Detailing, that’s just a posh name for a valet right? WRONG! Yes there is a common misconception that detailing isn’t really much different from taking your car down to the local Polish car wash where the sponge usually goes Wheels > Body > Ground > picked up, anyone looking? give it a wipe > back to body etc etc detailing is very different, as the name suggests there’s a level of detail here that you wouldn’t believe. Most cars paintwork from new isn’t exactly stellar and a good detail can actually make it better than the day it left the factory.
Tartan Tarmac recently spent 4 days with Robert Whiteford of Incredible Detail in Glasgow to see exactly what goes into a quality detail, yes that’s right 4 days on one car!
It all starts with a wash, but this doesn’t mean a few squirts of fairly liquid in a bucket, this is a proper clean. Wheels get done first both the face and the inner with a selection of brushes built specifically for this purpose and not cheap at around 50 quid a set. From there the car gets rinsed ready for foaming. The sticky foam covers the car and when left to dwell for a while lifts a lot of the dirt from the paintwork so that when you do actually start to touch it there’s less chance that you’ll be scraping weeks worth of road grime all over your paintwork. Next is a hand wash with lambswool wash mitt using the two bucket method, one bucket has the soapy water the other clean plain water. The mitt lifts the dirt into the fibres as opposed to a 50 pence sponge from the garage just rubbing the dirt around, then you rinse in the plain water before reloading the mitt with soap, this stops the dirt from being rubbed into the paint and causing swirls, if you don’t know what swirls are I’ll explain later but I guarantee you’ve all seen them. Once dried off the car moves into the workshop to get ready for the next stage.
When Robert brought out a clay bar I thought now’s not the time for making models but it’s actually used to pick up any bonded contaminants on the paint, using a lubricant allows the clay to move smoothly across the paint without leaving it’s own marks, lube is of vital importance!
Once claying is complete the car has the vulnerable areas like panel gaps taped up using low tack masking tape and paint depth readings are taken. The readings let you know the thickness of the paint and how much of the top coat you have to work with when the paint correction stage starts. This for me is really where things start to get interesting, paint correction is when all the fine scratches and swirl marks are removed. As I mentioned earlier you will all have seen swirl marks, picture is below, it’s the little circular pattern you see when the sun is directly reflecting on the paint. Some people I know thought the paint was meant to look like that, no, it’s not!
Paint correction is where most of the time is spent, each panel is painstakingly polished going from a cutting compound to remove scratches and swirls down to a finishing polish that leaves the paint looking better than the day it left the showroom. The final stage is to apply the wax which gives the newly corrected paint it’s protection and it’s extra glossy shine.
Detailing really is much much more than a Valet, it brings out the best in your car, if you want your paintwork to have the new look again give Robert a call. His website is www.incredibledetail.co.uk.
Check out our video below for the highlights of what it takes to detail a car and the massive improvement it can make even to something like an almost new Audi R8.
Incredible detail from John Steele on Vimeo.
Do you detail or just give the car a good sanding down with an old sponge, let us know!
