including the lowest portions of the body panels and front and rear quarter panels.
The Flex 3401 is perfect for this type of production work as the pad won't stop rotating when you start pushing hard. The white Hybrid polishing pads are soft and Optimum Polish is a Fine Cut Polish, not a medium, but a fine cut, kind of teetering on being an Ultra Fine Cut Polish. Just enough cut with this pad and this tool to remove anything shallow while leaving behind a CLEAR surface. Not a scratch or swirl-free surface.
Part of how deep and dark the paint looks in the after pictures isn't because there are no scratches in the paint but because I restored clarity to the surface so the dark black paint can shine through to your eyes.
This is part of the goal when buffing out any clear coat, one-step or multiple steps. With clearcoat paints you need to restore clarity so your eyes can see the colored paint under the clear paint. With single stage paints you bring out the full richness of color.
Originally Posted by 04Golf
Maybe I'm slow When I did mobile work we didn't even offer polishing.
If you re-read what I wrote, what I said was that while in most cases and what is common is for detailers to use a one-step cleaner/wax when doing product work, which is the right thing to do, the problem is using a one-step cleaner/wax on dark and black CLEARCOATED paints might remove some defects but it will tend to leave micro-marring or haze in the surface of the clearcoat.
So as a way around this problem while still reducing your "time" investment, I show using,
- A forced rotation, forced oscillation tool
- A soft foam pad
- A fine cut polish
The above won't leave the paint sealed but that's why I came back and sealed with a fast wax, or a spray-on wax.
Originally Posted by 04Golf
In my experience customers cared more about interiors than exteriors.
Noting wrong with that either. If fact in all my classes I start my Power Point Presentation stating the second thing you do is ask your customer what's most important to them or if there are any problem areas they want you to tackle.
I mentioned this in my recent 2014 Corvette Stingray write-up. That was a 4 hour job also but a different type of customer and a very different finish.
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Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
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Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Is it helpful to use DAT polish on a project like the Tahoe?
Would DAT save time, because you could work it for fewer passes without worrying about breaking it all the way down?
I think the Optimum Final Finish is DAT, but not sure
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Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Originally Posted by allenk4
Is it helpful to use DAT polish on a project like the Tahoe?
Would DAT save time, because you could work it for fewer passes without worrying about breaking it all the way down?
That would be and could be true as long as the DAT products are not also leaving behind micro-marring.
Meguiar's has a great speed system for doing production detailing using the D300, D301 and now D302 with microfiber pads and dual action polishers.
I considered this approach for this project but I wanted to use the Flex 3401 gear driven polisher because I knew it would NOT slow me down.
Then chose a polish my experience shows does not have a history of inducing haze or micro-marring when used with the Flex 3401 with soft foam pads.
Everything in this detail was done by design to be fast while still turning out results I could associate with my name.
And as I stated previously in this thread, I don't normally like to do this type of work, that is production detailing on daily drivers.
I prefer to work on Special Interest Vehicles. They don't have to be new and they don't have to be old, but they do have to be the types of cars that make you look twice and even veer out of your normal path to take a good look at them.
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Super Member
Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Thanks for this thread Mike. It's so fitting as I'll be changing my services to cater towards the production side of things. I too like to work non stop until the job is completed. Let's hope I could turn cars around with quality in a quick manner as you did with this Tahoe.
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Super Member
Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Great article Mike and nice job, thanks for sharing!
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Super Member
Re: High quality production detailing by Mike Phillips
Amazing article Mike. I do a lot production which to me that's where the money is at least within my customers. Understanding the customer is key to make a profit and that's where a lot of people have a hard time but now this article should help them. Printing it out right now to my never stop growing Mike Philips notes. I will see you at Detail Fest.
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