12 measures of describing.

When beginning everything, it is actually frequently difficult to recognize where to begin, don’t bother describing. Outlining may be a puzzle, there are actually an amount of various amounts of describing, along with an amount of various methods and also concepts, yet our company’re here to start you off on some of the basics. Basics that probably sound too detailed to be basic, but we can assure you this is as basic as a proper detail gets.

This is our 12-step programme to a beginner’s detail:

STEP 1: WHEELS.

Always, always, always start with the wheels. We can’t say it enough. Your wheels are the grubbiest area of the car so will require a good pre-soak with a quality wheel cleaner. You’ll need brushes to get to the hard-to-reach areas, along with a separate wash mitt and bucket than you’d use on the paintwork.

STEP 2: PRE-CLEANER, STAGE ONE.

Always use a pre-cleaner. One specifically formulated to remove bugs and stubborn grime. We’d recommend our Citrus Power, which is infused with citrus cleaning properties to safely but effectively lessen road grime with the benefit of being gentle to wax or sealant layers, something that will come in to its own on washes later down the line. Spray this on the lower areas of the car, as well as any areas that have become bug-splattered.

STEP 3: SNOW FOAM, STAGE TWO.

Snow foams help to break down any stubborn dirt, as well as remove any loose particles from the vehicle, before the physical contact wash stage. Removing as much dirt as possible before contact washing will help to reduce the likelihood of inflicting swirl marks to the paint finish (most swirls are caused at the wash stage).

STEP 4: THE ALL-IMPORTANT TWO-BUCKET METHOD CONTACT WASH.

Did you ever think it’d be step four before even putting mitt to paint?! It’s important to use a good-quality shampoo, further reducing the likelihood of any marring or light scratches or swirls, the deep pile allow any particles to be absorbed in to the mitt as opposed to pressed and dragged across the surface. Fill one bucket with wash solution, the other with plain water. Apply wash solution to the vehicle (washing from top down small sections at a time) – Rinse the mitt first in the water bucket before taking fresh wash solution to the car. This method ensures you don’t contaminate your wash solution and are always using clean wash water on your car.

STEP 5: THE DECONTAMINATION STAGE.

First off, before doing anything, you’ll need to spray on an iron dissolver first – our Iron Out product is perfect at this stage – this will dissolve any ferrous contamination such as industrial fall out and rail dust that has fused itself to the paintwork. Next, you’ll need to use a solvent tar remover to soften any tar that may be stuck to the paint. An important step here is to rewash the vehicle, or at least the areas treated with the solvent, as solvents will melt Clay bars and really interfere with the next step. Clay bars are brilliant, just rub the block over the paintwork using a slip or lube and it does the hard work for you, effectively shaving off any remaining contamination such as tree sap or even overspray in its path. Following the previous two stages, though, there shouldn’t be too much for the clay bars to pick up. Remember to use a lubricant such as Auto Finesse Glide with any clay bar! Then wash and rinse again.

STEP 6: DRYING.

Start at the top of the vehicle and work your way down. Tackling it panel by panel will be the easiest way to make sure you get every area streak free. It’s important to work quickly (to avoid water spots), while being thorough so not to leave any streaks from the drying process. If you are left with any water spots, a quick detailer is a great product to clean them up with after.

STEP 7: POLISHING.

You can either polish by hand or you can polish using a machine polisher. Polishing by hand will give you a good finish, but it won’t be anywhere near as good as a machine polish (if you know what you are actually doing). We have products for both applications. We’d advise against putting any machine polisher to your car without experience. Our top tip would be to practice on a separate panel first. These are easy enough to pick up from scrap yards. Better that than burning through the paint on your car, resulting in a full panel respray or even a whole car respray.

STEP 8: GLAZE.

Between the polishing and waxing and sealant stages, we would add in our paint glaze. Ultra Glaze is our non-abrasive acrylic, polymer-enriched, glaze designed to enhance paintwork and reduce the appearance of fine swirls. Top tip; it’s particularly good for darker colours and metallic.

STEP 9: WAX / SEAL.

Each one of these stages is as important as the other, yet waxing or sealing is actually right up there in the must do list. Applying a layer of wax or sealant will definitely protect all your previous hard work from step one through to eight. If you’re unsure of what wax to utilize on your coating, have a look at our wax discussed part.