CobrAA's Eastern detailing pic

[cobrAA]

See ya soon! Next week, a BMW series X

[cobrAA]

Et bien la saison est commencé pour vrai, je crois! J’aimerai juste dire que ça m’a fait plaisir de te parler Jason! Sincerement, j’ai eu du plaisir à te parler! J’espère te revoir. How was the burger btw? haha

Process :

Wash avec le foam gun et 2 bucket.
Décontaminant au clay bar
2-step polish
Paint cleaner
Sealant.

• I must apologize in advance, my camera died right after the second pictures so I took my Galaxy smartphone to take pictures. Not the best but oh well! At the end, what it matters is that both, the owner and I are happy about the job. *

Foaming the car to remove a first layer of dirt:





Cleaning wheels with special wheel cleaner and soft horse hair brush:




Taping the car to avoid any damage on trim:



One side of the car has been repainted and overall the paint was REALLY THIN so I didn’t push my machine to extreme condition in order to preserve the clear coat! The goal with this 2-step was too make the paint ‘’even’’ between the unpainted and painted area:

As you can see, without the proper paint gauge, another detailer could’ve propably burn the clear coat if he wasn’t aware of the very thin thickness and went straight to a compound on a wool pad.














No before because with the phone, you wouldn’t of been able to properly see the paint anyways. So let jump to some after pictures:























Paint was inspected with my dual LED and sun-gun light.

[cobrAA]

Wet-look !?


How about those exterior shot?





Sun shot!? Nothing to be shy of..












Thanks for watching!

BTW, I have a couples more to show but I’m quite busy this month, keep the pm coming and I will catch up in may! Thanks Marc, I guess you discovered how perfectionist I am! haha

Désolé du post en anglais, j’ai voulu écrire dan sla langue du propriétaire ! A+

[cobrAA]

Perfection-much !? hihi


Exclusive wax for an exclusive wetness!


Inside after-pic, I must say it was very-well kept, so I didn’t work too hard!
















I do polish headlight on every-single car I detail

[cobrAA]

I'm a huge fan of your work! How far are you from Mont Tremblant?

Ummm about 2 hours. please pm! I will make an official post real soon! ( like within 24 hours)

[cobrAA]

I ran into some problems with this car ; the paint was way too soft for a bmw. The owner have the complete history and I took reading with my paint gauge and it look correct. Car hasn’t been repainted but with this one is so soft !? Microfiber could marr the paint. It was a nightmare!

So the owner came to me by saying the paint has been polished before but holograms and swirls were still very present on the car and he wanted that gone.

Process:
5-step polishing ( After the first 2-step, I had to start again.. so I end up doing a 5-step total but only a ‘’real.’’ 3-step)

ONR Wash
Clay bar
Paint inspecting with the ptaint thickness gauge
Interior done with leather 2-step treatment
Matt protector
76% Waxxon’s wax!

Here’s how it looked:











And after:









Some picture after the job inside:

[bobbo]

I'm a huge fan of your work! How far are you from Mont Tremblant?

[cobrAA]

Hé oui les gars.. Une fois de plus, CobrAAA met Montréal sur la map du detailing en sol Nord-américain!:bigup:

Vous vous rappelez peut-être l'an dernier, mon best of show d'Autogeek, en floride, en 2010 ? Cette fois-ci, en 2011, certaines de mes photos ont été sélectionnés par Chemical Guys, en californie, pour promouvoir leur nouvelle cire Celeste Dettaglio V2 sortié en janvier 2012! Vous imaginerez donc que le prix sera un pot de cire CG Celeste Dettaglio V2 d'Une valeur de 175$us !! WAHHOOOO hahaa! une autre cire à tester!!

Mais vous savez ce qui est spécial ? C'est que le concours était supposé avoir 12 gagnants... En fait, il y en a eu 13... Tous, était des américains. sauf 1.. Vous imaginez donc qui fut le ptit ''no-where'' de la gang ! En fait, je comprenais pas trop.. 3 de mes photos avaient été sélectionné pour l'affiche, mais je n'avais pas eu de email me disant que j'avais gagné. C'est seulement quelques jours après que je reçu un email de la part du propriétaire de Chemical Guys me disant comment il apprécie ma passion pour l'esthétique et qu'il trouve ça super qu'un canadien dans le froid 6 mois par année trouve le temps d'en faire et d'utiliser leurs produits malgré tout! Évidement, ne échange je lui doit un review.

..Mais là c'est cool car j'ai un lien direct avec le owner de CG. Peut-être que d'autres trucs le fun arriveront dans le futur avec la marque!!

Je suis quand même très fier de tous ce qui m'arrive. Rappelez-vous mes débuts et la compétition qu'il y avait entre tous. Malgré tout, regardez où j'en suis rendu

See ya soon guys!!


Link to the last award I won in 2010:

http://montrealracing.com/forums/showthread.php?717900-J-ai-gagn%E9-le-1er-prix-Won-1st-prize-detailing-contest&highlight=

[cobrAA]

my own wax:

I have pictures but I prefer to wait till the pot arrives so I can take better one.:bigup:



Pot en aluminium, je vous dit, c'est du sérieux, Ça brisera jamais!




O-RING.. soucie du détails, ya know ? :P

[cobrAA]

Le résultat final:















Wheel well detailed :











There’s no reason not to polish the top even tho the truck is like 7 feet tall!


Here’s some after-picture of the interior.

Just did a leather cleaner + conditioner and a quick wipe + salt remover on the carpet done by the extractor.




















It was a pleasure to work on this truck, I think The wax added a nice depth to the paint. Even tho, it took me more times than I thought ( these trucks are huuuge lol!), I enjoyed working on this car. The result is rewarding!

See ya.

[cobrAA]

Test-spot.
This time I decide to do it differently.. let’s just do a square inside the swirled paint :P







Sun gun, you can see the difference in Kelvin color:


And under the shade:




Looks good enough to me!! Let’s polish, we are finally ready! It’s important to not skip any of those step if you want a nicer finish. (better prep = better result!)

Here’s a 50/50 with the trim restorer:


Applying Swissvax cleaner fluid to prep the paint for something quite unique..


Polishing the door handle is very important for a nice finished result;


Et maintenant la pièce de résistance . Waxxon’s wax made by Raceglaze UK. 76% carnauba of pure p0rn! Haha!

[cobrAA]

10. I also use my brush to clean crevice and door molding:


11. The owner asked me to remove the X5 badge, that was some hard work!


It’s now gone:


12. Okay so I think the vehicule is clean now.. let’s rinse it and dry it with a microfiber!

Now before I polish, I want to take some measure with my Defalsko paint gauge to make sure I can work without doing anything bad to the paint. This is excellent safety.

















As you can see the paint is quite messed up! I will try to make it more even/uniform by doing a 3-step polish. But before, I will tape my molding:


Inspecting the paint.. uuummmm, this truck was in bad shape!












• When I inspect the paint, I always use AT LEAST 2 different source of light ( usually it’s a sun-gun and a LED light) *

[cobrAA]

J’ai bien aimé comment la X5 est arrivé dans mon entré entouré de 3 motos ! Vous étiez brave à 8 degrée celcius boys! Après avoir vendu sa belle voiture la saison passée, je le retrouve maintenant avec ce camion. Pas mal différent come contraste!

With that said, let’s jump to the core of the job :

Here’s how I got the car :













Cleaning-step:

Voici comment je procède toujours pour la preparation d’un polissage:

1. Rinse the car to remove some dirt :



2. I then foam the car:

Gotta love thick foam!


3. I let the foam dwell and works in every crevice of the car and the meantime, I fill up my bucket.
Notice that my bucket have 4 grit guard to keep most of the dirt under the Guard.


Oh yeah, you propably saw my natural sea sponge here.. well just a little extra luxury

4. Rinse again

5. Wash using the 2 bucket method.

6. Rinse

7. Time for the clay bar:







Rough condition!

8. I then use a chemical decontaminant. I let the stuff work for 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, I wash the wheels.



It’s working!






9. Washing wheels: Here’s some tool I used

[cobrAA]

How long does a detailing last ?

Detailer, how many times have you answered that question ? Almost, every week, I answer that particular question.

Short answer: As long as you take care of your car ! How long do you expect your car to last if you never change the oil and do maintenance? How long do you expect your toilet to look good if you never clean it ? It also depends how much you drive and where you drive and is it parked inside or outside!

The long answer:

In order to answer this question, maybe we should all get a CLEAR definition of the word ‘’detailing’’ ? I know most of you are juding the quality of my work or, in fact, any detailing service by how long the water bead on your car. But in this case, shouldn’t the question be ‘’ how long will my Last- Step-Protection last on my car ? ‘’. A detailing is very large, it could be a simple high quality car wash or an engine wash or an interior done by extractor. By using the right word, better are the chance you will get a better answer!

So… how long will my LSP last on my car, you asked, right?

1- First, you should wash your car at least 1x a month ( However, I’m guilty, I only wash it about 2 times from December to april) and you should use a QUALITY car soap, not some dishwasher soap.. oh and some people like to put more soap in the water than it’s suppose.. in this case, your solution is too concentrated and your actually stripping your protection. FOLLOW THE DIRECTION! Usually it’s 3-5oz per 5 gallons of water!

I wrote an article about car soap .. have a read!

2- There’s 3 categories of LSP, wax, sealant, coating, some last longer than other. I will leave it like that as I already wrote an article about this also.. please go back and read it.


LSP article click here!

Now that we’re all on the same page, I want to introduce you the QUICK DETAILER.


I always recommend buying a Quick detailer to every owner I detail his car because it’s cheap and very effective at prolonging the durability of your LSP.

How it work:

You wash the car.. when your done with the rinse-step. When the car is still WET, you spray about 2-4 oz of Quick detailer on the whole car and then you dry the car.

That it!! It took you about 1 minute more than it used to take you.
What it does:

- maintain that fresh waxed look since QD contains some carnaubas
- Make your car as slick as it was when your car left my driveway!
- Reduce the chance of marring/swirls your paint.

Where to buy: Some QD are better than other but overall, it’s a very basic product, it’s like a spray-wax. It’s not rocket science! Any Poorboys or Chemical Guys qd will do the job just fine. If you want to ball hardcore, go buy some Zymol or Swissvax Detailer. If you don’t want to order online, I’m sure the autoglym or meguiars at Canadian Tire will do just fine.


For more info, you can reach me : alexandre.lemay at hec ca

I hope you learned something and hope to see some of you this summer. Also, Please do not steal my work.

[cobrAA]

Pour tout ceux intéresser à voir quoi on doit s'attendre des deux cire Zymol les plus primés, j'ai maintenant deux échantillons de 3oz chacun.

Lorsque vous voulez que le meilleur pour le fini de votre peinture, vous pouvez maintenant me demander une de ces deux cires ULTRA-convoités. En plus du Zymol HD-CLEANSE qui sera appliqué avant l'application d'une cire Zymol.

P.S: Pour la Royale, je risque de choisir personnellement quand je décidé de l'utilisé car c,est vraiment toute une cire. Propablement, la plus recherché chez les détaillers de ce monde.

Voici ce que Zymol dit au sujet de sa vintage: Retail: 2200$

Vintage Glaze is based on a custom formula developed for the 1947 Bentley Mark VI Cabriolet by Franay, winner of several "Best of Shows" in its debut year on the Concours circuit. Among the protective ingredients in Vintage are evergreen, honeydew, coconut, cantaloupe and sunflower oils. Vintage contains 61 percent Brazilian #1 White Carnauba by volume, the highest in any product designed to protect automotive finishes.

Royale: Retail: 8400$

It was originally formulated to protect the finish of the Bugatti Royale, a rare late 1920's ultra-luxury car (only about half a dozen were built) so meticulously crafted and exquisitely engineered that today it is considered a work of art. Suitable for all paint types and colors. Royale Glaze contains 70% Brazilian No.1 White Carnauba by volume, which is the absolute highest quality available anywhere! Ingredients: Contains white carnauba sap, Montan Evergreen Oil, Sunflower Oil, Cantaloupe Oil, Coconut Oil, Honeydew extract, Strawberry extract, Propolis (derived from bees) and pure glycerin. Royale Glaze contains 70% Brazilian No.1 White Carnauba by volume.

(On m'a offert d'acheter le pot, mais je trouvais ça stupide de payer 500$ pour avoir deux pot vides de royale et vintage. L'important, c'est la cire, le pot ici est pas très pertinent haha!)



After the addition of the finest Swissvax's wax to my collection, I thought it would be fun to chase for the finest Zymol wax ( Swissvax's first competitor) and then be able to make my own conclusion on these 3 very premium waxes. However, if you decide you want to treat your paintwork with the very FINEST wax, well you know who to ask after getting your car polished to perfection, these wax will be the icing on the cake!