Pres·i·den·tial (prz-dnshl) adj. Of or relating to a president or presidency
De·tails (d-tls, dtls) 1.To provide with artistic or decorative detail: 2.With attention to particulars; thoroughly or meticulously Mission Statement: To provide a quality result that satisfies our clients’ needs and expectations the first time, every time! Our goal is to satisfy clients’ needs, whether it be through timely delivery; providing the best value for the money; efficient and courteous service; or superior quality, reliability and durability of our products. As such, we have committed ourselves to the following: 1. Understanding and responding to our customers’ needs and expectations. 2. Improving the Methods of practice to generate continuing quality and productivity improvements. 3. Establishing long term relationships with our clients. 4. Constantly improving on all of the above. Presidential Details present Barry Theal as he enjoys a week of detailing. When it comes to enjoyment of your career I am truly blessed. I love what I do and this week really put the icing on the cake. We as detailers forget that we are working on someone’s hard earned dollar. Its our talent that brings a smile and a great sense well being to our customer. Think about it, often we get to work on really nice automobiles and enjoy them for a little while. I was not apart of the lucky sperm club. I have worked hard everyday of my life to provide for my family and make sure everyone has a roof over there head, food to eat, and some play toys. When given the chance to give a little rebirth to this Mondial I enjoyed every minute. It was as if this car was mine. Although there were some defects I decided not to chase because I felt it would cause future problems, the car finished nicely and I was very pleased. The owner of the car was probably the most layed back I met in a while. He was just a great guy. I actually finished the car early and he got to enjoy it on the first spring weekend of the year. It was a nice and sunny 72 to degrees on pick up. I will admit that this write up will be a little long so please bare with me. As the car presented itself upon its arrival. Keep in mind this is not a garage queen. The owner actually enjoys this car to fullest. Just as I would. These are made to be driven and that he does.
As you can see in the close up. I was in for an adventure. During the first phase of the detail, I performed my normal dismantle. This phase includes Removal of as many things to completely allow for a proper cleansing. Today’s dismantle included removal of the plate registration, and bracket, as well the wheels and tires.
Once this was done I noticed in my inspection process, I found that the window and roof didn’t properly line up on the convertible top. In order to prevent waster leaking in I masked off all area’s where water could leak into the interior. Prior to this I noticed all the interior leather was dyed. So I had to be very careful. Water and soap would ruin the interior fast. Here is how I did it. This worked excellent.
First I moved onto the wheel arches, shocks and struts and all the good stuff in between. This was a messy one. I used a citrus cleaner that is safe yet affective. Very affective. It has such a pleasant smell, my whole shop smells like a freshly squeezed orange. Anyways here it is.
As you can see getting back behind the brake shoes is a little easier this way. A nice small brush and a little effort goes a long way.
All the arches received the same attention. Next I moved onto the painted area. I wanted to ensure a nice clean surface before the paint prep So I gave it a good foam bath to remove all debris on this thing. I adjated the smaller tighter area’s with a little boars hair brush and rinsed off.
At this point I had the paint nice and clean. There was no beading present and I moved onto the claying. I inspected paint and it was real ruff. A rubber glove enhances your feeling. It makes every particle that is embed in the paint stand out. I choose a fine grade clay bar because of the paints age. This car was 23 years old and single stage. I choose to take slow short strokes with the clay. I often see people taking long fast strokes. That scares me. What happens if the paint has a loose pebble on it? Scratch city. I avoided this with short slow firm strokes.
Next it was time for a good wheel cleaning. Here are some shots of the process.
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After the wheel cleaning I mounted all wheels and torgued them to 110lbs of pressure and gave the car one last foam rinsing. here you can see my son the photographer thought this picture below was funny. He now calls me wet cheeks. lol At this point I called it a day. As you can see in the following pic I was gonna be a lot of compounding.
The paint was very fragile and I was worried about paint peeling so I used 14 painters release tape. I took extra cattion threw every step.
As you can I took every precaution on this job. Once done taping The one who calls me wet cheeks got started on the his spring clean up. An 8 year old with a 6.5 horse power go cart. This thing got slicks. It hold my fat butt nicely. I think I bought this one for myself, but let him think its his. LOL
During the initial compounding I choose to take every taped off section individually. I used M105 for this. Some area’s required wool, some required, foam. I used every combination of pad at this point. It was crazy. I then finished down with M105 Using Kevin Brown’s method of Machine polishing.
Here I am getting it done.
This is what I was working on. Nothing crazy just a little bit of everything.
After the compounding was finished I rinsed it off and let every dry nicely. Tomorrow was a new day. Low and behold it got a little crazy. I had another client show up with a nice treat. He came in for a little refinement. So I called John over to help me out. While I was waiting for John I got started with a good cleansing on this Ferrari 575 Marnello. Such a beauty it was with the F1 Motor. Wooooooooooohooooooooooooo .. Here is how it presented itself upon delivery.
John showed up and got to work. I owed him for this one. Nothing like being able to call a buddy and say just make it happen. Having full trust that he will work to my Preisdential Standard is a very gratifying thing.
Here John gets started.
As John got started so did I. It was like clock work from here on out.
Once I had the Ferrari 575 Marnello Decontaminated to the Presidential Details Standard. I let it fully dry and bounced back to the Mondial to help John. I started some polishing.
While I finished the polishing Johen Hand polished all the tools and cleaned and conditioned the finer leather as we call it.
Once the polishing was complete I began to wax the car.
Like clockwork we began to lay down the finishing touches. John removed the wax and I followed detailing the cracks and grooves. Teamwork makes things a lot nicer. Once finished we tucked this beauty back in the corner and got started on the next one.
As I started the taping John was ahead of me with the interior.
Once taped up I inspected the paint and realized that it was in great shape and a nice massaging would do.
John wrapped up the interior and moved onto the exterior. He handle the windows with a hand polishing and cleaned up the exhaust tips. I worked on the wheels and tires.
All wrapped up we had a little Presidential Details moment. Lancaster County PA had to new stallions in its stable of Amish Buggies.
Up first The Mondial
At this point I had some time with the 575 Marnello so it gave me a chance to try out my new lens! Woooooohooooooooooo
incredible! what did you use on the rims? PM me if you dont wanna post it, in case AG doesnt sell it, im just curious b/c that $hit came out damn good!
Great job on two very nice stallions. I would have like to have seen some 50/50's on the that scratched out Mondial finish to really highlight how much better the paint looked. :dblthumb2::xyxthumbs::dblthumb2:
Nice new lens too! I am anxiously awaiting Nikon to announce the D90 replacement.
