Best detailing tools that are not made for detailing
- Thread starter SheldonH
- Start date
My Detailing Guys
New member
- Aug 25, 2010
- 238
- 0
Like the Armor All idea...I've been looking for a quick way to detail the wheelwells without doing it all by hand. I'm guessing you are using spray Armor All???
Thanks,
Greg
Ron Atchison
New member
- May 2, 2011
- 1,034
- 0
Cut it 50/50 with water for wells. Virtually looks the same at half the price.
rops:
Klasse Act
Well-known member
- Feb 21, 2012
- 27,692
- 2,687
Cut it 50/50 with water for wells. Virtually looks the same at half the price.
Have you already cut it 50/50? I've never done it since AA is so cheap. I actually bought this "AA type" product from an old online detailing supplier I used to use and it stated to dilute it down with water. This is ofcoarse to be used in a sprayer for sure, easier to get maximum coverage.
BTW, keep the idea's coming everyone, great idea's here for sure!
Rolling_Pwns
New member
- Apr 17, 2012
- 19
- 0
Rolling_Pwns
New member
- Apr 17, 2012
- 19
- 0
Toothbrush for scrubbing carpets in RV's.
Wait a minute..... That's the way my wife makes me do it when I'm being punished....may not apply here.
Wait a minute..... That's the way my wife makes me do it when I'm being punished....may not apply here.
Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 7
The Beach Towel Tip
Here's a tip I use on some cars I detail to cover and protect the plastic surrounding the wiper arms at the back edge of the hood of cars, just before the windshield.
Beach Towels tend to be longer in one direction than the average bath towel; on average, beach towels run around 60" or 70" in length. Where this comes in handy over a bath towel is that your average car, truck or s.u.v. windshield is around 5' to 6' across so a Beach Towel is usually long enough to cover and protect the plastic, wiper arms, and glass in one fell swoop whereas the average bath towel falls short.
See if you can relate...
Sometimes it seems like splatter, that is the little white dots of product that land on the glass can be some of the hardest little things to remove 100%, not to mention time-consuming. So with this technique you can avoid the hassle entirely.
This tip is mostly for working with rotary buffers as they will tend to sling-out splatter more than machines like the Flex 3401, the Cyclo and DA Polishers like the Porter Cable.
I have seen people lift these other non-rotary buffers off hoods while the pad is still spinning at a high rate of speed and completely cover a windshield with splatter so it does happen. See these threads,
Here's a tip... don't lift the pad off the paint till you've turned the polisher off and the spinning pad has slowed down...
What not to do when detailing a car!
I know detailers that never tape-off or cover anything up and that's okay too, it's personal preference and it could be that you're just incredibly careful as well as incredibly good at this craft. It could also mean the cars you're working on it won't matter if you do get spatter into hard to detail areas.
For the rest us, here's how you use a Beach Towel to cover-up and protect areas you don't want to get splatter onto or into and then have to "detail" these areas and components later, after the polishing and waxing is over.
This is a stylish Beach Towel I found at Walgreens for around $6.00, my normal towel is white and ugly so I thought this would make for a more fun how-to article. Just to note you could also use paper or plastic, whatever works for you... I like Beach Towels for a number of reasons that paper and plastic don't offer but I have used both plastic, (2 mil painter's drop cloths), and paper, (usually newspaper but painter's masking paper works great too).
Here's the area I'm talking about that you want to cover up on modern cars, they often have plastic material with grill or vent openings that if you get splatter onto and into these areas it can be difficult and time consuming to remove.
In most cases, if you're restoring the paint on someone's daily driver, not only is the paint neglected but the plastic is neglected meaning it's weathered, dried and dull and it seems like splatter really likes to stick hard to plastic in this condition.
If you do get splatter on these areas, it's also very unsightly and your customer might not appreciate it if you don't remove it. So with this technique, you never get splatter into and onto these areas in the first place. The old an ounce of prevention idea...
Not only does a Beach Towel work well for this type of job you can also re-wash it and use it again... so it's green technique...
Start by opening the hood and locating a place to tape one edge of the towel too, make sure the ends of the towel don't bind in the hinge mechanism and don't place dry cloth anywhere on a hot engine where it could be a fire danger or get caught into any moving parts. In other words, use common sense.
After carefully closing the hood, then use some Painter's Tape to affix the towel to the windshield so it doesn't fall down and if you're also taping off other plastic, vinyl or rubber trim, then tape-off these components accordingly.
In this instance the towel did not reach all the way to the top of the windshield; this is okay however because the sling and splatter is mostly an issue for the lower portions adjacent to the hood where the buffing is taking place. You can also use this for the rear window. Side windows are not usually a problem for the glass because the panels are vertical.
Notice how I've run a couple of strips of wide tape along where the Beach Towel meets the rear edge of the hood?
In some cases, the design of the vehicle means there's no gap or air space between the edge of the hood and the glass or wiper arm area, in these cases, you have to be careful when running your polisher not to run the buffing pad into the Beach Towel because the nap is grippy and your buffing pad could grab it and yank it into itself.
So for cars with a low or no air-gap between the paint and the area you're trying to cover up, being careful when buffing these areas is important, but I also run a couple of strips of tape across this area as a buffing pad that's lubricated with product will just bump into the tape, it won't snag it and possibly pull it off the area and into the pad.
Just an extra safety precaution, you can decide how DO or AR you want to get.
Then continue working around the car taping areas off you don't want to get compound or polish residue.
Classic and Antique Vehicles
For classic cars, there's usually zero plastic around the windshield, wiper arms and edge of hood but you may still want to cover-up the windshield glass so you can use the Beach Towel Tip for classics too...
And of course... since most classics have air vent grills in front of the windshield, so Tape it off and avoid a lifetime of ugly...
And any other areas that you don't want to run a toothbrush or some kind of detailing brush...
"Polishing paint is polishing paint, detailing is getting the wax out of the cracks"
I've also used the extra large Guzzler Waffle Weave Drying Towels and while not always long enough to reach across 100% of a windshield, they do work as you can see in this thread,
Damp-Sanding Tools, Tips and Techniques by Mike Phillips
The Beach Towel Tip... simple and effective plus a real time saver...
Kind of a related tip...
The Soft Flannel Bed Sheet Tip
I like to cover up the engine on special interest cars and especially show cars or restored cars where the engine and engine compartment are clean enough to eat off of. The reason for this is because it's all to easy for stray splatter from either wet-sanding or machine compounding and polishing to spray onto the engine and engine compartment and cleaning these areas can be difficult and very time consuming.
Here's a video I made a number of years ago that explains why to cover an engine and shows my method of using a clean, soft flannel bedsheet to carefully cover and protect the engine. You can also do this for trunks and interiors if you're working on a convertible with the top down or off the car.
The Panic Parrot - 1950 Studebaker Starlight Coupe
Keeping it covered, keeps the engine clean...
Keeping it covered means no detailing the very detailed engine afterwards...
Found a new beach towel over the weekend with a horizontal picture instead of a vertical picture to cover the windshield...
Im the MAN
Here's a tip I use on some cars I detail to cover and protect the plastic surrounding the wiper arms at the back edge of the hood of cars, just before the windshield.
Beach Towels tend to be longer in one direction than the average bath towel; on average, beach towels run around 60" or 70" in length. Where this comes in handy over a bath towel is that your average car, truck or s.u.v. windshield is around 5' to 6' across so a Beach Towel is usually long enough to cover and protect the plastic, wiper arms, and glass in one fell swoop whereas the average bath towel falls short.
See if you can relate...
Sometimes it seems like splatter, that is the little white dots of product that land on the glass can be some of the hardest little things to remove 100%, not to mention time-consuming. So with this technique you can avoid the hassle entirely.
This tip is mostly for working with rotary buffers as they will tend to sling-out splatter more than machines like the Flex 3401, the Cyclo and DA Polishers like the Porter Cable.
I have seen people lift these other non-rotary buffers off hoods while the pad is still spinning at a high rate of speed and completely cover a windshield with splatter so it does happen. See these threads,
Here's a tip... don't lift the pad off the paint till you've turned the polisher off and the spinning pad has slowed down...
What not to do when detailing a car!
I know detailers that never tape-off or cover anything up and that's okay too, it's personal preference and it could be that you're just incredibly careful as well as incredibly good at this craft. It could also mean the cars you're working on it won't matter if you do get spatter into hard to detail areas.
For the rest us, here's how you use a Beach Towel to cover-up and protect areas you don't want to get splatter onto or into and then have to "detail" these areas and components later, after the polishing and waxing is over.
This is a stylish Beach Towel I found at Walgreens for around $6.00, my normal towel is white and ugly so I thought this would make for a more fun how-to article. Just to note you could also use paper or plastic, whatever works for you... I like Beach Towels for a number of reasons that paper and plastic don't offer but I have used both plastic, (2 mil painter's drop cloths), and paper, (usually newspaper but painter's masking paper works great too).
Here's the area I'm talking about that you want to cover up on modern cars, they often have plastic material with grill or vent openings that if you get splatter onto and into these areas it can be difficult and time consuming to remove.
In most cases, if you're restoring the paint on someone's daily driver, not only is the paint neglected but the plastic is neglected meaning it's weathered, dried and dull and it seems like splatter really likes to stick hard to plastic in this condition.
If you do get splatter on these areas, it's also very unsightly and your customer might not appreciate it if you don't remove it. So with this technique, you never get splatter into and onto these areas in the first place. The old an ounce of prevention idea...
Not only does a Beach Towel work well for this type of job you can also re-wash it and use it again... so it's green technique...
Start by opening the hood and locating a place to tape one edge of the towel too, make sure the ends of the towel don't bind in the hinge mechanism and don't place dry cloth anywhere on a hot engine where it could be a fire danger or get caught into any moving parts. In other words, use common sense.
After carefully closing the hood, then use some Painter's Tape to affix the towel to the windshield so it doesn't fall down and if you're also taping off other plastic, vinyl or rubber trim, then tape-off these components accordingly.
In this instance the towel did not reach all the way to the top of the windshield; this is okay however because the sling and splatter is mostly an issue for the lower portions adjacent to the hood where the buffing is taking place. You can also use this for the rear window. Side windows are not usually a problem for the glass because the panels are vertical.
Notice how I've run a couple of strips of wide tape along where the Beach Towel meets the rear edge of the hood?
In some cases, the design of the vehicle means there's no gap or air space between the edge of the hood and the glass or wiper arm area, in these cases, you have to be careful when running your polisher not to run the buffing pad into the Beach Towel because the nap is grippy and your buffing pad could grab it and yank it into itself.
So for cars with a low or no air-gap between the paint and the area you're trying to cover up, being careful when buffing these areas is important, but I also run a couple of strips of tape across this area as a buffing pad that's lubricated with product will just bump into the tape, it won't snag it and possibly pull it off the area and into the pad.
Just an extra safety precaution, you can decide how DO or AR you want to get.
Then continue working around the car taping areas off you don't want to get compound or polish residue.
Classic and Antique Vehicles
For classic cars, there's usually zero plastic around the windshield, wiper arms and edge of hood but you may still want to cover-up the windshield glass so you can use the Beach Towel Tip for classics too...
And of course... since most classics have air vent grills in front of the windshield, so Tape it off and avoid a lifetime of ugly...
And any other areas that you don't want to run a toothbrush or some kind of detailing brush...
"Polishing paint is polishing paint, detailing is getting the wax out of the cracks"
I've also used the extra large Guzzler Waffle Weave Drying Towels and while not always long enough to reach across 100% of a windshield, they do work as you can see in this thread,
Damp-Sanding Tools, Tips and Techniques by Mike Phillips
The Beach Towel Tip... simple and effective plus a real time saver...
Kind of a related tip...
The Soft Flannel Bed Sheet Tip
I like to cover up the engine on special interest cars and especially show cars or restored cars where the engine and engine compartment are clean enough to eat off of. The reason for this is because it's all to easy for stray splatter from either wet-sanding or machine compounding and polishing to spray onto the engine and engine compartment and cleaning these areas can be difficult and very time consuming.
Here's a video I made a number of years ago that explains why to cover an engine and shows my method of using a clean, soft flannel bedsheet to carefully cover and protect the engine. You can also do this for trunks and interiors if you're working on a convertible with the top down or off the car.
Covering the motor on the Panic Parrot
[video=youtube_share;sE_0W-VXjR4"]YouTube- Covering the motor on the Panic Parrot...[/video]
[video=youtube_share;sE_0W-VXjR4"]YouTube- Covering the motor on the Panic Parrot...[/video]
The Panic Parrot - 1950 Studebaker Starlight Coupe
Keeping it covered, keeps the engine clean...
Keeping it covered means no detailing the very detailed engine afterwards...
Found a new beach towel over the weekend with a horizontal picture instead of a vertical picture to cover the windshield...
Im the MAN
Ron Atchison
New member
- May 2, 2011
- 1,034
- 0
Yes used to do it all the time. Haven't bought any AA in a long time. Just try a few OZ to see if you like the look.
derek0609
New member
- Oct 25, 2011
- 714
- 0
Saw it on here and used it when I wheeled out the giant hood on my wife's Saab 9-5.........
richy
New member
- Mar 27, 2007
- 5,158
- 0
In fact I picked up that tip here on AG (may have even been by you) and ordered a set of 3 of them on ebay for about $15 shipped.
I also use extra large garbage bags to cover the wheels and tires when compounding close by.
I use a similar technique that MP does to cover the glass, but I just grab some newspaper out of the recycle bin and then throw it back in when I'm done. One less thing to store.
swanicyouth
New member
- Mar 3, 2011
- 9,388
- 0
I love the Fireman's Hose nozzle. For a long time I used a plastic cheapie. One like this has so much more flow and power. Feels like your using a new more powerful water source.
cleanmycorolla
New member
- Apr 27, 2012
- 3,805
- 0
Here's a list of the things I use
Qtips
Lint brush(great for animal hair and long haired girlfriends like mine who's hair gets everywhere)
Toilet brush(use this in wheel wells for when extra grim gets up in there)
Qtips
Lint brush(great for animal hair and long haired girlfriends like mine who's hair gets everywhere)
Toilet brush(use this in wheel wells for when extra grim gets up in there)
swanicyouth
New member
- Mar 3, 2011
- 9,388
- 0
**** Also Great for dark Haartz fabric type convertible tops.
I am not certain if this qualifies but it sure makes things easier. I have four pieces of 2x4 approximately 1 ½ feet long, that I’ve cut at an angle on one end. I place them in front of the tires, then drive up onto them. The tires are then propped up so cleaning and dressing the bottom of them is easier.
Mike
Mike
EricPerrier
New member
- Oct 24, 2011
- 15
- 0
good point Mike! I do the same with 2x10's!
poynter1050
New member
- Apr 1, 2012
- 25
- 0
it amazes me how something so simple as that can make a huge difference!
