Mike... What are the chances you can come to Sydney and do some workshops?
If there was a way to do it and do "Good Business" then it would be possible.
Good business means capitalism or profitable. Don't want to hurt anyone's feelings about capitalism but that's the way the world works.
So figure all the costs involved, my airfare, hotel, rental car, meals on the road, time out of the office and then we need a shop, power, good lighting and the one thing that I offer in all my classes that you don't find in the other classes, all the tools, pads and products.
If a major company wants to sponsor it, for example FLEX, RUPES, SONAX, Mothers, etc, then that's a path to follow too.
I've taught my roadshow class in other countries and like the classes I teach here they are ALL HANDS-ON. And it took a lot of work and expense on our part to make them that way. I don't want to be a part of an academic class, you know, the kind of class where people sit in chairs and listen to someone talk and then if they are luck get to see that person do a demo. That's not real-world learning, that's real-world sitting.
I never put up all the pictures from the Waxstock Roadshow Class, I still have them but it takes time to process and then magically make pictures show up on a forum. A Monkey with a smart phone can put a picture on Facebook but it takes some brains to do it on a forum. Kind of a sad commentary on our cyber-world as I wouldn't consider myself all that smart. But check out what I did get put into this thread and pay attention to ALL THE TOOLS, PADS and PRODUCT. Also look at all the cars I was able to get in ENGLAND! Heck I don't even live there and I got cool cars for my class. And except for an introduction - NO SITTING
Pictures: Roadshow Class at Waxstock in England!
And here's pictures from my Argentina Roadshow Class... I was even able to get a 1965 Mustang (a classic American Muscel Car), and taught the class how to WETSAND on it - no a demo hood but the real-deal, real world wetsanding on an entire car. You don't find that anywhere else buy my classes. At least there's not picture or video documentation that goes back for decades now.
Autogeek's Detailing Class in South America!
GLASS POLISHING to remove scratches in Glass using a Porter Cable and this was back in 2014
After inspecting the results from the first few passes to show the scratches are being removed and optical clarity is being restored, it's time for one of the students get some hands-on training and experience.
Heck - I don't think there's another detailing class where after the class this much information on technique with the pictures is shared, just the below takes time to write-up and share or "document".
How to tape-off a car for wetsanding
After decontaminating the paint it's time to tape-off all the edges and raised body lines. For this we go over tips and techniques for laying down 3M Blue Vinyl Tape.
Measuring Paint Thickness
Even though custom paint jobs will normally have more clear paint on them than a factory finish it's important to measure the paint thickness to help you make what I call
The Go or No Go Decision
The paint on this car was averaging around 10, 11 and 12 mils so we decided to
go forward with the sanding process.
How to correctly hand sand
First we went over the correct techniques for hand sanding. While it's important to know how to use the right technique when sanding by hand I also know that once a person hand sands and then machine sands, except of tight or intricate areas they will always opt to machine sand instead of hand sand because not only is it faster but it also does a better job and leaves more paint on the car. The buffing step also goes a lot faster as it's a LOT easier to remove machine sanding marks than it is to remove hand sanding marks.
Notice the
tight, close pattern to my strokes when hand sanding. Your sanding mark pattern should not look like you're making
W's or
M's in the slurry.
Machine Sanding - Edging
I love the Griot's Garage 3" Mini Polisher. I cal it a
3" Wet Sander because it works so well for machine sanding with 3" sanding discs.
What I do when I sand down a car or teach others to sand down a car is to start by doing what I call edging.
Edging is where you sand the paint next to any edges or raised body lines first and then after sanding these perimeter areas tackle the major sections of the paint. In my classes I go over why this is important for a number of reasons and to do this by machine you must have a 3" orbital polisher that you can use with the 3" discs or do it by hand.
Machine Sanding - Majoring on the Majors
After showing how to edge a panel and explain why to do this first, next we switched over to the Porter Cable 7424XP with 6" Trizact #3000 discs and knocked out the major portions of the panel right up to where we edged the panel.
So anything is possible and I love to teach hands-on classes but it's the money side that has to be made to work before Autogeek will allow me to teach any class anywhere. That's just how it works. I have no idea how any of these other classes are paid for but when I see "anything" about them it's usually either people sitting in chairs or people standing around one guy that's doing a demo. I never see pictures like I share showing the class doing the detailing. To me.... my style is the way people really learn.
Thanks for asking. My friend Aaryn in New Zealand would like me to come to his country and teach a class and I would love to do it but the expenses have to be taken care of and there has to be a profit for all involved.