Dennis Gage - My Classic Car - Auto Detailing Shop

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Dennis Gage - My Classic Car - Auto Detailing Shop


My long-time friend and bona fide car guy, Dennis Gage recently sent me some pictures of his Jaguar after he detailed it. For the last 9 years we've been shooting car detailing how-to segments for his TV show, "My Classic Car". After each shoot, we're always happy to leave some of the cool products we bring to the set with Dennis that he can use on his own car and motorcycle collection.



Collection of products from past TV shows

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Dennis the Detailer!

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She looks beautiful!

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Nice!

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Below is the e-mail he sent me along with the above pictures...



The SMPLWHWH detailing system


Mike,

It’s pronounced “Smuple-wa-wa”. Sort of like your TOGWa. It’s my patented SMPLWHWH (Stuff-Mike-Phillips-Left-When-He-Was-Here) Detailing system.

My Jag needed attention in general, but there were area in the paint that had always bothered me. The clear coat at the tops of the fenders and the corresponding hood edges had something akin to extreme orange peel, almost crinkled. I’m pretty sure it came that way from the factory. It wasn’t terribly noticeable, but you could definitely see it in the right light. In the right light, it wasn’t right!

I decided to go after it gingerly with Griot's Fast Correcting Cream, which I had left around from a previous Autogeek product shoot. Armed with my trusty Porter Cable (also previously left behind), I started polishing those areas, stopping frequently to make sure I didn’t go to far. I got braver as I went and was amazed that I was able to completely correct those paint flaws!

Next, I switched to a less aggressive pad and did the whole car in Blackfire One Step. I was really impressed with how long you could work this product and it wiped off easily, leaving a really nice finish.

Not knowing that this already had a paint coating property, I wiped down the car with Windex and then applied Pinnacle Black Label paint coating. There was nothing to the application, and car looked like a million bucks when I was done!

Based on your recommendation (and new product infusion), a couple days later I wiped it down again with “3D Wipe” Surface-Prep and then applied Pinnacle Black Label Surface Coating. That’s the first time I had used this, and I was very impressed with how easily it went on and came off.

Bottom line, the Jag didn’t look this good when it left the showroom floor back in 1999!! The only bad thing is that is looks so good I don’t even want to drive it. I just want to look at it! I’m sure I’ll get over that eventually.

Thanks for all the training, counsel and product! You are my detailing guru!! And I’m a better person for that. ��

Dennis





What a great story!

Thanks for sharing Dennis and your Jaguar looks beautiful!


:dblthumb2:
 
Re:Dennis Gage - My Classic Car - Auto Detailing Shop

More...

For those of you that read this,

The SMPLWHWH detailing system


Mike,

It’s pronounced “Smuple-wa-wa”. Sort of like your TOGWa.

It’s my patented SMPLWHWH (Stuff-Mike-Phillips-Left-When-He-Was-Here) Detailing system.

Dennis





And then though,

What is he talking about?


After a decade of working with Dennis, and in some cases Dennis taking part in my classes or the LIVE TV SHOOT we did in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Dennis knows one of the things I do in our industry is created new words, terms and acrynoms for detailing lingo.

When he talks about TOGWA - that's from my acronym for The Other Guy's Wax and here's my article on this topic from October of 2009


TOGW = The Other Guy's Wax


This is called, TOGW, pronounced, togwa.

57TuqChev008.jpg




Here's a close-up of TOGW
57TuqChev008c.jpg



TOGW stands for The Other Guy's Wax.

That is the wax in the cracks and crevices or on trim components or around emblems left by the last guy that buffed out the car. So not only do we have to remove any splatter we get on the car, we also have to remove the other guys wax or his shoddy work will reflect poorly on our work.


Here's a tip...

One of the thing I do before taking a job is to inspect the car for the other guy's wax in the cracks, often times this will be from the owner of the car that you're standing there talking to.

Look around any components, especially if they have a gasket under them or a seam with a rubber gasket or white residue on plastic, vinyl or rubber trim. If there's a sunroof, look around the gap for the rubber or fuzzy seal to be creamed-out with polish or wax.

If you find this kind of shoddy work, be sure to take a few pictures of it and also point it out to the owner so they know you know it's there before you even start to work on the car.

Then let them know that you're willing to try to remove the other guy's polish and wax residue as a part of the job but let them know HOW DIFFICULT and TIME CONSUMING it is and that you can't make any promises to get it all off because it's so difficult and time consuming to remove completely especially after it's been there for a while.

If the person you're talking to is the person that normally waxes the car, at a minimum it will bring attention to the fact that in the future they should be more careful and hopefully they'll appreciate your attention to detail as well as figure out you actually do know what you're talking about.

Also, while you're looking for wax in the cracks, take a look for any places some other guy may have burnt the paint off of high points and corners and point this out to the owner BEFORE you work on the car.

This is where an inspection form comes in handy so you can mark any pre-existing problems, point them out to the owner and protect yourself from getting the blame for someone else's mistakes.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


And as Paul Harvey use to say,


And that's the rest of the story...


:)
 
Re: Dennis Gage - My Classic Car - Auto Detailing Shop

More...

I'm not sure but I"m going to take a guess that we were the first detailers to detail a car LIVE for a TV show in the car detailing world. The date for this is, 2015





Here's my write-up from this project,

Autogeek's Pro Detail Team in Kentucky!


Before we started we took this group shot with Dennis Gage.

From left to right...

David aka Trutech74
Vargas - refreshauto
Bob - b0b
Billy - Billy B
Allen - OCD-Tailing
Dennis Gage
Mike Phillips
Jordan - FlawlessJ
Chris - PorscheGuy997
Paul - EastsideAutoSpa


watermark.php





Not pictured is Wendall Jarvis....








:)
 
Re: Dennis Gage - My Classic Car - Auto Detailing Shop

One more thing....



Once after filming a new season of My Classic Car, Dennis game me a ride to a detailing class I organized in Evansville.

Pictures with Dennis Gage at the Evansville Detailing Class


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Dennis is a really sharp guy and after all these years of working together he's really learned a lot about the art of polishing paint and the craft of detailing cars.


I think he should start his own car detailing business,

Details by Dennis!


:buffing:
 
Dennis,

Congratulations on getting the Boot Camp Certification!

I got mine and to me, it's a big one.

I got mine proudly displayed at my station!!!!

Tom
 
Very cool!

I love watching anything he is involved in.

Congrats, Dennis!
 
Dennis,

Congratulations on getting the Boot Camp Certification!

I got mine and to me, it's a big one.

I got mine proudly displayed at my station!!!!

Tom

Thanks Tom, means something to me that you value the certificate. You now first-hand how busy and hands-on my classes are.

Do you remember the year and month you took the class here at Autogeek? There's so many write-ups for my classes that it's hard to remember who was in which class and when the class took place.

Look at your certificate - it will state the date.


:cheers:
 
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