Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 7
The Art of Polishing Paint - When you add the human elements of care and passion polishing paint becomes an art form
Years ago I wrote and self-published my first how-to book called,
The art of polishing paint
(Picture of book goes here)
And the reason I gave it this title was real simple. After years of buffing out other people's toys, and by toys I mean usually cool stuff, I found that as a normal course of working on other people's toys I kind of mentally adopted the car as my own and then simply worked on it as though it were mine. What this means is I did everything to someone else's car that I would have done if it had been my car and that means using the best products and literally pouring my heart and soul into the job.
And here's the deal... when you invest hours of you own sweat and hard work into a car there's a portion of this time that isn't muscle work but brain work, by this I mean you have to focus on the task at hand, you have do delicate work carefully, like surgeon operating on a patient. One slip of the hand and you have a disaster. But if you power through the job and don't a make any mistakes, the end results are nothing short of a rolling work of art.
Making other people's car dream come true
Over the years I've met a lot of people and worked on their cars. Their story is usually the same, see if you can relate?
Jim works hard all his life and finally either builds his dream car or buys his dream car. The thing is the paint is jacked-up. By jacked-up I mean it's dull and hazy or it's filled with swirls and scratches. And here's the thing Jim has in common with so many other guys just like him,
Guys like Jim may have the skills to build their car or the money to buy their car but that doesn't automatically mean they are masters at polishing paint. And it's the paint that makes or breaks how the car looks.
Here's the other thing Jim and guys like Jim have in common, even though they know they don't possess the skills nor the correct tools, pads and product to undertake saving the paint on their special car, they also don't trust anyone else to touch their baby....
It's for these two reason that when you and I go about our normal lives we see cool cars with jacked-up paint. The owner can't fix it and won't let anyone else touch it.
Then something happens....
When something does happen and you earn someone's trust and they let you polish out the messed up paint on their pride and joy, after you've finished and you're presenting the owner with the car they always dreamed of, that is the car they either built or bought only now it LOOKS like it's supposed to, words cannot describe the satisfaction you get knowing you saved someone's paint job and made someone's dream come true.
And it's these types of projects, where start with a diamond in the rough and then invest yourself physically and emotionally for HOURS into someone else's toy, that it's really not justice to you to say that what you did is a trade, or a craft or a process. No, when you pour yourself into someone else's toy because it's your passion, not because you're doing it solely for the money, then polishing paint becomes an art form.
We as detailers bring the human elements of care and passion to the process. Caring about what we do and having the passion for perfection to give the project your all. The money will never make the work worth it but the satisfaction we get when we make the final wipe and stand back and say, it is finished.... that's our reward.
In the first book I wrote after coming to work for Autogeek, The art of Detailing, and in the second book I wrote, which is simply an updated version of the first book, I included in the introduction my thoughts on how I think polishing paint can be an art form. If you have either of these books, you'll find this commentary on page 2
If you can relate, reply to this thread with your story when you first realized polishing paint is an art form...
Years ago I wrote and self-published my first how-to book called,
The art of polishing paint
(Picture of book goes here)
And the reason I gave it this title was real simple. After years of buffing out other people's toys, and by toys I mean usually cool stuff, I found that as a normal course of working on other people's toys I kind of mentally adopted the car as my own and then simply worked on it as though it were mine. What this means is I did everything to someone else's car that I would have done if it had been my car and that means using the best products and literally pouring my heart and soul into the job.
And here's the deal... when you invest hours of you own sweat and hard work into a car there's a portion of this time that isn't muscle work but brain work, by this I mean you have to focus on the task at hand, you have do delicate work carefully, like surgeon operating on a patient. One slip of the hand and you have a disaster. But if you power through the job and don't a make any mistakes, the end results are nothing short of a rolling work of art.
Making other people's car dream come true
Over the years I've met a lot of people and worked on their cars. Their story is usually the same, see if you can relate?
Jim works hard all his life and finally either builds his dream car or buys his dream car. The thing is the paint is jacked-up. By jacked-up I mean it's dull and hazy or it's filled with swirls and scratches. And here's the thing Jim has in common with so many other guys just like him,
Guys like Jim may have the skills to build their car or the money to buy their car but that doesn't automatically mean they are masters at polishing paint. And it's the paint that makes or breaks how the car looks.
Here's the other thing Jim and guys like Jim have in common, even though they know they don't possess the skills nor the correct tools, pads and product to undertake saving the paint on their special car, they also don't trust anyone else to touch their baby....
It's for these two reason that when you and I go about our normal lives we see cool cars with jacked-up paint. The owner can't fix it and won't let anyone else touch it.
Then something happens....
When something does happen and you earn someone's trust and they let you polish out the messed up paint on their pride and joy, after you've finished and you're presenting the owner with the car they always dreamed of, that is the car they either built or bought only now it LOOKS like it's supposed to, words cannot describe the satisfaction you get knowing you saved someone's paint job and made someone's dream come true.
And it's these types of projects, where start with a diamond in the rough and then invest yourself physically and emotionally for HOURS into someone else's toy, that it's really not justice to you to say that what you did is a trade, or a craft or a process. No, when you pour yourself into someone else's toy because it's your passion, not because you're doing it solely for the money, then polishing paint becomes an art form.
We as detailers bring the human elements of care and passion to the process. Caring about what we do and having the passion for perfection to give the project your all. The money will never make the work worth it but the satisfaction we get when we make the final wipe and stand back and say, it is finished.... that's our reward.
In the first book I wrote after coming to work for Autogeek, The art of Detailing, and in the second book I wrote, which is simply an updated version of the first book, I included in the introduction my thoughts on how I think polishing paint can be an art form. If you have either of these books, you'll find this commentary on page 2
If you can relate, reply to this thread with your story when you first realized polishing paint is an art form...
rops:
