Man versus Machine

[Mike Phillips]

Mike,

How did the swirls come out so easily with something as light as Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner? Is single stage paint that easy to work on?

Most old lacquers are very soft and easy to work defects out of.

Note my pads are 100% cotton terry cloth, the nap, or little cotton loops act as form of gentle abrasive and give your choice of product more bite. This is all old school stuff, I wasn't around in the old days, I've just had the good fortune to have met a lot of old-timers and learned from them and also the good fortune to work on a lot of antique and original paints. In fact, I would say that not only is that my specialty, it's also my favorite thing to do in the paint polishing world, (restore original and antique paints).


I wrote an article back in 2002 or 2003 on Autopia that goes into paint hardness and specifically touches on single stage white paints. I see people posting stuff from this article all the time now days when the subject of paint hardness and white paint comes up. At the time I thought everyone would think the article was boring... well it is kind of...

Here you go, check it out, what I've typed here is actually the original title, DB changed it when he edited it and posted it.

The Lesson White Paint Teaches Us


I actually found a bunch of pictures of both the white Honda Prelude with the from bra on it and also the 1959 Flattop Cadillac used in that article.

That article is actually a single story in a book I wrote and sold for a very brief time in Oregon called,

TheArtofPolishingPaint.com
(This domain is parked for now)

I went to re-write it after the first successful sales and then never got it put back together. I actually have the original somewhere in a box. After meeting Barry Meguiar at the Cars & Cigars Party mentioned here, he asked me to send him 3-4 chapters from it, which I did and after that he hired me as his Corporate Writer and after a year of doing that job I kind of forged my own new position at Meguiar's running their forum and teaching their Saturday classes for which I'll always be thankful considering I'm just a blue collar dog detailer from a hick town in Oregon. Meguiar's has always been first class in my book.

Where MOL came from
A lot of people don't know where MOL came from but it came from ShowCarGarage.com which I brought up because I wanted a place to post my write-ups from cars I detailed and at the time Autopia was the only game in town and one thing led to another and SCG went up. Then one day the Vice President at Meguiar's asked me why I was always posting my detailing work on ShowCarGarage and I explained to him that it was because Meguiar's didn't have a forum.

You have to remember that forums like this one powered by vBulletin were still a new thing in 2002. See the below article,

Discussion Forums - A relatively "new" invention...


Anyway, after posting a very detailed write-up for an all original 1954 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 and putting a colored print-out of it in his in-box he walked over to me and handed me my write-up with his notes on it and that's when he asked me,

"Why are you always putting this on your website?"

I said,

"Because Meguiar's doesn't have a discussion forum. This is what I've been trying to explain to you"

He looked at me and said,

"Make it happen"

As they say, the rest is history and in about 3 weeks MOL went live, that was the last part of January, 2004, here's the first post.

Mini Coopers at Meguiar's NXT Generation Garage!


Meguiar's has always taught classes, I just joined the real-world together with the cyber-world by coordinating the classes via discussion forums. By the way, I still have the pictures of the 1954 Oldsmobile Rocket 88.


Man time flies when you're having fun...


Hope that wasn't boring... About the only other person that knows that story is 2hotford aka Tim Lingor as he was my Super Moderator on both TheArtofPolishingPaint.com and then ShowCarGarge.com


We have an exiting future ahead of us. Autogeek is great, everyone that works here is so tuned-in to their job and Max sees the future, he's truly the power and creative genius behind the scenes and he does everything he can to help everyone on his team to be the best they can be. It's fun working here, and it's a lot of hard work, but it's more fun than hard work.

[GMC83]

Mike,

Thank you for that post, lots of good info we all love to read.

[pnut]

This post (and the 1 step versus 3 steps) are a few of the most informative posts I have ever read on the detailing forum.

People often assert this works better than that, here is how you use this stuff, etc.

These posts really give some tangible proof, along with some tidbits of application methods as well.

Props to Mike, thank you.

[Wills.WindowsAndWheels]

Back from the past....this write up is great...especially with it covering polishing by hand...and also a little history on our beloved host Mr Mike. Awesome work...and info ...as always.

[Cat ji]

Nice reading that history, especially the bit about how MOL started. :>

[Mike Phillips]

Nice reading that history, especially the bit about how MOL started. :>

Yeah... since I'm the guy that lived the history I'm probably the only person that will remember it and share it as people tend to forget how things started...

I also started the TNOG's, the Extreme Makeover Classes and the Roadshow Classes plus a few other things... all driven by passion to show others how to detail cars...

[Glimmer Twin]

Mike, this is a good read on the difference in time/effort involved in getting shiny paint! I am curious about a middle of the road option - using a 4" pad on a drill. I can't justify the $'s for a DA but did get a small drill adapter and a mix of pads with the intention of trying this as time permits. Would you (or other board members) recommend doing any significant correction with this set up? I've got UC/Swirl X and have tried a small area by hand. It ain't no fun and I didn't make much progress.

[Wills.WindowsAndWheels]

Yeah... since I'm the guy that lived the history I'm probably the only person that will remember it and share it as people tend to forget how things started...

I also started the TNOG's, the Extreme Makeover Classes and the Roadshow Classes plus a few other things... all driven by passion to show others how to detail cars...

Hey Mike...glad to see you respond. I put a post on the 'ask the expert' section of the forum directed at you ..thread title was ''Questions/Comments for Mr. Mike Phillips"...was mainly asking you about that story of your first ride and attempting to detail it that you made reference to in this article...if you have time to write that out

Mike, this is a good read on the difference in time/effort involved in getting shiny paint! I am curious about a middle of the road option - using a 4" pad on a drill. I can't justify the $'s for a DA but did get a small drill adapter and a mix of pads with the intention of trying this as time permits. Would you (or other board members) recommend doing any significant correction with this set up? I've got UC/Swirl X and have tried a small area by hand. It ain't no fun and I didn't make much progress.

Man you're in for a lot of work. Here is what I'd do...save up for a Griots polisher or search for USED DA's on c. list or ebay or even forums like this or MOL. You should be able to stay around $100 or so....maybe an extra $20 for some 5.5" pads. You'll save yourself trust me. The drill set up MIGHT be ok for some headlights...but i wouldn't go at a car with it. If it's a matter of 'JUSTIFYING' the $ for a DA...as in you have it but don't think it's worth it....in a phrase....IT IS. Trust me...the speed AND quality of your work, even as a newbie will be much better. Autopia has a 'classifieds' and 'good deals' thread where people often sell used gear and MOL has a 'for sale' thread....'subscribe' to them and check them often...you'll find a good deal. Amazon also frequently has great deals on GG for about $120 and includes polishes etc

[Mike Phillips]

Mike, this is a good read on the difference in time/effort involved in getting shiny paint! I am curious about a middle of the road option - using a 4" pad on a drill.

I've used a drill to polish paint back before the Porter Cable was introduced. Meguiar's sold a foam pad with a drill arbor permanently affixed to the plastic backing plate, I think the part number was A-6500 and it looked like this,

Here's a horrible picture of it I snagged off the Internet, I have a couple in my collection but no pictures of my own.





So I'm pretty familiar with buffing out cars using a drill. To your question...


Can you do "Spot Repair" using a 4" pad on a drill?

By all means "yes" and it does work better than working by hand.

[juliom2]

An Arsenal of info!!!!
Theory made practice to deliver the very best results!!!!!
Thanks for your dedication!!!!!