[SONET]

I took some pics of the detailing clinic at the Carnuba Store in Costa Mesa (Orange County) on Sunday and thought I would share the pics with everyone. Special thanks to Cliff for providing the web space to host all the pics, I couldn't have done this without his generosity.

The clinic was really informative. As an added bonus some treats were provided in the morning including: bagels, juice, pastries, and most importantly coffee. Marco, the owner of the Carnauba Store, ran the event. Bing330i (Bimmerfest), Chipster (Bimmerfest), FireGabe (Roadfly), Hendrik (BMWCCA), Kaz (Bimmerfest), Kelly11 (Roadfly), Scottn2retro (Bimmerfest) and SONET (me!) attended the clinic.

A pic of Marco holding some brushes he talked about. He is very knowledgeable and a nice guy to boot.

Marco discussed each step in maintaining paint as the finish ages. It seems that many people go overboard with products (cough cough) and end up hurting their finish. If any of the other attendees care to elaborate on the following pic please do so. This is going to be too long as it is!

Fast forward out of the classroom to Scott's M Roadster. Marco is pointing out some fallout on Scott's hood.

Nothing a little clay can't fix! Because the contamination on the paint was relatively light and sparse, Marco used a fine clay - Meguiar's Mild Detailing Clay (D6100). Note: if you ever drop your clay on the ground, throw it away... it's not worth the risk!

Notice how wet Marco keeps the paint. He was spraying almost constantly. This keeps the contaminants that come off the paint away from the clay as this could in turn scratch the paint.

I scaled all the pics down to save both bandwidth and mouse mileage (from moving scrollbars heh). If you want the original size of any of these please PM me and I will be happy to email them to you.

Continued...

 

[SONET]

Some Bimmerfest/Roadfly/BMWCCA attendees watching Marco's technique with the clay.

Now that the contaminants are gone, it's time to protect the finish.

Marco applied the Auto Glym by hand, with what I remember to be a microfiber applicator.

Removal using a microfiber towel.

The 'touch test' always tells me more than looking at it does. You could feel the difference between the treated area and the sample area. The treated area had less friction and you couldn't feel any fallout or other contaminants protruding from the paint's surface.

continued...

 

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The whole gang trying to have a closer look at Scott's car. It was a nice group of people. I think Marco limits these clinics to 12 or 15 in size.

A closeup of the stuff Marco used on Scott's hood.

Now THIS is a great product if I ever saw one. It is actually of Marco's own making. It is some sort of magic silicon spray. Once you clean your wheels, you lightly spray your wheels with this stuff and it makes it easier to clean them the next time. I tried it on my M68's after I got home, and wow what a difference. The brake dust comes right off as though the wheels had just been waxed. I'll report more on it later. Did anyone else at the event try it? Here's a pic of it being sprayed on Scott's wheel:

If I'm not mistaken he also used it on the grill (someone help me out here). Whatever he used worked well.

Here's a pic of the can. If I understood Marco correctly he is going to start marketing this stuff pretty soon. I wish him luck, it is a good product.

continued...

 

[SONET]

Another pic of the can. For now you can get this stuff through the Carnuba Store. Later you may be able to get it elsewhere as well.

Now on to the Acura. This car is owned by Scott's lovely wife. It was used as the real 'tester' car because it has always been an automagic carwash kind of car. It had plenty of road grime and fallout. Marco started by cleaning the paint with a quick detailer as you can see here.

He put someone else on the job for this one. This guy was the nameless wonder, I don't know where he came from exactly. Nice enough of a guy though. Anyhow, Marco gave him the medium coarseness clay by Meguiar's. Note the different color of the clay from the last clay bar used. Meguiar's is good like that - you can distinguish all their products by color or odor if you use them enough. If you pick up the wrong product you know right away!

Marco seemed to be a little frustrated about how Mr. Wonder was skimping on the lubricant. He finally took the spray bottle away from him and sprayed it himself. That just goes to show how important the lubricant is, but I thought it was kind of funny heh

With the clay work done (at least as much as it was going to be for the demo, I would have used it quite a bit more heh), Marco sprayed the hood again with the detailer and wiped it dry with a microfiber cloth. Then it was time for the Porter-Cable. Woohoo!

continued...

 

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Notice the overlap and the amount of pressure exerted (not too much!). Also notice how Marco doesn't use the handle that comes with the P-C.

Here's the product that was used with the P-C.

These guys can feel the heat generated my the rotating action with the P-C running. It doesn't the paint up too much to where you have to be a pro to use it, which is a good thing for most of us.

The final hand-buffing with a microfiber cloth.

What a difference! The left side was done, the right side left untouched. Unfortunately it's hard to see the dramatic difference in the picture that existed in real life. Hmm... now that I look closer I'm still seeing clouds in the paint.

continued...

 

[SONET]

A quick swipe over the Acura's mudflaps with the #5 Auto Glym rubber cleaner. That seems like some good stuff.

A pic of the rubber cleaner bottle. At least it doesn't smell like urine.

Marco using some rubber cleaner under the hood of Gabe's (FireGabe) car. Gabe lives on some sort of horse ranch with lots of dust, so his engine bay was kind of dusty. The rubber cleaner worked really well on rubber and black plastic!

Some happy shoppers inside the Carnuba Store. Unfortunately nobody showed up in a X5... some of us needed the space to cart everything home.

A few of the cars in front of the shop. Somehow I missed taking pics of Kaz's car (which is very nice), so much for job security I guess (sorry about that Kaz, I wanted a shot of it, don't know what happened). My car was parked safely in Scott's garage - thanks again Scott! You know you have found a good friend when a guy loans you his garage for the day! :thumb:

Well, that's a rough outline of the event. There are TONS of details that I left out, there was just way too much to talk about. I hope others that attended will chime in and offer what they got out of it to others.

If you live in the area, you really should visit the Carnuba Store in Costa Mesa and take a detail clinic there the next time one is organized. Marco is one of the rare guys you find in the auto industry who loves what he does and tells you the truth. He doesn't keep his tricks of the trade for himself, instead he shares them with you. And best of all he won't try to sell you stuff you don't need and his prices are very reasonable.

Thanks again Scott for setting this up, and special thanks Marco for showing us how to keep our cars looking snazzy.

You can reach the Carnuba Store at (949) 574-7676 or www.detailingdepot.com .

--SONET

-- EOF --

 

[Nat Brown]

Very nice

Very nice write-up. It makes me want to try the Porter-Cable. Hopefully others might want to take the clay bar plunge after reading this -- it makes a huge difference. With so much talk about products, it's nice to see a write-up about technique and process.

--gary:thumb:

 

[scottn2retro]

Great Job SONET!

Holy Crap! That was a great write-up SONET. How late did you stay up last night?

I thought the event turned out really nice. I didn't know what to expect (being the first one) but I think everybody was able to come away with something from it. I was really happy to see Gabe bring his M roadster all the way down from Ventura! About the only thing I would improve on would be to get started sooner. It was the first time almost everyone had met in person, so we kind of hung out snacking on the goodies Marco provided and introducing ourselves for a while, so we didn't get started until closer to 9:45 - 10:00 (not your fault Kaz). That took away from the on-car time a little. Next time I'll try to get us underway sooner.

Again, SONET great job on the write-up. I hope some of the other guys will chime in on their experience as well.

Carnuba Store is a great place to get stuff. One wall is lined with just about every brush and applicator you could think of. He also sold us Porter Cables for $150 (that seems like a pretty good price). And you gotta love a place where you can buy stuff like Meguiar's, 3M, Autoglym, etc. in gallon size! Oh, and for Ripsnort, he's got stuff in 55 Gallon drums :yikes:

SONET - are there more pics, and if so do you have a link to them?

 

[Jon Shafer]

Great write-up guys! Thanks!!!

:thumb:

 

[Cliff]

Re: Great Job SONET!

SONET - are there more pics, and if so do you have a link to them?

All the images he sent me are here: click me. They are thumbnailed and there are a total of 52 pics.

 

[SONET]

Thanks for creating those thumbnails Cliff, I meant to add that link to the write-up but forgot.

I also wanted to add... if someone that went on Sunday could elaborate on the second pic in the write-up (the whiteboard) I think it would be really beneficial to many readers here. I found that to be one of the most informative tidbits of the event.


--SONET

 

[scottn2retro]

Stuff a Micro-Fiber in your pants!!!!!

I forgot one detail we noticed at the clinic (it's always the little things).

To avoid belt buckle scratches, Marco took a (green in this case) micro fiber and tucked it in his pants and wrapped it around the belt buckle. You can see it in a couple of the first half dozen shots SONET posted.

 

[Nat Brown]

Re: Stuff a Micro-Fiber in your pants!!!!!

I forgot one detail we noticed at the clinic (it's always the little things).

To avoid belt buckle scratches, Marco took a (green in this case) micro fiber and tucked it in his pants and wrapped it around the belt buckle. You can see it in a couple of the first half dozen shots SONET posted.

That's usually step one for me. Remove ring, watch and belt. Park car in driveway, spray on P21S wheel cleaner and fill both wash buckets with hot water (Ripsnort gave me this idea), watch CNN for half an hour. Go wash car.

--gary

 

[Guest84]

Excellent! :thumb: I was about to comment that they were using a silver car, but then I saw the Black honda :thumb:

Great write up Sonet! Thanks for sharing!

 

[scottn2retro]

Thanks for the review, Rip

What Marco had requested for volunteer cars was one new one (like what the news guys have) and one a few years older (like other guys have). The cars I volunteered were the new 01 Silver M Roadster and a 99 dark metallic green Acura. One new car, one older car, one light color, one dark color (with swirl marks), one conv., one hard top - to give Marco a lot of options to work with.

Can't wait to organize another one.

 

[Chaaaosss]

Any chance these pics will go back up any time soon? :wahwah:

Sounds like a really useful thread (although much more useful with pics, I'm sure).

 

[scottn2retro]

Any chance these pics will go back up any time soon? :wahwah:

Sounds like a really useful thread (although much more useful with pics, I'm sure).

I'm not sure if SONET quit hosting them or the link broke somehow. :dunno: I'll have to ask him.

Marco will have another clinic this year on Sunday July, 27th. It's FREE.

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28600&highlight=carnuba+store

 

[SONET]

I'm not sure if SONET quit hosting them or the link broke somehow. :dunno: I'll have to ask him.[/url]

I had to dump the pics off my server. I was right at my quota and I had to use the space for something business-related. I didn't think anyone looked at this old thread anymore. Sorry folks.

--SONET

 

[cruztopless]

I had to dump the pics off my server. I was right at my quota and I had to use the space for something business-related. I didn't think anyone looked at this old thread anymore. Sorry folks.

I was reading this thread a couple weeks ago and, like Chaaaosss, thought this would be great with the pics. Oh well. Just more incentive for those in the area to attend.

 

[scottn2retro]

I may have a bunch of them on CD. If I get time, I'll try to hunt it down and shrink/post them.