Edging and Stretching

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Edging and Stretching


After compounding, polishing, and applying the first coat of a paint protection product, we "edged" the car.

In this example edging means to open all the doors, trunk lid and hood and wipe out any compounding or polishing residue in the cracks and crevises.

Edging....

When you open the car all up for any reason and take a picture, this is called stretching, kind of like you when your spread out your arms and stretch out...

Stretching...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

This is also edging...


It's when you wipe off JUST the was around the edges of the panels.

Then after wiping off just the wax, (or sealant), around the edges of the panels then you wipe the wax or sealant off the major portion of the panels.



LOOK CLOSELY
I have a couple of different articles on the topic of edging.... that's because there's a number of detailing procedures where you doing "something" to the edge of paint.

If you look closely at the edges of the body panels in the below two pictures you can see that we've ONLY wiped the wax off of the edges that separate body panels.


I call this edging


What I do is carefully wipe all the wax off the paint about 1 inch in from the edge and also OPEN all the doors, trunk lid and hood and wipe underneath and around the panel to remove any compound, polish or wax reside that may have been deposited in these areas.

I do this as the rest of the wax dries. So we edged the car first and by the time we were done edging the car the rest of the wax over the rest of the car was fully dried to a haze and ready to wipe off.

2014 BMW 535i - Removing Dealership Holograms, Swirls and Scratches

 

[Paul A.]

I love it! 2 new terms for the lexicon of us bitten by the deatiling "bug". Unfortunately, terms not to be used for educating the customer but wonderfull, succint terms to further help develop the professional mindset! And 2 great concepts to add to my routine of doing the job right.

 

[Tato]

Wonderful. This is the kind of tip that differentiate the greatest detailers from the rest. Although I already work in this fashion (must have seen you talk about / do it somewhere in the past!), giving names and descriptions, as well pairing with those beautiful pictures are what you're all about. Thanks, again.

Kind Regards.