Headlight Restoration-new UV sealant idea

Definitely had an oily base to it...like a brake or transmission fluid.

Here's my thought on some of those dealers that want it for next to nothing....they'll be the first to complain (price shoppers always are)...so maybe you need to find better car dealers.
 
RENU said:
Definitely had an oily base to it...like a brake or transmission fluid.

Here's my thought on some of those dealers that want it for next to nothing....they'll be the first to complain (price shoppers always are)...so maybe you need to find better car dealers.
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You got that right!! I have people all the time telling me that they want to get their lights done for sure......then when you ask them what day and time is good for them.....they say, "Oh, well....I can't do it right now" "I'll have to save up and let you know". Then you see them at Publix buying $30 worth of Powerball every weekend.......lol
 
RENU said:
Definitely had an oily base to it...like a brake or transmission fluid.

Here's my thought on some of those dealers that want it for next to nothing....they'll be the first to complain (price shoppers always are)...so maybe you need to find better car dealers.
Click to expand...

I hear ya there. and yes I read somewhere that somebody was using brake fluid to clean up their lights. that may be what the stuff is, a mixture of brake fluid and cleaner:buffing:
The big dealers don't have the cars that old that need the lights done. I walk the lots quite often at the big boys and never find any that need to be worked on. I might have to find a different area to go.
 
paintman607 said:
I hear ya there. and yes I read somewhere that somebody was using brake fluid to clean up their lights. that may be what the stuff is, a mixture of brake fluid and cleaner:buffing:
The big dealers don't have the cars that old that need the lights done. I walk the lots quite often at the big boys and never find any that need to be worked on. I might have to find a different area to go.
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If I were you.......I would stop at the bigger dealers. The reason you don't see any cars on their lots that need headlight work is because of two possibilities.

1. They wholesale all trade-ins that need headlights done because they don't have anyone to "affordably" restore them.

or

2. They already have someone who does them. (maybe your less expensive than him?)

Either way, I would stop and talk with them. What I've done before was take a couple junkyard lights(maybe one cloudy and one that just the top part has worn off).....tape off 1/2 of each lens and just restore 1/2 of each lens. Then walk in with both lenses to show them what a difference you could make on a nice car to help them make more profit.....or potentially sell an otherwise wholesale unit.
I think its worth a try anyway. Tel them you'll do one for free(or half price) so they can see your work.
Just my thoughts. You may become their new headlight guy...?
 
I agree. I have never gone to a car lot that didn't have at least one bad car. What I find in my area is most new car dealers will simply buff them up when the car is sold. I don't think anyone will wholesale a car just due to the headlights. I could be wrong. When I approach used car lots I get one of two reactions uaually...

1. We don't have enough markup to afford doing that.

2. We have someone already.

The second one usually gets me because they will have a dozen bad cars and I think your "guy" sucks or you are a horrible liar. Either way you keep calm. Let them know if they ever do have a need for you then juat give you a call.

I have a folder I put together. It contains one standard price sheet listing their cost and a suggested retail for each service.
Headlights
Tail lights
Fog lights
Etc...
Then I include a few before and after shots. These are done with 1 car per page so the pics are nice and big. Making quite obvious what kind of finish you leave. These are also not crappy print outs, but laser print on photo quality paper.
Lastly, I include a little information from the web regarding light output and visibility. Plus a little about how nice a car looks is directly proportionate with a buyer's percieved value.

Of course I give them my business card with my website,facebook,phone #, and email on it.

Just keep going. It will pan out. You can also offer slight discounts based on volume if you want to appeal to their financial side.

For example.
If you charge $45/car you might say...
Every car over 10/week will be $40.
If they do 11 cars they save $5 big deal but if they do that over and over its like they get a free one every so often. But it is not every week they will have that many... maybe. Even still, you are in one place doing all that work your cost is lower and it is worth the discount to do that. Less gas spent. Less time spent. Less selling. Less headaches.
 
barkeater said:
OK, so I put a first coat on my headlights and thought all was going well. I went to put second on and some haze was appearing in big sections and I could also see little bits of stuff so I quickly wiped it off with mineral spirits and let dry for a bit. OK, I have a foam brush and thought I'd give it a try. It worked very nicely and laid down a very consistent even coat. Only problem was there were some cloudy areas. I think there was some water on the brush. Oops. Well, crap. But I loved the way the brush worked out and I think I have my technique down. I re-sanded and polished the headlights and going to try again with a brand new foam brush in a few days. The amount I mix is a 100ml batch of 70/30 var to ms. It is the perfect amount for two headlights. Hopefully three times is a charm :)
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OK, finally had a chance to coat the headlights for the (*cough*), third time. I mixed up my spar/ms to 7:3 and used foam brush. I got a nice even coat on both and they are now drying in my garage. I gave them a quick look over right after doing it and looks like it is going to come out this time. I can't wait to go home from work and take a look (fingers crossed). I'll post up some pics tonight either way.
 
Part-timer said:
If I were you.......I would stop at the bigger dealers. The reason you don't see any cars on their lots that need headlight work is because of two possibilities.

1. They wholesale all trade-ins that need headlights done because they don't have anyone to "affordably" restore them.

or

2. They already have someone who does them. (maybe your less expensive than him?)

========================================

I myself bought a used car from a large dealer that sells new cars of the same make. The headlights looked nice and clear on the lot but after a few months they started to oxidize...but only on the top half. A not-very close examination showed that someone had buffed off the cloudy clearcoat and left alone the good clearcoat on the lower half of the headlight. You could see the line between the clearcoated portion and the bare plastic portion. The rest of the car was well-restored and it was mechanically sound, but that was one heck of a sloppy headlight job. I guess to this dealer, a good headlight restoration was not important. If it started to cloud over on the lot, it would have been a small matter to go out there with some polish to clear it up again.
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light-bright said:
I agree. I have never gone to a car lot that didn't have at least one bad car. What I find in my area is most new car dealers will simply buff them up when the car is sold. I don't think anyone will wholesale a car just due to the headlights. I could be wrong. When I approach used car lots I get one of two reactions uaually...

1. We don't have enough markup to afford doing that.

2. We have someone already.

The second one usually gets me because they will have a dozen bad cars and I think your "guy" sucks or you are a horrible liar. Either way you keep calm. Let them know if they ever do have a need for you then juat give you a call.

I have a folder I put together. It contains one standard price sheet listing their cost and a suggested retail for each service.
Headlights
Tail lights
Fog lights
Etc...
Then I include a few before and after shots. These are done with 1 car per page so the pics are nice and big. Making quite obvious what kind of finish you leave. These are also not crappy print outs, but laser print on photo quality paper.
Lastly, I include a little information from the web regarding light output and visibility. Plus a little about how nice a car looks is directly proportionate with a buyer's percieved value.

Of course I give them my business card with my website,facebook,phone #, and email on it.

Just keep going. It will pan out. You can also offer slight discounts based on volume if you want to appeal to their financial side.

For example.
If you charge $45/car you might say...
Every car over 10/week will be $40.
If they do 11 cars they save $5 big deal but if they do that over and over its like they get a free one every so often. But it is not every week they will have that many... maybe. Even still, you are in one place doing all that work your cost is lower and it is worth the discount to do that. Less gas spent. Less time spent. Less selling. Less headaches.
Click to expand...


I admire the work you put into giving them a folder with pictures and handouts. At one time, I made a big photo album type thing with the pictures...ect. I never left it with them though. I would offer to do the first set free or at 1/2 price and write that on my business card. I would also carry in a headlight that was half screwed up and the other half restored so they could actually hold and see the difference. It seems that pictures don't mean much around here. Usually they would commit before I left or they never would.(hence why I never left my photo book) Every place is different. The bottom line around here is.....most lots don't feel spending the money is worth the gain. I guess they never bought a used car before....lol. I found here where I live...most of the lot owners know all of the other owners. My main customer(lot) knows every other lot owner and tells me who is cheap and would never spend the money....lol.

I think the trick is to find that one or two lots where they are moving up into the better quality cars......do 1 car for free to give them living proof of your work and just try to expand from there.

on a side note...Lightbright...I'm headed to Flagstaff in about 10 days....cool huh? lol
 
paintman607 said:
I hear ya there. and yes I read somewhere that somebody was using brake fluid to clean up their lights. that may be what the stuff is, a mixture of brake fluid and cleaner:buffing:
The big dealers don't have the cars that old that need the lights done. I walk the lots quite often at the big boys and never find any that need to be worked on. I might have to find a different area to go.
Click to expand...


Before I came along....one lot owner told me he used power steering fluid...lol
 
OK, I'm officially frustrated. The good news is one of the two headlights came out ok, albeit with a couple little spots which I will describe with pics. Not sure whether I can just live with it, fix just the spots in question, or redo the whole thing.

The other headlight however displayed the milky areas that I had seen the previous time I attempted this. Again, I will post pic to show what I mean. This headlight will definitely have to be redone.

Not sure what is causing the milky areas. I suspect some type of contamination of my spar mix as I reused the same small plastic containers that I used the previous application (I know, probably not the smartest move).

Here are the pics.

The "good one"


The "bad one"


For the "bad" one, you can see the milky wide horizontal bands in the top third of the cover. This milky area also appeared down in the bottom of the cover where the turn signal light is.

I am not giving up as one of the two came out ok. I am giving up on the foam brush and going with the suggested shop towel and will also be using clean glass containers to mix my spar/ms.

The only other thing I can think of is that I am using a spray can spar which I then spray into one container and then transfer to another container with a graduated syringe. I may just go buy the spar in a can to eliminate this possible cause of the issue.

I am also going to do a more thorough job in inspecting the headlight immediately after application and ready to wipe off the spar if there are signs of major issues to keep from having to re-sand and polish the headlights again.
 
OK, doesn't seem to be much activity on this thread as there once was but I am going to do my best to document my project if nothing more than for my own sake.

I had a chance to remove the spar coating from the "bad" headlight and polish it in preparation for another go with the spar/ms mix. This time I purchased a can of liquid spar as referenced in the beginning of the thread instead of trying to use the spray. don't know if this is going to make any difference. Also, using new, clean glass containers to mix up the spar/ms. Finally, bought the blue scott towels.

This morning had a chance to give it a go. Prep'd the surface by wiping down with ipa. Mixed up my spar/ms to a 7:3 ratio. Folded up my scott towel, dipped in and began to apply.

First thing I noticed is that the coating is much more striated than when I previously used the foam brush. My understanding is that these disappear as the coating settles. Striations aside, I was not happy with the evenness of the coating. So much so I wiped it off with scott towel and ms. Just didn't look right.

I still had a clean foam brush so I mixed up some more spar/ms mix and reapplied using the foam brush. The coating was very even and no sign of the milky areas which appeared in my previous attempt. I looked it over to make sure I didn't miss any areas and after a minute or two considered it a coating I was willing to let dry. I post up some pics tomorrow.
 
If you were using the spray previously, and in cool, damp weather, it is possible that evaporation of the volatile carrier in the spray caused localized lowering of the temperature, causing moisture in the air to condense and cause cloudiness.
 
OK, drum roll please...



I am very happy with the results. Absolutely no milky areas and near perfect uniform coating. GP49, you may be right. I may never know exactly why I was getting that milky look but at least now I can move on in my headlight project.
 
So i skimmed through a lot of this thread but I'm stumped. Where can I find solvent based Helmsman Spar Urethane in California, specifically Orange County region? Or does anyone know a reliable site that will sell it by the quart?

Thanks!
 
I do believe that "Ace Hardware" sells it. At least my local one does. I just noticed 'that' yesterday.

But, if it is a no-no in California, they probably cannot legally sell it, or offer it for sale there.

Maybe Amazon?

Bill
 
kewldetail said:
So i skimmed through a lot of this thread but I'm stumped. Where can I find solvent based Helmsman Spar Urethane in California, specifically Orange County region? Or does anyone know a reliable site that will sell it by the quart?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


Thats so weird!! Here in Florida you can buy the Spar at Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace, Walmart......almost anywhere!!
 
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