Why not Wool?
That’s my question. I know you have heard, or have possibly seen bad things happen to paint while using a wool pad. You’ve seen burned or blistered clear coat, burnt moldings and trim, the horrible swirl marks and hazed up paint. Yes, we have all seen these disastrous problems when using a wool pad. However, not only can these issues be avoided when using a wool pad, but to create a truly breathtaking paint job, you need to start with some kind of wool pad.
A little history
Let’s go back a few years….well about 30-40 years to be exact when all paint systems were single stage and either lacquer or enamel. These single stage paints had more material and they were much harder. Therefore, more aggression was needed to remove “dead” paint and buff the surface of the fresher paint. The big, fuzzy, caked up wool pad was a fixture on every single buffer.
Wool was needed to correct the paint. Ask any old timer how he buffed a paint job way back when. He will say he buffed it with a wool pad, a beach sand compound, and used a heavy and fast spinning buffer. They even finished with wool back then.
Fast forward to the 80’s
When clear coats came into prominence in the 80’s, more detailers switched to foam pads. They found that buffing with wool was getting too aggressive and they were quickly burning and rubbing through this new clear coat system. More detailers found foam to their liking and buffing pad manufacturers started making foam in different grades. Foam could now be used effectively for compounding without leaving such nasty swirl marks behind. The paint surface had a nicer gloss and detailers found foam pads more user friendly. Mistakes still could be made with the wrong kind of foam such as burned moldings and trim, and if too much heat was created, clear coat could still blister and burn. But foam basically took over and many detailers said goodbye to wool for good. Now, with orbital buffers being so popular, foam is now the type of pad almost exclusively used in buffing for all purposes. But again, my question is Why not Wool?
Wool is now almost a taboo word. Ask a detailer today if he wants to buff with wool and he will pretty much look at you like you have 2 heads. He will tell you about every kind of foam pad out there with all the crazy cuts and shapes and colors….and gimmicks. Of course there are fantastic foam pads out there that do a great job. However, for me, if I want total correction in a short amount of time, I am grabbing a WOOL pad. Yes, I said it……. Wool! Here’s why
Today’s clear coats
I recently wrote a set of articles on today’s newer clear coats. They are much harder and more scratch resistant than those of even 5 years ago. Many product companies have answered with more aggressive products, but detailers continue to use foam to try and correct the finish. The denser and harder foam pads that are used for correction and compounding are just too hard for me. They are very difficult to use with a rotary buffer. I have yet to find a perfect foam compounding pad. The foam compounding pads that have a great feel generally are not as aggressive as I like. The harder, denser foam pads are a nightmare when used with a rotary, have poor feel and are sometimes more dangerous than a wool pad if you are not careful. But we all will agree that a scratch resistant clear coat needs more aggression. So what should you do?
Wool vs. foam, the viewpoints
Some detailers will use a very aggressive compound. There are some really good products out there now that have good cut. Some of these products have been made for scratch resistant clear coats. In theory, one of these products can be used with a foam cutting pad, even with an orbital buffer and create the desired finish. However……foam will always take longer and you will never get the same correction that you will with wool. Some people may disagree. They may argue that foam will get you there (eventually) and you will be left with virtually no swirls if used with an orbital buffer, and very limited swirls if used with a rotary buffer. The other part of their argument is that it will take less buffing steps using foam because you are avoiding the harsh swirl marks that may be a byproduct of using a wool pad.
These are all good points, especially if the customer is not looking for perfection. But now it’s my turn to stand up for wool. I argue that if we are attempting and looking for near total paint correction, a wool pad is needed to start the job. Yes, time spent on the job may be a concern and what the customer is willing to pay may play a part, but the goal is paint correction. Once that’s established, the pad for the best correction is always wool. But wool today is a dirty word in most detailers’ vocabularies. It’s the forgotten underdog, the black sheep, the little guy, the last one picked in gym class, etc. I like a good David vs. Goliath battle. I’ll take wool.
Wool will get me the correction I want much faster. I am not afraid of either a wool pad or using a rotary buffer, so wool is my choice. I will still use the same product as my foam pad using counter-part, but I will get the job done faster. Sure, you say that I may get faster paint correction, but now there are tons of swirls and hazy paint which will need more polishing steps of swirl removal to get the clarity and gloss back. Not necessarily. Choosing the correct wool pad will mean extra cut but also limited swirls which can easily be removed. We will talk specifics of wool in a bit.
I have tried all kinds of foam pads with a rotary attempting to get perfect correction. It’s extremely difficult to do so and much more time consuming. I demonstrate this in my classes all the time. I buff an area with a compounding foam pad and right next to it, buff an area with wool. In ALL cases the wool does a better job of correction. Yes there will be slightly more swirling with a wool pad, but I want to look “through” the swirls and judge my overall correction. That's my goal. I get there faster with a wool pad. The wool does its job quickly and if it’s a quality wool pad, there will be very limited swirls and hazing.
With a compounding foam pad, you will create much more heat, especially if you are really trying to fully correct the area. Too much heat will cloud the clear coat, cause blistering or possibly burn it. A compounding foam pad generally will be harder and denser which will give the detailer a poor feel and he will struggle a little more to control the buffer.
I am not saying a foam pad can’t do a great job in many cases. If a customer isn’t willing to pay for total paint correction and you need to get the job done quickly, I will also use a foam pad for the corrective work. But the reality is, foam just can’t cut as good as wool, or as fast.
Rotary vs. Orbital
I am a bit biased here as well. I am a rotary guy. I always have been. Once I learned how to correctly use a rotary buffer, I use it for almost every step, sometimes even wax application. It’s quicker and I like the feel of a rotary better than an orbital. I also want to get the job done faster and better, so I use a rotary. But let’s look at the counter-point again.
Orbital buffers have been around for a long time. They have evolved and gotten much better over the years. The advantage of an orbital buffer is NO swirls. This is huge for most detailers. You can lean heavily on an orbital buffer at its highest speed and still not cause swirls. Orbital buffers now have more power and that’s a plus. Combine more power and torque with a good compound and a good compounding foam pad, you can get some great results. You can cut down the number of buffing steps and produce a swirl free finish.
But again, there is a flip side. Many detailers try to get excellent correction with an orbital buffer and a foam pad. To even attempt to do that you will have to turn up the orbital buffer to a very high speed which makes it vibrate much more and is more taxing on the user. It also takes far longer to get the desired result. Therefore I am not a huge fan of an orbital buffer to do correction work. After I wet sand a blemish, a scratch, an entire panel, or an entire car, there is no way to get the sand scratches completely out with an orbital buffer and a foam pad. It’s a waste of time.
So that brings me back to the rotary buffer and a wool pad. Many detailers are still afraid of both. There is no reason to be. A rotary can be just as safe and more effective if used correctly. A wool pad can be the same. But why am I so adamant on using a wool pad? I wasn’t for a long time. I hated wool. I have access to just about any foam pad that’s out there and some proto-types that never even hit the market. And I have some pretty good ones that I really like for “light” to medium” paint correction. But for the heavy correction I just haven’t found that perfect foam for heavy cutting that felt great, had a great cut in a short time. True, swirls will be less (only slightly if the correct wool is used) but I can deal with swirls easily. I want the correction in a shorter time frame and a better feel while not over-heating the clear. Foam just can’t cut as good as wool and it takes way too long. So I started gravitating back to wool to see what was out there. Let’s examine what makes up some wool pads and why they may be very aggressive and have such a bad reputation.
Old school wool
In the olden days (50’s, 60’s, 70’s) a wool pad was very aggressive and very nasty looking. It just had a look of intimidation where you knew it was going to “grind” off some paint. They were big, fuzzy, twisted and they meant business. But it was a different time. Paint was hard, oxidized and there was a lot of it. Excess paint removal was not catastrophic. This pad was combined with high speed on a rotary buffer and a “beach sand” compound to get the job done.
Of course today we have much less material to work with and clear coat is a different chemistry. It’s a form of plastic which means if you heat it too much it will soften, causing swirl marks, possibly blister and/or burn. So much more care must be taken in buffing today’s clear coats. But this is a big reason why detailers are still horribly afraid of using a wool pad.
With clear coats getting harder and some being a re-flow scratch resistant clear, you cant over heat them or you will be in trouble. This is also a reason why I have looked more closely at wool in the last few years. The new wool pads that are currently available are not your typical “old school” wool. Let’s see why
How wool is defined
Wool pads are graded a couple of different ways. First the kind of wool used is important. A conventional wool pad is 100% wool and is generally a twisted yarn. It’s also a dense pile making it more aggressive. These pads look more like a “mop” and feel like carpeting. Sure, running a pad like this in a rotary direction at 2000 RPM will cut into a paint job very quickly and leave it severely marred, hazed and swirled. These are the pads of yesteryear that many detailers are deathly afraid of. They still exist but often are not needed, even on the more scratch resistant clears.
The twists of the yarn that you may see in a wool pad is what’s known as “ply” If a pad is referred to as a 4 ply pad, it means that the yarn is twisted 4 times, making it more aggressive. There are pads that have 4 ply, 2 ply, single ply (no twists) and combinations, where sometimes every other strand of yarn is twisted. The more twists or higher the “ply”, the more aggressive the pad will be.
The other way a wool pad is graded is by what’s called “pile height”. This is how tall or thick the yarn is. Generally the thicker the pile height, the more aggressive the pad will be. Some pads have a 2 inch pile height (more aggressive) while some pads have pile heights at about 7/8’s of an inch (less aggressive).
Wool pads can have other strands sewn in to make it more or less aggressive as well. Acrylic yarns can be added to make it more or less aggressive, nylon can be added to make it more aggressive, or the pad can be made of a sheepskin or even lambs wool to make it less aggressive. These are some of my favorite pads for factory clear coats. These pads still cut much better than a compounding foam pad but they will leave a very nice gloss with minimal swirls. I have used these pads for years. Sometimes also dying a wool pad will make a difference. I have tested pads that were dyed to make them “prettier” but the dying affects the cutting ability of the yarn. So there are many variables in wool that will make them more or less aggressive.
Now, new to the market are exciting new pads with silk sewn in. These pads keep the aggressiveness of what the pad was designed for, but the silk adds polishing strands that limits swirls and really brings up the gloss. I love these pads even more than lambs wool or sheepskin. These newer wools also throw less lint and sometimes are even non linting so they won’t make a mess.
So a wool pad is just not a “wool” pad to be scared of anymore. There are still aggressive versions out there which the body shop industry still loves. They want aggressive, quick cutting pads that will help eliminate sand scratches, orange peel and other blemishes from a paint job. I like an in between wool pad such as these new silk blends which I recently tested.
Wool pads as an advantage?
You may think I am crazy but I actually find wool to be an advantage over a cutting foam pad in many cases. I want the cut and correction. Wool gives that to me quicker than foam. I want to keep the temperature of the clear coat lower to prevent blistering and creating so much heat that the clear coat softens and the swirls actually go deeper into the clear. Deeper swirls WILL take more polishing steps to remove. A correctly chosen wool pad buffs cooler, cuts quicker and leaves you with minimal swirls. I love the feel of a good wool pad. The buffer glides across the paint surface and I can use as much pressure as I need and will not over heat the clear. The wool also contours to the body panels where a harder foam pad will not.
No need to use wool on the entire vehicle.
If you are truly worried about heavy swirls but want a little quicker correction, here’s a trick. If you want total correction in the areas that are most noticeable such as the hood, trunk, sides of the roof and the top portions of the doors, fenders and quarter panels, try this. Just use the wool in those areas. Other lower areas like the lower portions of side panels can be buffed with foam. When a customer can stand over and look directly down on areas like the hood and trunk, you may want to use wool on these sections and leave foam to do the rest. It’s not cheating if they really don’t or won’t notice, or are not paying for a true show car appearance. This is a way to incorporate wool and get better and faster correction in key areas without doing the entire car with wool.
Because foam has been around for so long now and many detailers only use an orbital buffer, they may still shy away from wool. Some detailers are also younger and they were never exposed to a wool pad and have only heard horror stories. Well, let this old timer (well, not really) tell you that wool can be your friend and ally if you give it a chance.
]]>Buffing and Polishing scratch resistant clear coat paint
By Kevin Farrell of Kleen Car Auto Appearance
Let’s go back to the days where the only type of paint system used on automobiles was single stage. Cars were painted in either a lacquer or enamel finish. These finishes differed from today’s clear coats in the fact that the pigmented paint of yesteryear was exposed to the elements and direct UV rays of the sun. Therefore, these paint systems would fade and oxidize and had to be buffed rather heavily to bring back the original finish.
These paint systems differed slightly from each other, but both were basically fairly hard surfaces that required a detailer (or whatever they were called back then) to employ an aggressive buffing procedure. Many guys used very aggressive wool pads, compounds that felt like beach sand and very high speeds on a rotary buffer. Aggression was the norm, not the exception. Even when paint systems changed over to basecoat/clear coat in the early 80’s, the first generation of clear coat was very hard and required those similar buffing methods of a single stage system. Therefore, if a detailer did not know the difference in these paint systems, or was not aware that they were different, he generally would not make a critical mistake in buffing an early generation clear coat.
Buffing methods had to change
When clear coat systems began to get softer in the late 80’s and 90’s, these aggressive methods of buffing had to be changed. No longer could a detailer use a “beach sand” compound and a very aggressive wool pad along with 2500-3000 RPM on a rotary buffer. This strategy would create too much damage to these clear coats such as burning, blistering, hazing and swirling. This era introduced more prominent use of orbital buffers, foam pads to correct a softer clear coated finish, special products that were “safe for clear coat”, and much lower speed on a rotary or even discontinued use of a rotary buffer. Detailers became afraid of the rotary buffer and began to rely on less aggressive methods of paint correction because of the fear of the problems previously mentioned.
A blast from the past
These less aggressive methods for the most part worked if a detailer did not want to use a rotary buffer. An orbital could be made to do the job, albeit it would take longer and still not produce the finish of a correctly used rotary buffer. However, with the change now being made by more and more car manufacturers to scratch resistant clear coat, more aggressive methods need to be taken to correct these finishes.
Today, there are products out there labeled as scratch resistant compounds and polishes. They are made more aggressive in terms of the type of abrasives used, the hardness of the abrasive, the shape of it, and the percentage of overall abrasives in the product. But there is more to the entire process than just buying a product. We have to know what’s going on with these scratch resistant clear coats as we buff them to get a better understanding of how to properly and quickly correct the finish.
No more instant gratification
There are too many detailers, as well as body shop guys who demand instant gratification when they buff. They want to go back and forth once or twice and see all the scratches and imperfections just disappear. This obviously would save time but you have to be aware that the more aggression you use the more hazing, swirling and risk of burning you will have. Remember, clear coat of any kind is a form of plastic. If it’s heated too much, it will get very soft and then burn.
With softer clears and older generation clears, it was easy to have a product and pad combination that would cut pretty fast and leave limited swirls and hazing. We could have almost instant gratification. This is why those aggressive products and buffing methods had to be backed down for use on the softer clear coats and many guys went to orbital buffers almost exclusively. With a scratch resistant clear, you have to buff it a little bit differently, but we first need to understand what’s going on with these clear coats as we buff them.
SRC chemistry
There are basically 2 different types of scratch resistant clear coat. One is where the nanno particles of ceramic or fumed silica are migrated into the clear. Because of the extremely small or “nanno” size of these very hard and very light particles, they rise to the very top portion of the clear coat giving it its scratch resistance. With particles that are this hard, more aggressive methods will be needed for paint correction.
The other version of scratch resistant clear coat is of the “Re-flow” version. This is the hard urethane, hard durometer clear coat with a hydrogen bond that adds addition cross linking and hardness. Because these clear coats are called “Re-flow” or sometimes “self healing” in the fact that heat caused by sunlight will help correct minor (very minor) scratches, a detailer may think that creating heat is very good for this type of clear. Its not. It’s also not good for the ceramic or nanno particle clear coat either. Here’s why.
Heat is the enemy of SRC
We should already know that excess heat can burn, blister, haze and cause excessive swirls. We do need to create a little bit of heat when buffing to burnish the clear correctly and help restore a deep gloss and clarity to the finish. But how much heat is too much? As always, if you can’t touch the surface without quickly removing your hand because it feels like its burning, the clear coat got too hot.
With scratch resistant clear coats, if you heat them too much, you will make them “swell”. Now in theory this sounds good. The self healing or re-flow effect of the clear should come into play and help repair the imperfection. The clear would heat up, then flex, expand and contract. This would make a very minor scratch go away. It’s the same principle as taking wrinkles out of clothes. The material is heated, it then expands, contracts and flexes, causing the crease or wrinkle to disappear in the fabric.
However, the bonds of the scratch resistant clear coat can only be stretched so far. If the bonds are stretched too far they will remain stretched and cause damage to the bonds and density of the entire system. It also will get too hot which will cause the clear coat to expand far too much and “open up” causing the existing scratches to be driven even deeper into the clear coat, thus making the scratch that much harder to get out. This can also make the clear coat have a “wavy” look to it. So the more it gets heated, the more difficult it becomes to repair or correct deeper scratches.
What needs to be done?
When scratch resistant clear coat is scratched too deep, it becomes fractured. This appears as a deeper white scratch. The depth of this type of scratch is beyond the point of self healing or repairing. So now your work is cut out for you
Patience is the key. There is no instant gratification in repairing scratch resistant clear coat. Sanding it will take longer and buffing it will take longer. Here’s the catch. If you are using a regular polish or a very light compound, you may want to tell the customer to pick up his car a week from next Friday, as you may be buffing it that long. You will need a more aggressive product and a more aggressive buffing pad. Everything needs to be more aggressive and you can’t be afraid or timid. The clear coat film thickness will still be about the same as a conventional clear (no more, no less), so care must be taken not to blister it or rub through. But if you are too timid you will never get the scratches out.
However, and there is always a “however” it seems. If you get far too aggressive you can still haze and swirl a scratch resistant clear very easily. It is not immune to this. You can’t just go out and buy an old time beach sand compound and a super aggressive wool pad and go to town. While you may get the scratches out, you will leave a much deeper swirl that will have to be addressed in the remaining buffing steps.
The Tools
The buffing product will need to be fairly aggressive but not “old school” aggressive. The pad will probably have to be wool. Yes wool, if you want to get the deeper scratches out and do it before next Friday. A foam pad, even the more aggressive, firmer foam pads, will create too much heat and not cut enough. I prefer a medium duty wool pad as it will cut but not leave horrible swirls and hazing in the scratch resistant clear. Also the job will need to be done with a rotary buffer. An orbital just won’t “cut” it on this type of clear coat. The buffer speed also needs to be kept below 1500 RPM as to not create too much heat. Remember heat will be the enemy and too much heat will sabotage the job, not accelerate the job.
Again patience is the key. If you let the product and the pad do the job while maintaining even pressure throughout, you will be able to cut scratch resistant clear. The “shaving” of the clear coat will take place and the swirling and hazing can be minimal if the correct techniques are used. If you are too aggressive from the start and want things to happen very quickly, you will overheat the clear, open it up and drive the imperfections and scratches even deeper. The re-flow effect of some scratch resistant clears will make it want to re-flow back overthe scratches that were just driven deeper by over aggressive buffing.
If you are too timid as in using an orbital buffer, a foam pad, a less aggressive product, less pressure and speed, you may eventually get the scratches out but it will take considerably longer.
It’s not all doomsday
It’s not impossible to work on these clear coats. As stated, some will be much harder than others and only continued experience buffing different cars will give you a good gage of what to expect. Yes, it will take more to severely mar a scratch resistant clear, but once it has those deeper scratches you must have the solution to get them out. The frustration that I have seen myself and in talking with other detailers and body shop personnel, was not that they did not know what to do, but that they did not have a good enough product to get the scratches out of a scratch resistant clear coat. The process would take a while for 100% correction.
R&D of a SRC compound
If you do a lot of wet sanding, it will get frustrating if you run into very hard scratch resistant clears. When there are sand scratches in multiple panels that have to be removed, you will need a very good product and a game plan to get rid of them. There are a few variables and frustrations to deal with that will drive you crazy if you are not ready.
One frustration that comes into play is that the clear will be difficult to sand because of its scratch resistance. Usually I have to compensate with a courser grade of paper than what I wanted to start with. Once it’s sanded the monumental task of buffing out the sand scratches on multiple panels or the entire vehicle remains.
Another huge frustration is trying to buff out these sand scratches and not getting anywhere because the product doesn’t have enough bite or aggressiveness to fully remove them Yet another frustration to contend with is that even if you have a product that is aggressive enough, it can still sometimes be too aggressive in that it will remove the sand scratches but leave too much swirling and marring behind which is a problem in the remaining buffing steps.
We were asked to create a compound for scratch resistant clear coats from somebody in the body industry. Many of the refinish clears are now being made in a scratch resistant variety to meet the warranty on the car manufacturer’s specifications. If a vehicle needs to be refinished and already has scratch resistant clear coat, the car manufacturer mandates that the refinish clear meet the same specifications to remain under warranty. Therefore more and more body shops are coming across the same problems regarding how difficult it is to sand and buff.
So as with our other projects in creating specific compounds and polishes, we set out on this one. This proved very difficult as we tried many abrasives and combinations and I kept finding that I did not like the cutting ability of most of them. We probably tried about 100 samples and most worked very well on conventional clear and some lighter grades of scratch resistant clear coats, but on the very hard versions, nothing wanted to cut. And for a body shop guy, a product that just doesn’t cut is the kiss of death for the product.
This is why I had to learn more and more about these scratch resistant clear coats. I needed to know the chemistry behind them and what I was in for so we could develop this type of product. I painted panels myself with the hardest version of scratch resistant clear and set out wet sanding. I received some scrap panels off factory vehicles from BMWNA as my contacts there proved very beneficial. I wet sanded and buffed those panels as well.
I have lost count of the number of different samples and prototypes we have tried or the time we have put in. At the time of this writing we are 95% complete and will have a great scratch resistant compound and polish very soon. I wish I could say I had fun at all times doing this but I would be lying. At times it was very frustrating and humbling but we learned a lot and in the end we hope this helps everybody as these clear coats are here to stay.
]]>Wet sanding and buffing scratch resistant clear coat
By Kevin Farrell of Kleen Car Auto Appearance
I hope you had your Wheaties and got a good night sleep, because sanding scratch resistant clear coat is not easy. As we discussed in our last article, these clear coats are much harder than conventional clears, so it makes sense that they will be much harder to sand.
As with any clear coat, you should be skilled in wet sanding and knowledgeable about paint thickness before attempting to do this. You should also have a very good reason to sand any clear coat surface. I speak to many customers, car enthusiasts and many detailers who throw the term of wet sanding around Willy nilly and treat this as if it’s no big deal. Then when they run into problems while sanding, sometimes to a catastrophic degree, they realize the project may have been too big to handle.
I have written other articles before regarding wet sanding techniques and such, so that will not be covered here in this article. But if wet sanding is to be an option on ANY scratch resistant clear coat, you have to understand what you will be in for. It will be more difficult to remove material. As with sanding ANY clear coat there should be good reasons for doing it. Examples of these would be a car with a deeper scratch, dirt nib stuck in the clear, etching, scuffs, etc. Reasons for NOT sanding clear coat, especially scratch resistant clear would be because of “swirls” or orange peel. I have had people call me requesting or telling me that their car needed to be “wet sanded”. This is always a red flag for me. Since when does a customer need their car to be sanded? They have heard this from either a detailer that just wants to oversell something, or a customer doing internet research and not fully understanding what wet sanding is all about.
Harder to sand the hard stuff
I have spoken and written before how easy it is to remove excess material while sanding a more conventional clear coat. You can reach a point of breaking through into the base coat very quickly if the wrong grade of sand paper is chosen, or if you are too aggressive. But if you know what you are doing, you can still accomplish the task and then buff out the sand scratches rather quickly and get the job done. However, the flip side is scratch resistant clear. Removing material is very difficult. It just doesn’t seem to want to come off. It seems you can sand forever, barley removing anything.
You may think this is a good thing because destroying the clear will be much more difficult. But you will need more aggression and force to remove the clear coat, and possibly a more abrasive choice of paper. In turn this puts deeper scratches into the clear which in turn will be more difficult to buff out. I have sanded some scratch resistant clears before with 1500 grade paper and when I wiped the area clean I still had areas of shine which means nothing really happened. I have seen this with 1000 grit paper also. You need some real elbow grease to remove material and get the imperfection out or sufficiently “shaved” down. On most conventional clear coats, sanding with 1000 grit paper is an invitation for disaster. On a scratch resistant clear, the surface almost seems to laugh at you and ask “Is that all you got?” So the removal of material will be that much harder and time consuming. So be wary of getting in too deep. When a customer wants their orange peel removed or their “swirls” wet sanded, you can’t be so gung ho to sand an entire car with scratch resistant clear. It will take forever
How will I know if the clear is scratch resistant?
In my previous article I stated that there is no real way of knowing if a car has scratch resistant clear coat. The only company that designates this type of clear on a paint code is Mercedes. They use a “C” in front of the numeric paint code to signify this. Other than that there is no chart or listing to find out. Experience will play a part in knowing what you have previously worked on that had scratch resistant clear coat. However there is a little trick and tip I can give you that may help in the determination.
A scratch resistant clear coat has a different “feel”. When you run the palm of your hand (always use your palm, not the back of your hand or fingertips) the surface will have more of a “grip” to it. It won’t feel quite a slick, even if it has some wax on the surface. Your palm wont slide across the finish so easy and it will almost have a hard, rubbery feel to it.
You will know even more once you get into sanding it. The piece of sand paper also won’t glide across the surface as well. It will have more grip and almost feel like its sticking to the surface. The amount of “milkiness” (clear coat) being removed wont seem to be quite as much as other clears you may have sanded. When you wipe away the residue you also may see how little you have removed and that there still may be a little gloss left to the finish, even if you were sanding with enough pressure. A paint thickness gage will also verify how much less material was removed. On conventional clear coats, the material comes off much easier and faster and the worry about sanding through is usually the biggest fear. On scratch resistant clears, you wonder how long is this going to take and will I actually have to grind this stuff off?
Isn’t this all good news?
Not from where I am sitting. It is true that it will be harder to make a drastic mistake with SRC, but you will probably need a more aggressive paper to accomplish the job which we will soon find out is a problem. On most cars if you were used to using 1500 or 2000 grit, you better be ready to use 1200 or 1000 grit for the same types of problems.
If you do any kind of paint work and need to prep a scratch resistant clear coated panel for refinishing, this is a problem also. In prepping a panel you need to sand it to give the refinish material enough “bite”. If it’s too smooth or not sanded aggressively enough, the resulting refinish material may peel. I have had hoods and multiple panels that I have had to prep to refinish, and boy does that take some effort and a bunch more time to get done. Be aware of the extra time and effort it will take to get something done. This is why you should not jump into sanding an entire vehicle because a customer is unhappy with some orange peel or he thinks ”swirls” need to be sanded out.
Here's another thing to think about. If you are working outside, be very aware of the time the sand scratches are exposed to heat and direct sunlight. If you are sanding a black panel on a hot day, the heat created will want to make the clear coat re-flow and try to self heal in most cases. These sand scratches are too deep for this process, so what happens is that the clear wants to fold over the scratch. What that does is drive the sanding marks even deeper into the clear. This is fun, isn’t it? Oh, there's more fun news….The rule of thumb is that you need to back out the deeper sand scratches with lighter grades of paper. So on conventional clears if you started with 1500 grit, you will finish with 2000 grit and be ready to buff. You always want to reduce the level of sand scratch marks that are left in the finish so they are easy to buff out. While sanding SRC, you will probably need a more aggressive paper to begin with such as 1200 or 1000 grit. But backing down these sand marks is that much more difficult and time consuming. It’s also very important to make sure that you actually do get backed down to 2000 grit marks or the buffing becomes that much more challenging.
Now sanding SRC is not impossible and it’s not the doom and gloom that I may have made this out to be, but it is more difficult to do. You need to know exactly what’s going on at all times and you still need to be careful. You need to give your self more time to do this entire process as we have sent hat the sanding is more difficult, but don forget we still need to buff out the sand scratches in this very hard clear. This is no easy chore in itself, so let’s look at buffing SRC.
In our final article on scratch resistant clear coat, we will discuss how to buff this type of clear and what different methods and products may have to be used.
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Understanding, wet sanding and buffing scratch resistant clear coat
By Kevin Farrell of Kleen Car Auto Appearance
There has been much talk recently regarding the newer scratch resistant clear coats. Some are very new and some are a few years old already. However they are here to stay and most car manufacturers will be producing more and more cars with this newer clear coat technology.
Although these clear coats are not bulletproof, the scratch resistant clears do hold up well to light scratches, stay cleaner as they do not let as much dirt penetrate the surface, and some of them actually “heal” or remove light scratches when left out in direct sunlight. It may seem that these clear coats will put detailers out of business, but that’s not the case. They still need care and they still will need to be buffed out when imperfections get deeper into the surface.
A little bit of chemistry
I always hated chemistry. It was confusing and really kind of boring. So in an effort to educate but not have you turn the page out of sheer boredom, I will try to keep this simple. When a clear coat is being applied or sprayed, it needs to react with something to become the hard, shiny finish that you see on most new cars. Some use what’s called a 2K or 2 component system that starts to react and cross link when the 2 components are mixed together. If you combine this with heat or baking in an oven, the clear coat cross links faster and to a higher degree, creating a hard and tough surface.
The problem many car manufacturers had years ago when they were using a different version of a harder clear coat called a Melamine clear, was that it was very brittle and was very susceptible to stone chips. It also did not weather very well. If the vehicle was in a climate with drastic temperature changes, it would have problems with its elasticity and it could eventually crack. It also was not very etch resistant, meaning that acid rain would penetrate the surface and etch the clear, as would bird droppings, tree sap, etc. So this version of clear coat gave way to softer versions that had more elasticity, more gloss, more etch resistance, retained a better gloss over a longer period of time and held up better to weathering. The down side with the softer clear coats was scratching and marring. They just do not hold up very well to any kind of scratches.
But now with the newer technology, we are back to harder, more scratch resistant clear coats that meet the car manufacturer’s requirements on everything previously mentioned.
Ok, here’s the technology, hopefully in simple to understand language, as I needed both David the owner of Optimum, the people I work with at BMWNA and other paint chemists to “dumb this down for me”.
I am sure many of us have heard that most clear coats are of a poly urethane technology. It’s basically a form of plastic, but with more elastic capabilities. The way they get there is to combine an isocyanate (difficult to understand and no need to explain) with an acrylic polyol (also difficult to understand and no need to explain). These 2 components make up the 2K in the 2 component clear. However, the new technology of scratch resistance adds something. It adds a hydrogen bond. The hydrogen bond allows some thermo plastic flow making the clear more flexible to relive stress, not chip or crack, and also to actually “self heal” and kind of repair itself. What helps in the hardness of this clear coat is the level of cross linking of the 2 components as well as baking it to further increase the hardness. Many of the scratch resistant clears are baked at about 280-290 degrees for about 20 minutes to achieve full curing and cross linking. A factory baked scratch resistant clear coat can sometimes be very hard and truly a challenge to buff and/or wet sand.
These clear coats have a tighter cross link density. Think of it like tying your shoes. If your shoes are loosely tied, there will be more gaps between the laces and a greater distance between both halves of your shoe and the shoe will be very loose. If you pull your laces really tight, there will be very little distance between both halves and the shoe will be much tighter. This also creates more surface tension. The surface becomes harder as a structure and also much more difficult to penetrate. This is also another reason why these clear coats are more difficult to scratch, etch and mar. It’s also a reason why they seem to stay cleaner. Dirt cannot penetrate as easily and that keeps the surface brighter and cleaner.
Some versions of these clear coats with these characteristics and properties are called Re-Flow scratch resistant clears. I didn’t quite understand this terminology as “re-flow” would mean that heat created will soften the clear. You may ask, as did I, how can a clear coat that is supposed to “re-flow” and be more elastic also be hard and scratch resistant? I assumed a technology such as this would make it softer, much like the clear coats of the 90’s and early 2000’s.
The theory of scratch resistance of a reflow clear
Since I am sure we are all rather chemistry challenged, here is how it works in hopefully easy to understand terms. When the 2 components mix, they start to cross link and that adds structure and strength. The urethane structure gives the coating good chemical resistance and weather resistance, as well as hardness, toughness and elasticity. A unique aspect of polyurethane chemistry is that the hydrogen bonding acts as an additional crosslink, but also allows for the thermoplastic flow to relieve stress, not chip and enable self-healing of minor (yes minor) scratches.
The basic structure of a polyurethane clear coat features a soft segment, based on the polyol, which gives it flexibility and elasticity. There is also a hard segment that has high urethane density, which gives the coating hardness and toughness.
I was able to understand this because of my hockey experience. Who knew? I play both ice and roller hockey. Obviously in roller hockey the skates have wheels. They are also of a urethane, more like rubber (this will be important to remember when we get to wet sanding this stuff). They grade the wheels based on what surface you are skating on. Some wheels need to be very hard and some need to be softer for that particular surface. They grade the hardness or density of these wheels in a term called durometer which I have needed to understand to get the correct set of wheels on my skates. The higher the duromerter or density, the harder the wheels will be. Some of the harder wheels actually are hard as a rock and they take much longer to wear. They are more brittle and have much less flex. The softer wheels have a lower durometer. They wear very quickly but have great grip.
Almost sounds like some of the different versions of clear coat doesn’t it? Clear coats can be made with harder durometers or softer durometers and that will also determine the scratch resistance. All of this combined will give the clear coat a level of scratch resistance, yet at the same time will make it self healing and have a “reflow” effect. To fully understand the theory of scratch resistance, we must know what types of scratches this clear can self repair or heal. Only a lighter scratch or a mar in the clear which would be a typical wash scratch or small abrasion that does not result in whitening, can have the ability to “heal” itself. When the clear coat gets a deeper scratch it will show up as white. This is the chemistry in ANY clear coat. When the scratch is white, the clear coat has been “fractured”. This type of scratch will not be self healing. A light mar or scratch that only “deforms” the clear coat can technically self heal and repair itself (sometimes only to a certain degree) when heat is induced and it reaches a certain temperature. It will reflow and “theoretically” flex and contract and significantly improve the scratch or make it disappear.
A key scratch or a deep white scratch is an example of the clear coat being compromised and “fractured”, and thus not able to self heal or reflow. More conventional buffing methods or possible wet sanding would be needed to improve or eliminate this type of scratch. But there is more. There is still another totally different type and chemistry of a scratch resistant clear coat.
Cerami-Clear or nano particle clear
This is another clear coat that PPG developed for Mercedes a few years ago. This type of clear coat has slightly different technology and properties compared to the reflow and high cross linking scratch resistant clear coats. In this system, PPG uses nano (very small) particles of ceramic, which is obviously a very hard material, to gain its scratch resistance. Here the nano particles of ceramic migrate to the very top portion of the clear coat, usually within the top 3-5 microns. It’s not a very dense layer but is effective at giving the same type of scratch resistance to similar marrings as the other versions of scratch resistant. In other versions of this clear coat made by other paint manufacturers, a particle called fumed silica is commonly used and incorporated into the clear the same way.
This clear coat is very hard at the top where the hard nano particles migrate. However once this layer is broken, the clear coat becomes much softer and has very little scratch resistance below this layer. There is no concrete consensus on which version of clear coat is better, or for that matter, what company makes the best version of a scratch resistant clear coat.
Whose clear coat is the hardest?
I wish I knew. There are some hard clears out there. There are both versions on the market in both factory finishes and refinish versions. Some are harder than others. The more confusing issue is that even in a company that is using scratch resistant clear coat across the board, some still will be harder than others. Sometimes it’s tough to tell what brand is being used within a manufacturer. All car manufacturers have many plants where vehicles are built. Some of those plants use different brands of clear coat. BMW uses at least 3 different brands of scratch resistant clear coat on cars made in Germany. All have different characteristics and varying levels of hardness. The same is true at GM. In all their plants, there are many different brands of clear coat being used. Many have very distinctive characteristics regarding hardness.
You may ask, why don’t they use just one brand? Or why are they all so different? This just makes our jobs as detailers that much harder to work on so many different versions of clear coat. As long as a paint manufacturer meets or exceeds the factory specifications on what they want in a paint system, regarding scratch resistance, elasticity, gloss, etch resistance, etc., the various scratch resistant clears are approved for use. Some of these clear coats may just meet the hardness requirement and scratch resistance and some may far exceed the requirement. This leads to different paint systems that will not buff out the same way even though they are still all termed as scratch resistant clear coats. While a scratch resistant clear coat will be harder to mar and have deeper scratches, it will still need correction at some point. This is where it becomes interesting.
In our next issue we will discuss sanding and buffing of these scratch resistant clear coats and why different methods and products may have to be used.
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What’s in your Polish? All are not created equal
Most detailers have probably had a debate with somebody, at some point in time, what the best polish is out there. The same holds true with waxes. People are always debating who has the best polish or wax. These debates are sometimes fun and entertaining with detailers claiming that they have, know of, or use the best polish out there and they can make a paint surface look absolutely perfect with their skills and the aid of the product. There are many variables that go into making a paint surface look its absolute best, and all are very important to consider before even discussing the product being used.
Buffing to perfection
There are many things that need to be considered to make a paint surface look as perfect as possible. The type of buffer being used is one. A rotary or high speed buffer should be used if total paint correction is required. This machine will be more aggressive, but also correct the paint much better than the orbital machines and do it far faster. The buffer speed must be carefully chosen as well. If the speed is too high, you will over-heat the clear coat, soften it up too much and this will lead to harsher swirl marks, marring, and even burning of the clear coat. The type of pad is critical as well. If a pad is too aggressive, it will haze and mar the paint surface regardless of how great the buffing product is. The pressure used when buffing a paint surface is very important. Too much pressure will over-correct and lead to swirls and other problems. However, not enough pressure will basically be equivalent to just smearing the product around and not doing much of anything. In addition, the type of clear coat being worked on will add to the way the surface will look when done. On softer, more sensitive clear coats the buffing process will seem more aggressive. On harder, scratch resistant clear coats you will need to be a little more aggressive with everything to obtain your desired results.
So as you probably already know, buffing a paint surface is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Many detailers do it extremely well and many struggle. Your skill and knowledge of everything involved in the process will go a long way toward a perfect paint finish, but the one variable I did not yet mention, and it is a huge part of the process, is the product you are using and what has gone into it which will help make the paint surface shine to a mirror like finish.
The product is THE most important part in buffing
Without a buffing product you would not be able to correct a paint surface. Wax alone is NOT a buffing product. It only gives protection to the paint surface. If you are using wax to exponentially give the paint an added gloss, you simply are not buffing the paint surface properly, or the buffing product is not that good. So, let’s clarify the buffing product categories and see what each one can accomplish before we look at what actually makes a great buffing product.
Compounds
A compound will do the heavy correction. These products are designed to “cut” deeply into the paint surface and “shave” it down and remove imperfections. I have always equated what buffing products do, especially compounds, to a Zamboni machine on an ice surface. I look at compounding today’s clear coats as being similar to the way they resurface the ice between periods of a hockey game. The Zamboni machine “shaves” the ice and removes the deep marks and imperfections made by the skates. Then a thin layer of water is laid down on top of the ice, and the water re-flows into the ice. It then re-freezes, and you are left with a fresh surface. The same is done while buffing. The abrasives “shave” away the imperfection and the heat created while buffing “re-flows” the clear coat giving it an increased gloss. Compounds however are not designed as the final step in the buffing process. The paint surface will still remain a bit hazed and cloudy after a compounding step. The abrasives in compounds are too big and too sharp to leave the paint perfect. To create a perfect paint surface, the polish will always be the key product.
Polishes
A polish is a much lighter buffing product but will still perform light to medium paint correction. A polish will also give the paint surface the brilliance it may have been missing and the perfect gloss that every customer and every detailer desires. Don’t mistake a “glaze” for a polish. A glaze does not have any correctional capability. It will leave a great shine and possibly mask some remaining imperfections, so be careful if you use a product like this.
Waxes/paint sealants
Waxes and paint sealants will spark the most debate on issues like gloss and protection and which wax is the best. But many detailers miss the point. If you are seeing a dramatic difference in the finish after applying your wax or paint sealant, you probably did not do a good enough job in preparing the paint. Concentrate more on the other areas of paint correction and this step will not be a huge area of concern. You should not see much of a difference after applying your wax or paint sealant. The best polishes out there will give you what you need as far as overall paint appearance.
This is why THE most important product that you have and you should concentrate on is your polish. You will not need a compound on all cars and since compounding is not your final step, it’s not the most important product. Again, the wax is for protection only and should not significantly add to the gloss if you have polished the paint surface correctly. Therefore, my biggest concern is always the polish and how good it is. A great polish will make your life a whole lot easier and make the cars look like brand new. Let’s look at why this is so, what a great polish will do, and what goes into a great polish.
Perfection?
A few years ago, I was contacted by David Ghodoussi the President of Optimum Polymer Technologies. We embarked on adding buffing products to his overall line. We created the polish as our first project and it’s turned out to be fantastic product that is one of the best in the industry. We recently developed a brand new version that’s even better because we kept working and seeking perfection. But why is one product better than another? Aren’t all polishes the same? Won’t they all perform? You may think to just buy the cheapest one from a local distributor, or go with a well known name and assume that it’s the best. You may think that its only the skill of the detailer that goes into buffing a car, and that the wax is the most important product and polishes are just a prelude to the wax and it does not make a difference. You must start paying more attention to a polish and what to look for in its performance.
Perfection in any endeavor is very difficult. Only the most special people reach perfection in anything that they do. Certain performers in shows, musicians, athletes, Presidents, and of course, we detailers, all have off days. It’s normal and assumed that perfection may never be attained. So it figures that no product will ever be perfect and perform flawlessly on each and every car, each and every time.
In making a buffing product, most notably a polish, its almost impossible…..Almost! There are certain things that a polish MUST do to be called perfect, or as close to perfect as possible. I have always been very demanding in any product I purchase because I want the vehicle to look its absolute best and I want to be able to get the job done in an efficient manner. In making our new polish, I gave David specifications from technical points of view that were needed in the product. He was up for the challenge from a chemist perspective so we started working again. But my list was long and we had to achieve all the points or we would not have a perfect product.
What to look for
There are certain criteria I demand in a polish, and a buffing product for that matter, and it must meet each and every one of the specified items to be considered a truly great polish. Here is what I demand in a polish
So, as you can see, I have 13 specifications that needed to be met in creating a great polish. In our long and exhaustive testing to accomplish this feat, we finally were able to meet every one of these items.
Abrasives
The main “ingredient” to look at in a polish is the abrasive. The type of abrasive, the size, hardness and the shape will determine what that polish will ultimately do to the paint surface.
The larger the abrasive, the more aggressive it will be on the paint surface. In terms of size of the abrasive particles, they are measured in “microns” which is a metric unit of measurement. A micron equals one thousandth of a millimeter. Can’t gage how small that is? Well, an average human hair is 50 microns thick. The abrasive size in some polishes may be 7 microns, 5 microns, 3 microns or less. This is why with today’s polishes you can rub the product between your fingers and never feel the abrasives. This is no longer the gage of determining how gritty or course the polish is. You will never feel the difference between a 7 micron abrasive and 3 micron abrasive on your fingers, but you will see the difference on the paint surface.
The particle shape also makes a difference in how aggressive the product is. An abrasive shaped like a diamond or spur with many pointed edges will be far more aggressive than a round or spherical abrasive. Sometimes even the smallest size abrasive may still have sharp, biting edges and can still behave aggressively. So size does matter, but the shape plays an important role in the aggressiveness of a product. Then there are products that have “diminishing” abrasives which means they actually break down, diminish in size, and turn far less aggressive as more passes are made with the buffer. The “hardness” of an abrasive also makes a huge difference. An abrasive that is extremely hard will mar and cut the paint more than an abrasive that is softer and will break down while buffing.
Some common examples of abrasives are as follows: Aluminum oxide, Kaopolite, Tripoli and Diatomaceous earth, just to name a very few. Even within these categories there are many different types of abrasives. Combine these with their size, shape and hardness you can quickly see that there can be so many different polishes that will do so many different things to a paint surface.
I have some of these raw abrasives that I show detail students in my classes. When you open the container and shake some out onto a piece of paper, the abrasives look anything but abrasive. They all look and feel like powder. Even when you pick them up and rub them between your fingers, you will not feel much grit. However, when you take any of these abrasives and rub them onto the paint, they will most certainly scratch, mar and haze the surface. Finding the correct abrasive can prove to be almost impossible. All will work to some degree but if you are looking for perfection, it’s very difficult to find the right one.
The recipe
Once you think that you have the correct abrasive for the product, putting it together is another project. Making sure a polish formula is stable and mixed correctly with the proper solvents, oils, water, and any other kind of additives is a very tricky situation. If you have ever used a polish that has given you a hard time while buffing and left the paint surface not looking its absolute best, it’s probably far from the best polish out there. In working with the dozens of polish samples that we made in trying to create the new polish, I usually found something I did not like. I had to carefully explain to David what the polish was doing and he had to make adjustments. Sometimes the adjustments he made were so minute in terms of a small percentage of an ingredient that I thought would be miniscule and ineffective, but it helped the product overall get to where I needed it to be. We often found that adding agents and additives or removing something helped the formula. We also found that combining different abrasives sometimes either helped or hurt the formula. We changed percentages of ingredients back and forth to dial it in. The changes we made were mostly very small but made a huge difference in how the polish performed.
Can I make my own polish?
We have all probably done this before. We have taken some of this, some of that, mixed them in another bottle and made what we thought was the perfect polish. It just doesn’t work this way and it’s not recommended. Don’t be a “bathtub chemist”! Mixing your own concoction just wont work. Ingredients that were made for one product may not blend well with another product. Abrasives may clump together and produce a much more aggressive product than you may have thought. Solvents may not be compatible and the product may separate. I cringe when guys tell me that they make their own products. Don’t do it!
The bottom line is that there are many good polishes available that will work well. However, to create absolute perfection in a polish, there are hundreds of hours of testing and development and dozens upon dozens of samples to get it there.
How to objectively test
Forget the brand names and forget all the technical stuff I just talked about. The way to judge a polish is by the 13 specifications I have given that are based on ease of use and performance. But to really check to see which polish does the best job you have to have certain controls in place if you decide to test for yourself.
You need to work with the same kind of buffing pad for each polish you want to test. The pad should be fully clean to start. You must be working with the same buffer and work it at the same speed for each test sample and use the same buffing pressure. You must be working on the same paint surface and on a dark color. I do all my testing on a black clear coat that is soft in nature so I can see everything that is happening to the paint surface. I also do all my tests side by side and I tape off the area where one sample ends and the next sample begins. I also place the same imperfections in the panel. If I am testing the level of aggressiveness I put a certain grade of sand scratch in the panel side by side. But they are equal so I can judge which sample does better. If I am testing to see how well the sample will remove swirl marks, I buff the entire area evenly with a pad and other product that I know will leave swirl marks behind in the paint surface. I buff in these swirls equally on both sides of the test area.
Once my controls are set, I start to test the samples.
I test sample “A” right next to sample "B” and then I really start to look closely. I used to just look with the naked eye. But as the samples get better and more similar to each other, that method is not accurate. I used to take my test panel out in the direct sunlight and look at the results. But some days the sun is out bright. Some days it may be poking in and out of the clouds. And never is it at the same angle in the sky every single time. And of course some days there is no direct sunlight. So this is not a good control.
What I use now is a very special light that simulates direct sunlight and I shine it directly over my test panel and I move it around and carefully look to see what each sample has accomplished. I turn ALL other lights off in my shop and only use my special test light. Now I can control the angle and the height of the light and I shine it over both test areas and I can see which sample is better.
As we made our new polish samples better and better, even this testing was difficult. I looked for marring of the clear coat, any hazing, any swirl marks left behind, and the level of gloss. Sometimes there was a distinct difference but as we got closer to a more perfect polish, I drove myself nuts trying to compare. But this really is the only way to objectively test anything. I not only tested our samples side by side, but I tested our better and best samples against the other leading polishes side by side and judged objectively. In the beginning, sometimes we did not win the test. You have to be hard on yourself and your own polish and put it up against the very best.
In the end, all the hard work was well worth it, not only in creating a great polish but in learning all the things that go into making a polish, the chemistry involved, and how monumentally difficult it really is. So, if somebody tells you that they are using the “BEST” polish out there, ask them how they came to that conclusion. Ask them how they tested it and if it meets all of the 13 criteria that I have given in this article. If you need to conduct some of these tests yourself to find the best polish, it’s worth the trouble. Your customers will be happy you did.
]]>I am sure we have all had a bit of trouble booking appointments and staying as busy as possible so far this year. With all the depressing stories about the economy, the housing and mortgage crisis, and the astronomical gas prices, many people as well as businesses are struggling. Let's face it, car washing and detailing is more of a luxury item for most consumers. Some customers may have tried doing these services themselves, while some have cut back, and others have just not done it at all. But can we still make money, and GOOD money in this economy???
Are you making every car perfect?
I know we all have egos and we all want to make every car look its very best. Some of us are very anal about perfection and strive to give every car a "show car" like look on every job. But we must realize that every customer is not asking for that kind of perfection. We get bogged down in "the relentless pursuit of perfection" (to steal a line from the Lexus Corporation), but we forget the fact the customer may not want, need, or be willing to pay for perfection...
I constantly tell students of mine that you will need your "A" game every once in a while for very demanding and discerning customers. They will ask for, and demand perfection. These jobs are where all your skill, knowledge, and equipment will be needed to accomplish that feat for that type of customer. However, the vast majorities of people are unwilling to pay for that type of perfection, or sadly, won't be able to fully notice perfection. So we kill ourselves on some cars and take way too much time to produce a vehicle that a customer will never truly appreciate. Sometimes the perfection that YOU want, and the price that you charge is not what the customer really wanted. They may have paid top dollar in the past, but now they may not be willing to pay that kind of money.
Or, on the flip side, how many times have we overworked on a car and did not get paid for what we put into it? Admit it; this happens to all of us sometimes. It didn't hurt so much when the phone rings off the hook and everybody was willing to pay a higher price for a near perfect detail. Maybe you took a little more time on some vehicles, but in the long run, you still made money. But now, it seems the phone isn't ringing as often and people may not be willing to pay a huge price for detailing services.
Perfection is what a customer should get when they are willing to pay for it. We should never just give it to them. This is especially true now because costs keep going up to stay in business.
Economics 101
The cost of running a business never goes down. But it seems what we provide is the same regardless of the price being charged, and sometimes detailers never increase the price. Not raising prices in this economy is fine, but we must take a closer look at what we are providing for the price being charged.
In a tough economy, people are looking for bargains. They may ask you to "discount" the price if they feel the cost of the detail is too expensive. This is where the entire industry gets itself in trouble. We can't just discount prices because people ask for a discount. We all know this is a labor based business. If you were selling a product, maybe discounts can be an option, but you never want to discount labor. If you discount labor, you are still required to do the job to perfection and take the same amount of time doing it, but accept less money. Nobody likes to do that. This cheapens the service and believe it or not, makes you look less professional. Remember, costs have not gone DOWN and if people are asking you to take LESS money to do the same amount of work, you don't have to be Donald Trump, or Jim Cramer to figure out you will lose on these deals. It's a bad business decision in most cases.
So what can we do? How can we still satisfy and keep customers, cultivate more customers, and still make money in a bad economy?
Adapt and change
We need to change our philosophy a little bit. Some people that were willing to pay $250 or more for a detail, may no longer be willing to pay that much. Sure, there are some well-to-do people who will still pay a premium for a perfect car and we may still have some of those customers. However, many people may not have the money or may not want to spend that kind of money. You can still satisfy these customers. EASILY!!
You can give them just a little less perfection for a little less money. Maybe the vehicle really doesn't need a 4 step buff, or the engine does not need to be detailed, or the interior need not be dressed. If you skip a few minor and un-necessary steps, you can save a bunch of time and charge a little less money. The car will no doubt still look great, and the customer will save some money making this a win-win situation for BOTH parties. Of course you should explain to the customer these options and educate them that certain steps are not needed, which in turn will be saving him money.
This should not be about "discounting" the same service. There needs to be a compromise. When you can properly explain that most engines do not need to be cleaned and the interior will not need to be shined or dressed, and the paint will still look great with one less buffing step, you will save time and you can pass your time savings to him in the form of a cheaper price. But notice, you did not discount the same service.
Giving the customer some options as to how they can save some money will put them at ease and show them that you are willing to work with them. However, you are just not arbitrarily giving them a discount for the same labor. This can, and WILL work!
What's your labor rate?
Do you have a labor rate? Do you truly know how much money you are making on every car? A labor rate is essential in every business. There are certain costs involved in running a business and then you need to make money on top of the costs. This is truly the only way to determine a price and ensure you will still make money. What do you pay employees? What is the rent of your building? What are your utility charges? What are the gas prices currently? How far are you traveling to get to the jobsite? What type of equipment and products are you using to complete the job? What are your insurance costs? What are your vehicle payments? Are you leasing the equipment you are using? You must figure out your costs of doing business and then figure in how much money you need to charge per hour to cover expenses and still be profitable.
Give people what they want
As detailers we are a pretty stubborn bunch. We know what perfection looks like and we try to push that on customers regardless of what their expectations are. We try to sell a detail job for $300 which will turn the car into a near show piece because "we" want the car to look like that. But maybe the customer does not. Maybe he just wants a clean shiny car.
Ask your customers what THEY want. Ask what their concerns are. You can tell a lot from what you ask a customer and how he wants the car to look when it's completed. I have seen customers walk around their cars and tell me they thought the outside looked OK, but they were concerned about a spot on the seat. Meanwhile, there were scratches all over the car which they did not point out to me. Did they not care or did they not even notice them? I knew I could get them all out, but when they said they did not want to pay a ton of money for the detail, I let this go. I gave them a price for what they wanted, making sure I was still going to make money. When these cars were completed, I knew they were not perfect but the customers were still more than satisfied. That's the bottom line. Why should we give them perfection when they are not paying for it, or they just don't care that much!
We can still make money pricing vehicles this way. I do it all the time. If I know it will take me 3 hours or less to get a car to really good, but maybe not perfect, I charge accordingly and still make great money. Yes, I could get the car to look better, but they are not paying for that and it doesn't bother me...anymore! I used to try to make every car look spectacular, but I quickly figured out you will lose money that way and people wont appreciate perfection if they are not paying for it. If you are still making the same money per hour, and the customer is happy with a slightly lesser service, just give it to him and let everyone walk away happy.
This brings me to a topic that is always a hot subject. The Express detail!
What is an express detail?
Many people over the years have talked about express detailing (we don't even have to call it that). Many detailers and especially carwashes perform variations of express detailing and are extremely successful doing it. The terminology can be whatever you and your customer agree to. Nothing has to be set in stone. What does the customer want? Can a minimal service make the car look good? That the key question. If you know that a service done quickly with minimal time spent on the vehicle can still make it look good, then go for it. This is still a great way to make money and for customers to save some cash.
But we have to get over the fact that the vehicle may not be perfect when the job is done. Who cares? If the customer likes it, that's all that matters. It's something that all detailers can provide very easily. It can be a great maintenance service in between full service details. With the economy being as it is, many of your customers will not be doing as many full service details. But having a service that is more maintenance oriented and cheaper, will keep them coming in and it will keep you profitable.
What services to provide in an "express"?
Car washes have been doing express detailing for a long time. Many are hugely successful at it. I talk to many car wash owners who only do express detailing and do not even get involved in full service details. They get these express types of details done quickly and within a certain time frame to make sure money is being made and they are not just staying "busy". Customers are satisfied and they keep coming back. When you look at the price charged, compared to the time spent on the car, the hourly labor rate can be, and should be, as high as a full service detail if done correctly.
But what can be provided, and more importantly, not provided, in an express detail? The term "express" actually bugs me a little bit. Its means super fast which sometimes is not a reality, and it infers "cheap" which we do not want to be. Now to combine the word "express" and the word "detail" as a terminology, its just does not seems to work for me. I would vote and push for a different terminology for this type of service, especially for detailers. Full serve car washes may be able to get away with this term a little easier, as they have the advantage of a tunnel wash and the labor force to provide all the other services of a full serve car wash.
Obviously you need to be quick and that will mean the vehicle most likely will not be perfect. But perfection is not what we are looking for. Will the interior be perfect? Probably not. You will most likely not be scrubbing it and shampooing everything. The exterior will get maybe a light orbital one-step buff. Maybe you can quickly clay it, maybe not. Perhaps the wheels can't be perfectly cleaned, but most of the brake dust will be gone. Most likely there will be still be imperfections in the paint, but it will still be clean and shiny. You can get a car to look "clean" but maybe not "detailed" in a short amount of time, but still make a customer happy. And...still make money!
There can be so many ways of performing this service, that I will leave it at that and let you decide what to provide and how much time it should take. There really is no right or wrong answer as to what to provide. It's just what the customer will accept for the money you will charge.
Looking at this from the standpoint of a carwash, they already have the advantage because the car is being washed in the tunnel with minimal labor and time. From a detailer standpoint, it's a bit more challenging. The wash will still have to be quick. This means not as much time spent on wheels, tar, bugs, etc. Clean, not perfect is the goal. Then you need to figure out how to buff or wax the car, what to do on the inside and how to make it look really good in a short amount of time
Now for a mobile detailer to be profitable on this type of service, you will have to inform a customer that you can't travel to do just one vehicle. That will lose you money after all the expenses and travel time. So make it a policy to do at least 2 or 3 vehicles on location for that type of service.
The bottom line is that detailing can still be profitable even if you are not performing show car details on every single car. We can, and must adapt. Discounts will get you in trouble and lose you money. Adapting and finding new ways to provide innovative services to satisfy customers and still make money will keep you in business and profitable in the long run.
With that, I would like to invite you guys to participate and help bandy about different terms and services that can be provides for these so called "express" types of details. They do have a place and it can be win-win for everybody.
]]>You have completed the toughest part of the detail. You have cleaned the wheels to perfection, got the filthy interior spotless, buffed the paint to a mirror finish, and applied your best wax. Now, its time to trim out the vehicle and let it be on its way. However, NOT SO FAST! You do not want to get sloppy here. Trimming the car out, and taking care "final details" is very important for a professional looking job. You need to be sure nothing gets overlooked. I have seen many cars that looked very good, but not perfect, and it's usually because the final details were rushed or not performed correctly.
Don't go backwards
For many detailers, when they reach this point, they just want to wipe the wax off the car, dress the tires, and get rid of the car. It's easy to understand why you want to be finished. You may have many hours invested in that vehicle. It may have taken a bit longer than you may have thought. You may be under pressure form your boss or the customer to complete the job. Or, you simply just may want to go to lunch or go home. It can be many reasons, but mistakes here will detract from a perfect job and it's not necessary.
We have all seen details that have wax still left in cracks and crevices, streaky windows, or tire dressing dots all over the car. I have seen cars released with polish or compound dust still in the jambs, tape from covering up moldings still left behind, and even license plates not put back on the car! These are all simple things to fix, but many detailers miss these items and the customer is left with an imperfect car and a bad taste in their mouth
The WOW factor
I very often see in my detail classes what I call the "WOW" factor. What I mean is a detailer who is buffing a car to perfection or waxing it to a final glass like finish�.wants to see it, and just look at it and say WOW! They want to hurry and wipe off the wax to expose the gorgeous paint they have created. It creates a tunnel vision effect where they forget about everything else. They even use the same dirty towel to wipe off the wax that they have been using to wipe off compound and polish residue. All they need to do is just slow down and perform the final details in some simple steps and have a game plan. Once you logically think about what needs to be done in the final steps, it will slow you down and make you realize there are steps to be taken in the final process. In the haste to wipe off the wax, many important things are forgotten or done out of sequence
I always know exactly where I am in a detail and know what is left to get done to make the car as perfect as possible. I try not to overlap my operations or do things twice. For example, many detailers like to clean the outside glass immediately after cleaning the inside glass while they are performing the interior part of the detail. This is counterproductive. While it's nice to see sparkling clean glass in and out, it's a waste of time at this point to clean the outside glass. Don't forget you still need to buff the vehicle and there is a possibility you will get splatter or a little dust on portions of some of the glass. This means the outside glass will need to be cleaned again and therefore it was a waste of time if the outside glass has been previously cleaned. Don't get caught up in the WOW factor!
The little things
You should assume that you will have a bit of dusting in all the jambs no matter how careful you are. You may also have some excess product in the door seams, or hood or trunk seams. There is also a possibility that the glass is not completely clean and that some areas of the vehicle may need some "sprucing" up such as tires and wheels, rocker panels, etc. You should assume that no matter how careful of a buffer you are, you may have some excess product in moldings or cracks and crevices. However, assuming all this, this will ensure that you will not forget any of these items. But you will need to address these issues well "before" you ever wipe the wax off the car. Let's look at how and when we will take care of all these "little things"
Dress the tires first!
Yes, I dress the tires as the first thing in the "final details". Many detailers dress the tires as the absolute last thing they do. How many times have you sprayed tire dressing on tires and had the mist fall all over the car? The droplets of tire dressing land all over the glass you have just cleaned and the paint you have just wiped down. If you don't catch this mistake, the customer will see it as dots all over the car and see blurriness in the glass and the next time he turns on the wipers it will smear all over. Even if you do catch this mistake, its time wastes cleaning the glass again and wiping the paint down again.
Also the other main disadvantage of dressing the tires dead last is the splatter that sprays down the sides of the vehicle if it's driven away shortly thereafter.
I will dress my tires just before I wax the car. I want the dressing to set up and dry for a while before the vehicle is driven. In the time it takes to wax the car, and perform the other "final detail" items, the tire dressing will set up and not sling down the side of the vehicle when it's driven off. I use a gel type dressing that is applied with a spray gun. Dressing tires in this manner allows me to apply a thin, even coat of dressing, allowing it to set up and even out. If after few minutes, I need more shine, I can give it a second coat. If not, it's set up and dry in about 10 minutes and the car can be driven without fear of slinging. The spray gun does not need to be expensive and you only need about 30 PSI of air pressure to operate the gun. If compressed air is not available, you can purchase CO2 cartridges and adapters for the spray gun. I can "paint" the dressing on the tires without getting it on the wheel or the painted surfaces. You can also dress wheel wells in this manner and large plastic trim pieces. This method is extremely fast as well. I can dress all 4 tires perfectly, with no puddle of dressing on the floor in about 1 minute. After this step is completed, I will then wax the vehicle
No wipe down yet! Open all the doors
After the vehicle is now waxed, resist the urge again to wipe the wax off. It's just not time yet! This is where we want to make sure all the dust and any remaining dirt is wiped from the jambs. If you have used masking tape to cover any moldings that should not have been buffed (and I hope you have�.see a "Detail with all the trimmings"), now you can remove all the tape and open everything up. Open the doors, trunk, hood, gas door, sunroof, etc. Lift up the wiper arms to clean them as well. I use the slightly dirty towel that I was using to wipe compound or polish off the car in the previous buffing steps. It's OK to use these towels because you want to get any reaming residue of product from these areas "before" you get a clean towel and wipe the wax off the car. Wipe the jambs, the door edges, the edge of the hood and trunk, etc. Excess product WILL show up later and take away from an other wise perfect job if you miss this very important step. Once you know a section is done simple close it as a form of a check off. When all the openings are closed, you are done with that step.
Now the seams
We are still not ready to wipe the wax off the car, or even clean the windows yet. We need to check to see if there is any excess product embedded in the seams, moldings or emblems on the body of the car. While still using the same towel, I will fold a corner of the micro fiber towel and jamb it in the seams of a molding or body crevice and "scrub" the excess product out from in there. Also check all the emblems for excess product or dusting, and wipe them as well. This is very important to perform these operations now because the excess product will generally get whiter in color as it dries. It may not appear so bad right now, but if you forget, it will get worse later on after the customer already has possession of the vehicle.
Tough to see areas
No, we are still not ready to wipe the wax off the car yet! And certainly not with the towel we have been using to wipe down jambs and seams. Anyway, there are still some more small items to take care of. Now you want to check the lips of the fenders and wheel openings for any dirt or tar that has not been cleaned and give it a final wipe. Also look for any small remaining bits of brake dust in the wheels and take care of that. Wipe any excess dressing from the tires and wheels. Look closely at the front of the vehicle near the grill and license plate. Grill areas are easy to miss as well as directly around a license plate and the lower part of the bumper cover. Get very low and check the rocker area for dirt or tar left over and wipe it clean. Do the same in the rear of the car. Check the exhaust tips and give then a "towel buff" if needed. We are almost there, and taking care of these finer points will make for a spectacular detail.
One last thing
No don't wipe the wax off just yet. One more thing. I like to give the glass a quick wipe down before finally wiping the wax off the car. If there was considerable product that was splattered on the glass, I want to remove it before I do my final window cleaning. Now is the time to find the window cleaning towels that were used to clean the inside glass. Give the outside glass a quick wipe down to remove any buffer splatter or product dusting. This small step will ensure that the outside glass will be perfect when we wipe that down in just a few moments.
Now the final wipe down
We are now ready to finally wipe the wax residue off the vehicle. However, we WILL NOT be using the towel that has been used to wipe down the jambs and seams. Discard that towel and grab a fresh new micro fiber towel for the final wipe down. I like to lightly mist a micro fiber towel with water before I use it to wipe off anything. A slightly dampened micro fiber towel will be more absorbent, and will allow the wax or sealant residue to be wiped off completely without any streaking. You can even mist a little water on the panels and wipe the paint down for complete product removal. You can also now grab a fresh window towel and give the outside glass a final wipe down.
Now you are completely done. You have covered all the points of the "final details". Take a quick, final walk, around the vehicle looking for anything that you possibly could have missed. This should just be a formality at this point because of the steps that were taken as the detail drew to a close. The final result should be as close to perfection as possible, and you should be extremely confident that all the bases were covered and nothing should have been missed.
By not being in a huge hurry to wipe the car down and get done prematurely, you actually have done a better job and "saved time". How many times has tire dressing overspray had to be wiped off glass and paint "after" you thought the car was completely done? How many times have you found caked in residue in cracks, crevices, and seams "after" you proclaimed the car completed? These little nuisance problems add to the overall time spent and take away from the overall appearance. Many times the "final details" are as important as perfectly buffing the paint, or expertly cleaning the interior. A detail is not perfect until all these little items have been done to perfection. Employ these techniques and you will do a better job and probably save some time as well.
]]>By Kevin Farrell of Kleen Car Auto Appearance
We know by now that almost all vehicles are painted in basecoat/clear coat, with the clear coat portion of the paint being what we buff. There is no secret there. We also know that clear coat is still paint, but a clear paint applied over the base or color coat that gives the vehicle its gloss, clarity, and UV protection. It will still mar and show scratches and will still need to be taken care of to keep the finish looking its absolute best.
What is more difficult to understand is that there are many differing variations of clear coat, made by many different paint companies. Many times these variations will be found within car manufacturers and make things a bit confusing and difficult.
So many clears
Car plants use different types of clears from model to model and from brand to brand. Just because we know that today's cars use "clear coat" as the final top coating, it does not mean they will all be the same, and exhibit the same characteristics when being taken care of. Combine the different brands of clear coat with different substrates that they are applied on, and the way they buff can be totally different and very confusing.
Without fully going into all the different types of clear coat out there (and there are many) we have to understand and expect that they all may exhibit different reactions and results when you buff them. I have seen over the years many different variations clear coats. Some are very easy to buff and will look spectacular no matter what you do to them. Some will be harder to buff and removing scratches and imperfections will be troublesome. Some will be very soft and will leave swirling and marring no matter how delicate you are with them. What's worse is that unless you have had major experience with many different car lines and realize how their clear coats tend to buff out, you will never know what you are in for when it comes to buffing.
At the factory
One of the first things done at the factory is to paint the vehicle. After the body is welded together and the outside panels such as the roof, hood, deck lid, doors, etc are installed, the vehicle is painted. This is the necessary first step as the car needs to be painted "before" the rest of the vehicle is put together. The paint needs to dry and cure very quickly to allow the assembly line to keep producing cars at a fairly fast rate. It's an amazing site to see a car painted at the factory. The precision is astonishing with robotic sprayers moving and a fine mist of paint covering the vehicles and turning a bare sheet metal body into a glowing and spectacular sight. The wet cars move into a bake oven to dry and cure the clear coated paint. The combination of the chemistry of the clear coat, and the temperature and time duration that it's baked at, will ultimately determine how easy or difficult that particular paint job will be to buff. This can be referred to as the "hardness" or "softness" of the clear.
The problem is that all plants will use different brands of clear at different plant locations. You will never be able to tell the difference just by looking at the paint finish. They will all look virtually the same. But they will all buff slightly differently. Frustrating isn't it? People always ask me if they have a chart on the different clears that the car plants use and how they will buff. Unfortunately, there is no chart. You will need to gain some experience on how different models and different years of cars buff out.
Hard vs. soft clear
If we go back about 30 years ago, to single stage paint jobs which were lacquer or enamel, these paint surfaces were fairly hard and needed more aggressive methods to buff out. If you know anybody who has been in the business a while, they will tell you about the older buffing products that felt like beach sand when rubbed between your fingers. They will also tell you about buffing with very aggressive wool pads and very high speed on the buffer. They also would have laughed if you would have shown them an orbital buffer or a product where you could not feel the abrasives between your fingers. An orbital and a light duty buffing product just would not work on older style paint systems. It was just the chemistry of those paints back then. They were very hard and when they oxidized or needed correction, you needed to be very aggressive. This was the buffing method needed across the board, no matter who the car manufacturer was.
When the transition started to take place and clear coats came into existence back in the early 80's, those initial clear coats were also very hard. They were called Melamine clears. They exhibited the same characteristics of the single stage paint systems, so detailers did not really need to change their buffing style very much, or their products, buffing speed, buffers themselves, or buffing pads. The only thing that really changed was there was no color transfer from the car to the buffing pad. The paint was now "clear" compared to colored, as it had been for many years.
Melamine clear coats are still in use today but generally not on higher lines makes and models. Its gloss is not as brilliant as some newer clear coat chemistries and they are not quite as etch resistant. So car manufacturers started going to a more brilliant glossy clears that had more etching resistance but chemistry wise, they were "softer". These are called urethane clears. More recently, powder clears which exhibit the same buffing characteristics are used for V.O.C purposes and material savings because the powder can be recycled. These clears originally were used on more high line and upscale vehicles to show a more brilliant finish. However, they were softer and more susceptible to scratches but they were easier to buff. So an easier clear to buff will mean it will also be easier to swirl and haze.
Habits had to change
Old habits regarding buffing had to change with the inception of these "softer" clears. No longer could a detailer "go to town" with high speed, a course product, and an aggressive buffing pad. Changes had to be made in the form of softer, foam pads and the use of less speed while handling a high speed buffer. This also meant the detailer needed more skill in buffing. "Old school" detailers had to adapt to newer buffing techniques or these clears would be full of swirl marks, holograms, and have a general haziness to them with far less gloss if buffed incorrectly.
Unfortunately, many detailers did not change, and did not understand the way that these newer, softer clear coats had to be buffed. Yes, they would easily remove scratches and imperfections by buffing the old way, but they would never really learn to make the clear have perfect gloss and clarity because of the aggressive methods still being used on a totally different chemistry of clears.
Now, if we fast forward to just the last couple of years...Car manufacturers have seen that the softer clears were coming off leases and being marred and scratched too much. There was far too much reconditioning and paint work that had to be done to get these "pre owned" vehicles ready for resale. So, they wanted to come up with a chemistry of clear that was harder than a urethane or powder clear, yet still retain the same brilliance and gloss. But at the same time they wanted them to be more scratch resistant.
Back to harder clears!
So now, many manufacturers have gone back to a harder version of clear coat to gain more scratch resistance. The term of these new generation of clears is simply called "scratch resistant clears" One common name for them is a brand called Cerami-Clear which simply uses nanno, or very tiny particles of ceramic that migrate to the very top portion of the clear coat and give it more scratch resistance against car washing and normal everyday abrasions. It's a better version of the old Melamine clear coats which are also very hard. But...some of these hard clear coats are very hard and very difficult to remove imperfections. You will need to be fairly aggressive to get anywhere with some of these newer, harder clears. I have also seen scratch resistant clears that once you buff through the very thin nanno section of ceramic particles that are at the very top of the clear, it turns into a softer clear underneath and can still swirl and mar very badly, even though technically it's a scratch resistant clear. So this can be very confusing and demoralizing for a detailer as well.
In addition, not all vehicles are using these newer, harder clears. Some car manufacturers are using the scratch resistant clears on ALL their vehicles such as Mercedes. Some manufacturers are using these clears on some of their cars but not all of them. For example, BMW uses scratch resistant clear coat on all vehicles made in Germany. However, on their vehicles made in the US such as the Z4, X3 and X5, they are still using the softer powder clear coats at the plant in South Carolina. And a couple of years ago, before all the German made BMW's made the change to scratch resistant clear, some plants would still use a soft clear while some plants had already switched to a harder version. So it was not inconceivable to see the same year and same model vehicle, in the same color with one having a soft clear and one having a hard clear. That will make buffing rather interesting, wont it?
Some other car lines are still exclusively using soft clears. So, it's not so easy being a detailer these days as you can see. There are many different types of clear coats still in use with almost all of them having their own buffing characteristics.
Can't have tunnel vision
Many detailers, especially "old school" detailers like to buff one way. They have their favorite buffer with their favorite speed. They also use their favorite pad and their favorite product. And they never fluctuate. This will cause problems. Maybe some cars will buff out perfectly with all the imperfections being eliminated and still having a great gloss and clarity with no swirl marks or haziness. But then there will be cars that will have swirls and marring all over them because the detailer was too aggressive. As well, some cars will still have the scratches and imperfections still left in them because this clear was not buffed aggressive enough. This is because all the clears still have various chemistries and will all buff out differently. That is why this "tunnel vision" or one-way of buffing just cant work anymore.
A detailer needs to be able to see what's going on with the clear as you are buffing it. If you are overly aggressive, you will have a lot of cleaning up of swirls and hazing to do which will take considerably more time and effort to get it right. If you are not aggressive enough, the car will not look as good as it should and you may have to go back and get more aggressive, again meaning more time and effort.
There is no chart
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a nice handy chart that listed all the clears that the car manufacturers use and how they will buff out? Well unfortunately, there is not. Knowing how certain car lines will buff out according to the year and model will come with much experience. If you don't have that experience as of yet, then it's essential to buff a small area of the vehicle you are working on to see how it will react. It's always better to start with the least aggressive methods of buffing and see what the results are. Some vehicles may look good if buffed with an orbital buffer, while some vehicles will need to be buffed with a rotary or high speed buffer. Even if you know going in what kind of clear coat a vehicle has on it, you will still need the proper equipment, products and skill to get the job done correctly.
It used to be that a car was either single stage paint or clear coat and they all buffed out about the same. It's not the case anymore. Many detailers are genuinely worried and try to keep up with all the new clears and how they will react to buffing. I know you want to try to keep track of what's on each and every car, but it's almost impossible to distinguish them by eye. And with some manufacturers using both soft and hard versions of clear, it makes our jobs even more difficult.
New generation of products
With new generations of clear coats come new generations of buffing products. The new trend is for products to be labeled as "ceramic clear polishes". Simply, these are products that have larger micron size abrasives or a more aggressive type of abrasive. Another trend is in "polishes" that can perform multiple tasks such as cutting and finishing. In next months issue I will look at some of the newer styles of buffing products, and how both David Ghodoussi of Optimum Polymer and I have created and replaced existing buffing products at a couple of major auto plants with the newer technology of buffing products.
]]>We have all heard these terms recently. "Going green", "eco friendly", "environmentally safe", and more are more than just catch phrases. We know what they mean and why we should heed the call. Some of us may drive more fuel efficient automobiles or hybrids, we may use energy saving light bulbs in our homes, we all hopefully recycle as much as we can, but when we look at "going green" from a detailing point of view what does that mean to us?
Many of us unfortunately may look at this as a nuisance. We are all creatures of habit and are used to doing things a certain way. But we have to look at what we have been doing and examine the fact that can we possibly change? Can we be as effective, or more effective and still be environmentally friendly? Going green does not necessarily need to be a way that slows us down or does not get cars as clean as we are used to. Before we look at the "new school" or eco friendly ways we can clean and detail cars, let's look at the "old school" ways we have been doing things
Car washing
There has never been any other way to clean something, especially an automobile, other than with the use of large amounts of water and soap. We wet the car and rinse it first, then wash the car with a soapy solution to lift the dirt, and then rinse the entire vehicle with large amounts of water. It's always seemed to work and it's always been an accepted process. We have always washed cars this way and nobody has ever told us otherwise. However, we are now being told! There are drought problems all over the country which will severely limit the amount of water (if any) that can be used to wash a vehicle. There are also major concerns about polluting our streams and rivers which nobody really cared about years and years ago. Some foreign countries are not even allowing homeowners to wash their vehicle at home anymore. There was an article not too long ago in the Wall Street Journal banning car washing in some towns right here in the USA. Many municipalities are now keeping an eye on car washes and how much water they use. They must reclaim and recycle the large amounts of water being used. Water needs to be treated before it can enter a sewage system. Mobile detailers need to know the rules about water usage and reclaim in the areas that they service as well. The problem is REAL and it's not going away anytime soon
The cleaners we use and V.O.C.'s
Not only is car washing a major issue in being eco friendly, but the kinds of cleaners that we use on vehicles to get them clean. We know that soap will not clean very much other than light dirt. Once the cars get caked with heavy soils and grease and ground in crud, we need other, stronger, more dangerous and non environmentally friendly products and cleaners to get the cars clean. Our use of high PH alkaline all purpose cleaners and degreasers are one example. Wheel acids are another example. Heavy solvents such as lacquer thinner, gasoline and kerosene (yes some detailers still use this) to remove grease from interiors as well as tar from the outside of the car. Even the buffing products we use are not very environmentally friendly.
It all comes down to VOC's or Volatile Organic Compounds, and no, that's not a brand name for a compound! This measures the amount of pollutants a product has that is being emitted into the atmosphere. Car manufacturers and body shops know what this is because they need to keep strict track of what products they are using and the VOC level of each. They must chart the use and the waste of those products and safely get rid of them, or face heavy fines or closure. The companies themselves that make these products are under strict limitations of how much VOC is in each product. If it's over a specified number, they must go back to the drawing board. This is affecting us already and you may not even know it
My favorite product is not as good as it used to be!
Have any of you noticed that a great product you used to use is either no longer available, or has changed? Sometimes for the worse? And have you noticed the prices of some products getting more and more expensive? The reason is because the product companies have had to reformulate many products to meet the new VOC guidelines and become more eco friendly. Most every buffing product and cleaner has a degree of solvent in it. This aids in the formulation and mixing of the products as well as aiding in the way it performs and cleans. Some solvents are very harsh for both you and the environment and have been outlawed. There are now new, safer solvents in almost every product. But some detailers feel that they do not clean as well as they used to. In some cases this may be true, but the unsafe and dangerous products of the past are going to be long gone in no time. We are "going green" regardless of whether you like it or not. So how do we embrace it? How do we make this "going green" idea have legs and use it to our benefit? Let's look at some solutions.
A different way to wash- old school vs. new school
There is an alternative. Washing with conventional soap is actually 100 year old technology. Soaps require rinsing first and having something, in this case the vehicle, already wet. The soap will only emulsify and lift the dirt because water (and lots of it) is present. Then, water (and lots of it) must be used to flush and rinse the surface to remove all the dirt, oils and soapy residue. If any soap is left on the vehicle, we will see streaks and hazing, and the surface will be sticky. The other bad thing about soap is that you cannot re-emulsify soap once it dries. You basically need to repeat the process to get the same results. Also, believe it or not, many soaps are actually aggressive and can cause more harm than good, and many will strip wax, leave a paint surface less glossy and slick than when you began. This is very "OLD SCHOOL"
The newer technologies which are called designer polymers are being used to clean vehicles with very little water or no water at all. This is the "NEW SCHOOL" way. Polymers can be made to do many things. They can be linked and chained together to accomplish anything that is needed. (In this case getting a paint surface clean). These polymers have a much better ability to dissolve oils and grease, emulsify dirt and lift it off a vehicles surface with less product and much less water. The polymer creates a barrier between the paint surface and the dirt and carries it away. The polymers bond better to the dirt and will also bond to the paint surface leaving it with more gloss, a much slicker feel, and even some protection. Many of these new design special designer polymer products can be used with a small amount of water mixed in a bucket. The operation of cleaning is simply to immerse a micro fiber towel in the bucket and go about wiping the car down and freeing the dirt. This will even work on an extremely dirty vehicle.
There is also another method of no water washing where "spray wash" products can be used to spray on a dirty surface and simply wiped away. These products need to totally "wet" and encapsulate the dirt, but once wetted, the dirt can be wiped away in the exact same manner. Both are excellent choices.
How much time will this take?
Time is always a factor in detailing. We always prefer to get a car done sooner rather than later. I have always thought that the best case scenario was to wash a car the conventional way if possible. This consists of pre- wetting the car, using soap to wash the car, rinsing it off, and drying it. This does take time but has always shown to be effective. There is no argument there. However, by using the new polymer technology, we are saving a few steps. We save the pre rinsing step (if the car has not been, lets say, 4 wheeling), and we save the post rinsing and drying step. We still need to wipe the car down and remove the dirt, which may take a bit more time because we will be constantly dipping our towel in the bucket and basically moving "panel to panel". So, in some cases we may save time on a less dirty vehicle and we may add a bit more time on very dirty vehicles. However, what we need to look at are a few things.
Some detailers are now being "forced" to find other ways to wash. This is a fact. In drought areas you see it already. Water restrictions are in place and may not go away anytime soon. And even if you're in an area of the country that is not water restricted, we have all probably been through it at one time or another. It's far better to have an alternative and stay in business, even if washing takes slightly longer, than to be shut down because there is no water allowed. I was very skeptical of these new methods and "designer polymer technology" but until you have actually tried it and have seen it work, you may never believe it. It does work and vehicles will get clean, they will have a great gloss, and they will have a slick feel.
There are still other ways to be GREEN and effective
Let's say you work on VERY dirty vehicles all the time. Let's also say you are a mobile detailer working in a cold climate where even if water is allowed, it may freeze on a vehicle during the winter months. We have all had challenges of trying to wash a cold car. Metal and glass hold cold very well and freeze very quickly. Water hitting a cold vehicle can re-freeze almost instantly. Water hitting the ground will also freeze very quickly. This creates a hazardous situation unless you have ice skates on. This makes washing a car almost impossible no matter what kind of product you are using. There is still another alternative��STEAM CLEANING!
A great�.not just good�.and certainly not a cheap steam machine can do wonders on the outside of a vehicle. To be able to pre wet the paint surface (or any surface) with just extremely hot water vapor can be a huge asset in "green" cleaning. There will be almost no water runoff, and you can use one of these "great" steamers to basically help wash and rinse the car. It can help clean all areas of the vehicle including wheels, door jambs, rocker panels, and even engines without slowing you down, or the steam machine running out of steam. Again, I was a big skeptic until I purchased a "great" steam machine and saw what it can accomplish. These machines can be such a gigantic aid in "green" cleaning and actually staying in business. It's a great advertising and selling point to a customer. Also don't forget the fact that in cold climates, this machine will keep you working. It can "thaw" vehicles and allow for the products to work. If the temperature is below freeing, it's no problem. The steamer will warm the car up, dissolve any ice or frost, or even melt snow, thus allowing you to work in harsh conditions.
This is still another, even "greater" steamer that will work for you even faster and more effectively. There are units that are heated by propane and are basically a combination steamer and pressure washer. But the water output is far less. These units combine a small amount of water injected along with very hot steam and run at about 600 PSI to produce cleaning like you have never seen before. While these units use slightly more water than a conventional steam machine, they will be much faster to use and even more effective. These units will also inject your favorite designer polymer cleaning solution at the gun tip to further help clean the vehicle. The water savings are immense and the results are fabulous!
Change is on the horizon
Regardless of whether we like it or not, change is coming. Gone will be the old school ways of car washing, possibly even for conventional car washes. However, instead of being resistant to change, embrace some of the newer greener methods. Luckily the technology is NOW available to make these changes. Consumers are looking for detailers who are eco friendly. Consumers are looking for "everything" that is eco friendly. Using these new products and equipment will not only make you an environmentally friendly detailer, it will produce the results that you are used to and maybe even save you some time. It may even keep you in business. And, if you advertise about being green and eco friendly, you will surely get more customers and generate more interest when people see you using different equipment, products and techniques than they are used to seeing. It's not just a catch phrase anymore. It's a way of life. Embrace it!
]]>DETAILING SOLUTIONS - Pricing Menu's, Good or bad?
If your detailing operation includes performing customer, or retail detailing, there are some important points to consider regarding pricing. Pricing out a detail is very subjective. The color combination (paint color and interior color), the age of the vehicle, the way the vehicle has been kept, and how spectacular the customer wants it to look are some key factors regarding pricing of detailing services. Information regarding these variables must be known in order to correctly price a detail to ensure profitability on each and every car. So, why do many shops use a pricing menu that does not allow for consideration of these variables?
Profit of goods vs. services
If goods or products are being sold such as a television, a car, tools, equipment, etc., there is a set price. The profit is based on the percentage over the cost that product is sold. The labor to sell that product remains virtually the same; therefore the profit on each sale is based solely on mark up. However, when a service is sold, such as detailing, there is labor time involved that varies from one job to the next. To realize a profit, the labor must be accurately calculated so that the service is completed in the allotted time. Exceeding the allotted time reduces profit.
Service departments often have a pricing menu for services such as oil changes, wheel alignments, brake jobs, tire rotations, and other services for which there is a fairly universal labor time from vehicle to vehicle, regardless of age or model. Menu pricing can work in these instances, but in detailing it is more difficult because of the many variables mentioned earlier. All vehicles will vary in what they need to look their absolute best. Some cars need 3 hours of labor, while some cars may need 5 or 6 hours of labor, or more. If your menu pricing is based on an average of 4 hours of labor, you will win some and you will lose some. Unfortunately, you may lose more than you think because some vehicles will need more labor intense operations, such as wet sanding or paint refinishing to repair a deep scratch. Many customers think that basic detailing services will fix all cosmetic problems including these. If problems are not addressed with the customer before the vehicle is brought in and priced out, this is a recipe for a dissatisfied customer and lower profits.
Evaluate every single car!
Every vehicle should be evaluated before a price is given. There should be signs in the dealership that inform the customer that expert detailing is available. At no time however, should a price be given until a skilled member of the detail staff has viewed the vehicle. A 3-month-old silver coupe will generally not need the same service as a 3-year old black SUV that transports children every day. If menu pricing is used in this instance, the price may be too expensive for the owner of the 3-month-old silver coupe and the customer may simply decline because of the expense. The menu price may be too low for the work required to detail the 3 year old black SUV. In both scenarios the dealer has lost a profit opportunity.
Win Win situation
Most cars will fall into a range of labor time that the dealer deems as profitable. However, there must be fairness in pricing to allow the customer with a fairly clean vehicle to buy the service at an attractive price. This creates a scenario in which more people are buying the service, where they may not have if the service were only menu priced. The outcome should be win-win for everyone.
When a customer inquires about detailing, the service writer can direct the customer to the detail department, or call the detail manager for an estimate. This is extremely important in a number of ways.
Many detail shops have problems with customer satisfaction because the vehicles are not properly evaluated before work begins. Some people have been unhappy with what otherwise was a flawless detail, because a scratch was not removed. It turns out that the "scratch" was more of a "gouge" that needed refinishing. That could have been upsold as a paint repair. The shop would have grossed considerably more money, and the customer's expectations would have been met.
The best, and in my opinion, only way to price detailing services is to look at and carefully examine each and every car prior to booking the job. It is important to ask the customer what he wants, but is it equally important to tell him what the car needs to look its best. If your detail manager is a skilled estimator, he can quickly figure out labor time to make sure there is adequate profit in the job. On the other hand, if everything is based on a pricing menu, there will be many instances in which the labor (not the price) time must be increased to ensure a good job, thus reducing profit.
The best strategy in running a profitable retail detailing operation is to eliminate a standard pricing menu and determine the price for each job on an individual basis. This will ensure customer satisfaction and higher profits on each and every vehicle that is worked on.
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