Old school vs new school
Discussion
The detailing phenomena in this country has really taken-off in recent years, but I'm old enough to remember back to the good old days when 'detailing' your car involved no more than washing it, applying some T-Cut (if the paint was oxidised, applying a coat of Turtle Wax Hard Shell Shine and spraying some Back to Black on the black plastic bits. So, I was just wondering, in these days of waxes costing thousands and needing a science degree to get to grips with how all the various polishes and sealants work, how do you guys rate the old (and cheap) stuff like old school Turtle Wax in a tin and T-Cut? Are these products to be sneered at, or do they still have their place?
One of the workers (MOT Tester) next door at my fathers garage was machine correcting his new to him jeep.
Never seen him machine polish before so the kds staff watched and offered him a job on his technique and style of polishing (with very much pxss take banter).
he was getting know where at all , but making a great job of making it worse.
He was spreading out T cut on a whole panel with Tee shirt and once dried out then buffing it off with grinder and hard foam pad.
So for fun I had a go with same products and equipment, i did get some correction but it was slow (this due to T cut lack of actual cut) , i then swapped it for gtechniq P1 as its a newbie friendly compound , but still using tee shirts as cloths, high speed grinder for machine correction and farecla large hard white foam pad.
It then worked very well for correction , imagine if I was caught using such products on Detailing world.
Thing is I then demo for 30 minutes how to recreate what I got to owner, you should see his car how its wrecked with burn throughs , white dried compound on plastics (still not removed 2 weeks later due to lack of attention span)
it looked better left alone.
so the answer in my eyes its more the operator than the products, but better products and product knowledge make a good detailer great.
Dom from dodo juice and i spoke about detailing a whole car using ONLY cheap house hold products for fun , i really must actually do this too
kelly
Never seen him machine polish before so the kds staff watched and offered him a job on his technique and style of polishing (with very much pxss take banter).
he was getting know where at all , but making a great job of making it worse.
He was spreading out T cut on a whole panel with Tee shirt and once dried out then buffing it off with grinder and hard foam pad.
So for fun I had a go with same products and equipment, i did get some correction but it was slow (this due to T cut lack of actual cut) , i then swapped it for gtechniq P1 as its a newbie friendly compound , but still using tee shirts as cloths, high speed grinder for machine correction and farecla large hard white foam pad.
It then worked very well for correction , imagine if I was caught using such products on Detailing world.
Thing is I then demo for 30 minutes how to recreate what I got to owner, you should see his car how its wrecked with burn throughs , white dried compound on plastics (still not removed 2 weeks later due to lack of attention span)
it looked better left alone.
so the answer in my eyes its more the operator than the products, but better products and product knowledge make a good detailer great.
Dom from dodo juice and i spoke about detailing a whole car using ONLY cheap house hold products for fun , i really must actually do this too
kelly
ian_uk1975 said:
The detailing phenomena in this country has really taken-off in recent years, but I'm old enough to remember back to the good old days when 'detailing' your car involved no more than washing it, applying some T-Cut (if the paint was oxidised, applying a coat of Turtle Wax Hard Shell Shine and spraying some Back to Black on the black plastic bits. So, I was just wondering, in these days of waxes costing thousands and needing a science degree to get to grips with how all the various polishes and sealants work, how do you guys rate the old (and cheap) stuff like old school Turtle Wax in a tin and T-Cut? Are these products to be sneered at, or do they still have their place?
I remember using some of Dad's Mer way back when - the extravagance! I felt like the bee's knees afterwards Windolene [sp?] for the glass and shoe polish for tyres. I've still got some T-Cut and Turtle Wax coloured polish in the shed - retro
On the other hand the availability of clays, iron removers, APCs like Surfex, and modern abrasive compounds makes the prep stages much easier and relatively safe for even the most hamfisted of us that if even there'd been no improvements in waxes we'd still be getting better results.
I wouldn't fancy going back to just using the products of 20 years ago, but I reckon I could still do a fairly good job if I had to - certainly better than I used to then - knowing what I do now.
kds keltec said:
imagine if I was caught using such products on Detailing world.
Mind you, launch them under the KDS brand at a suitably aspirational price point, post up a demo video and they'd become the new "must have" product.
kds keltec said:
Dom from dodo juice and i spoke about detailing a whole car using ONLY cheap house hold products for fun , i really must actually do this too
That would make for an interesting project - I look forward to seeing the results if it happens.kds keltec said:
so the answer in my eyes its more the operator than the products, but better products and product knowledge make a good detailer great.
From my far more limited experience I'd agree. To my mind there's often too much emphasis on the products with little consideration to how they're used and what they're being used for, and the abilities/resources of the person using them resulting in too much reliance on the product and not enough consideration to developing techniques. I also think there's often too much expectation from the next miracle product, leaving people disappointed.AG SRP is a classic case in point. Having been widely used for years, it became fashionable to slate it for being dusty and hard to buff, with limited results. Apply it properly and it's nothing of the sort and does what it does very well. Suddenly it's back in fashion again.
But then it's always been easier to blame the product than admit it's operator error.
About 15-20 years ago I regularly bought cars that needed paintwork. I got a better spray gun eventually, but initially my finish had worse orange peel than a modern BMW 
so I would wet sand it down (after waiting 3-4 weeks for the paint to harden). I only had 1200 grade back then, so I'd rub it with soap to lessen the abrasive effect. I'd then polish out the fine scratches with T cut and a damp cloth, sparingly applied and would spend maybe 2-3 hours per panel, done over a period of weeks. Finish off with a going over with SRP and maybe MER as an LSP (though I didn't call it 'LSP' back then, just 'polish' ).
It might not have looked as good as KDS' work does, but not half bad and it didn't turn to a mess of swirls and marring in bright sunlight either, even my black RS2000 was done this way.
However, I much prefer using the products (and much finer P3000 grades of paper, etc) and a machine polisher these days as it's a blooming sight easier and with better results for the time spent. So this 'Old school' does actually do 'new school'.
so I would wet sand it down (after waiting 3-4 weeks for the paint to harden). I only had 1200 grade back then, so I'd rub it with soap to lessen the abrasive effect. I'd then polish out the fine scratches with T cut and a damp cloth, sparingly applied and would spend maybe 2-3 hours per panel, done over a period of weeks. Finish off with a going over with SRP and maybe MER as an LSP (though I didn't call it 'LSP' back then, just 'polish' ). It might not have looked as good as KDS' work does, but not half bad and it didn't turn to a mess of swirls and marring in bright sunlight either, even my black RS2000 was done this way.
However, I much prefer using the products (and much finer P3000 grades of paper, etc) and a machine polisher these days as it's a blooming sight easier and with better results for the time spent. So this 'Old school' does actually do 'new school'.
That's the whole crux of the matter - paints have evolved for a variety of reasons, so the processes of correcting them has had to keep in step with them as a matter of course.
T-Cut really has no place in modern paint finishes, even the coloured versions, since the filling power is less than that of SRP and Bilt Hamber's Auto-blam/etc.
That said, don't knock Windolene - still a good glass cleaner, although for legislative reasons, its formula has evolved too, in all probability.
T-Cut really has no place in modern paint finishes, even the coloured versions, since the filling power is less than that of SRP and Bilt Hamber's Auto-blam/etc.
That said, don't knock Windolene - still a good glass cleaner, although for legislative reasons, its formula has evolved too, in all probability.
25 years ago the auto paint suppliers in Wakefield did a brisk trade in gallon cans of `Brasso` which was reckoned to give a better finish than anything. I wonder if the actual abrasive is the same as that used in the old `T-cut` - certainly has the same shade of beige/yellow to it. I`m sure I`m out of date with my cleaning, but have found the Bilt Hamber autobalm polish very good for me - coupled with `Astonish` wash/shampoo (£1 a bottle ....) and their stainless steel kitchen cleaner on the wheels - excellent on the dust & not too aggressive on the lacquer.
PJ S said:
That's the whole crux of the matter - paints have evolved for a variety of reasons, so the processes of correcting them has had to keep in step with them as a matter of course.
T-Cut really has no place in modern paint finishes, even the coloured versions, since the filling power is less than that of SRP and Bilt Hamber's Auto-blam/etc.
That said, don't knock Windolene - still a good glass cleaner, although for legislative reasons, its formula has evolved too, in all probability.
But T-Cut does the opposite of fill. What makes T-Cut have 'no place in modern paint finishes'?T-Cut really has no place in modern paint finishes, even the coloured versions, since the filling power is less than that of SRP and Bilt Hamber's Auto-blam/etc.
That said, don't knock Windolene - still a good glass cleaner, although for legislative reasons, its formula has evolved too, in all probability.
Auto-Balm is almost the polar opposite of T-Cut so can't really be compared to it... T-Cut is just a mild cutting compound, isn't it?
PS. I'm referring to the original, old school, T-Cut... not the variants that appeared in more recent years.
Edited by ian_uk1975 on Wednesday 15th August 13:09
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