SHOWING POSTS IN Advice

Following on from Rich’s timely blog about the importance of winter preparation, this next batch of frequently asked questions will focus on other aspects of detailing that become more prominent during the winter months. As always, if you have any additional questions please feel free to fire away below and we’ll do our best to help.

Continuing our series of blogs focusing on frequently asked questions, we’re going to present two e-mail enquiries concerning the wash process; specifically about the role of pre-wash foaming and shampoo choice. We receive a lot of enquiries about these topics, so hopefully what follows will be useful. However, as always, if you have any remaining questions please feel free to fire away below and we’ll do our best to help.

…is that it accelerates metal corrosion processes, which is bad news for cars. Add in the wider environmental damage it causes, particularly to waterways and man-made structures, and it becomes clear that its widespread use as a road de-icer during the winter months is controversial to say the least. Last autumn, we posted an article about road salt and the need for car care enthusiasts to protect their cars against it. Despite the unusually good weather we are currently experiencing, it won’t be long now until the nights draw in, temperatures drop and the gritting lorries make an appearance. With this in mind, we thought it would be useful to revive last year’s article and refresh your memory about the importance of proper winter preparation. So, without further ado…

…IS YOUR CAR READY FOR WINTER?

Continuing our series of blogs focusing on frequently asked questions, we’re going to present two e-mail enquiries about machine polishing issues; specifically machine choice and pad choice. We receive a lot of enquiries about these topics, so hopefully what follows will be useful. However, as always, if you have any remaining questions please feel free to fire away below and we’ll do our best to help.

Continuing our series of blogs focusing on frequently asked questions, we’re going to present two e-mail enquiries that highlight two of the more basic aspects of detailing that are sometimes not fully understood, or overlooked, perhaps due to their apparent simplicity. Hopefully our responses to the questions posed will make perfect sense, but as always, if you have any questions please feel free to fire away below and we’ll do our best to help.

Meguiar’s have done it again. They’ve thought long and hard about a challenging issue facing the detailing community, and then broken the mould with a cutting edge solution. In this case, they’ve developed a brand new dual action polishing system that addresses the issue of serious machine polishing enthusiasts desiring the performance benefits afforded by rotary polishers (greater cutting power, sharper finishing, etc) but without the accompanying risks (excessive paint removal, burning through, hologramming, etc). This new line of products, called the Meguiar’s DA Microfibre Correction System, was released in the USA at the start of the year, but has only just made it to the UK. However, thanks to Meguiar’s UK, we’ve had samples on test since May and this trial period has provided us with a lot of valuable insight into the new products and how to get the best possible results when using them.

This is the first of a new series of blogs we’re going to post looking at questions we’re commonly asked here at PB HQ. This month, we’ve chosen two fairly substantial e-mail enquiries with strongly recurring themes: (i) “I’m new to proper detailing, what should I be doing?”, and; (ii) “I’m just about to take delivery of a new car, how should I detail it?”. Hopefully our responses to the questions posed will make perfect sense, but as always, if you have any questions please feel free to fire away below and we’ll do our best to help.

Lately, we’ve been receiving a very healthy amount of monthly show and shine entries, and more questions than ever before have been asked about how we judge the competition and pick the winners. These questions have ranged from the pre-emptive “What do I need to do to win?” to the cheeky “I didn’t win last month: why not?”, and have raised some interesting points. As a result, we’ve decided to spill the beans and tell you exactly what you need to do to win. This should save you a bit of time and misdirected effort in future.

To kick things off, let’s recap the rules… “The rules for entering our monthly show and shine competition are simple. Firstly, buy some products from us and keep a note of the order number. Then use the products and take decent quality photos of the results. Finally submit at least eight photos to our usual e-mail address, along with the original order number and a written summary of what you did. At the end of each month we will judge that month’s entries and the winner will be featured here and will receive £150 worth of products from the store. Good luck!”.

So far, I’ve blogged on washing, decontamination and polishing, so this article is, with just a hint of predictability, going to focus on paint protection and last stage products (or LSPs for short).

When deciding which LSP to select, due to the chiefly subjective nature of the subject, I think it’s best to consider which properties in a finish are of highest importance. Some products will maximise flake pop, others reflectivity, some the depth of shine and colour richness (also known as jetting). Obviously factors such as durability are objective and will play a more easily quantifiable part in the process. If you know what you’re looking for in a finish, it makes product selection much easier – remembering that, at the moment, there is no truly perfect LSP.

In the third installment of my blog, I’ll look at my training regarding polishing and offer my thoughts on this massive topic. This could be lengthy…

The initial points that Rich and I discussed were basic, but possibly much overlooked: what exactly is car paint and, crucially, how much paint depth do cars typically have? I was aware that total depth is usually pretty thin, but only when you have a laboratory reference shim in your hand do you realise that 100 microns is not a lot. For reference, a typical sheet of paper is around 70 microns thick.

Paint defects generally comprise any damage that has broken the top layer of paint (usually termed the clearcoat) and damage such as stone chips and swirl marks are probably the most common. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll refer to any abrasive product as a polish and any non-abrasive product as a glaze in the following discussion.