Managing Time

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tcope

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Went with a friend hiking and drove through some juniper bushing so I offered to do some paint work on his truck. It was already in _very) bad condition so I just wanted to give it a quick once over. I have been detailing by own vehicle's for 9 years now (about 5 in all) and only worked on 3 friends cars. In working on a few friend's cars I've found the most difficult part is knowing what defects to leave. If I did not leave something in the paint I'd be working 15 hours just on the paint. At first it was _very_ difficult to leave the small micro-marring. But I know that most people done see this (crazy... I know). What I now do is determine how much time I want to put into the project. I then break it down per panel. Say I want to work for 4 hours. That comes out to 20 minutes per panel. I then can better understand how much correction I'm allowed.

Just to be clear... I find it very hard to stick to this plan but I think it can work and it helps me keep things in perspective. It helps stop me from dwelling on all of the little imperfections.

Right now I have about 5 hours into my friends truck and I still have the drivers side and hood to finish. That side is in better shape and I figure another 3 hours should do it. I tried something I've been wanting to do... remove some rather large issue with an eraser magic type sponge and then polish out the area. I was not aggressive with the sponge but it still made the removal much quicker. I'd place it on par with a wool pad.

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Key to the job is to determine ahead of time what type of correction level they are expecting. No sense in spending 15hrs achieving 99% perfection if they are going to simply drive it through a car wash or wash it themselves in a way that will kill all your efforts. I personally stick with AIO products and limit my time to say 4-6 passes per section. Mostly 4 passes. I can get 90-95 % correction and then I'll use a few drops of wax to "spot" or mark up any areas I might want to revisit.

I then knock out those trouble spots or the ones I think need a bit more attention and call it a day. Never had anything but compliments and people more than understand that perfection is time consuming and often don't want that anyway.
 
tcope said:
Went with a friend hiking and drove through some juniper bushing so I offered to do some paint work on his truck. It was already in _very) bad condition so I just wanted to give it a quick once over. I have been detailing by own vehicle's for 9 years now (about 5 in all) and only worked on 3 friends cars. In working on a few friend's cars I've found the most difficult part is knowing what defects to leave. If I did not leave something in the paint I'd be working 15 hours just on the paint. At first it was _very_ difficult to leave the small micro-marring. But I know that most people done see this (crazy... I know). What I now do is determine how much time I want to put into the project. I then break it down per panel. Say I want to work for 4 hours. That comes out to 20 minutes per panel. I then can better understand how much correction I'm allowed.

Just to be clear... I find it very hard to stick to this plan but I think it can work and it helps me keep things in perspective. It helps stop me from dwelling on all of the little imperfections.

Right now I have about 5 hours into my friends truck and I still have the drivers side and hood to finish. That side is in better shape and I figure another 3 hours should do it. I tried something I've been wanting to do... remove some rather large issue with an eraser magic type sponge and then polish out the area. I was not aggressive with the sponge but it still made the removal much quicker. I'd place it on par with a wool pad.

View attachment 48724
Click to expand...
I would just make it shine,depends on the ole mighty dollar.you said you offered your services deos that mean it's on the arm.If so HD speed with a cutting pad and done.you can't chase every little imperfection without being compensated for your time.
 
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