I was organizing my detailing stuff today for a job tomorrow and the thought of presentation had crossed my mind. A lot of this business is how you sell yourself and how you appear when doing the job (professional). I took a look at my Pep Boys 5 gallon bucket and decided that it looked childish with the cartoons on it and the bright orange/red color was unappealing. For a weekend warrior, I'm sure it is fine, but when your customer sees you drive up and start setting up, it reflects poorly on initial meeting. I went to Home Depot and Lowe's in search of a plain 5 gallon pail, but couldn't find one that fit the grit guard. The only one they had there was a Lowe's brand bucket, which had to work. I don't want my customers thinking that I pulled some random bucket out of the shed and removed tools from it, so I improvised. It looked like the outside of the Lowe's bucket has logos and such that are painted on. I sprayed Tarminator and let it soak on there for about 30 seconds and worked the logos and labels off using 0000 steel wool. With a tiny bit of elbow grease it took them right off. It left some haze and scuffs, so I used my porter cable and Power Finish to clean the surface up using a white pad. The outside isn't glossy anymore, but it is uniform and much more presentable. The bucket and lid cost me about 4 bucks in total. For my wash bucket, I have a CLEAR 3.5 gallon bucket from Lowe's with a slight blue tint to it. I've been working on my appearance lately, and decided to order some Raceglaze mitts to look a bit more 'together'. I'll be looking for some hooks to hand the mitts off the side as well as other tools. Hope this helps some people.
That certainly is a lot of work for your bucket mate! I picked up a nice 5 gallon BLUE bucket from Home Depot (or was it Lowes?) and it works great. I found that the clear buckets would more easily crack on the bottom, and since switching to the blue buckets, have not had any issues.
Only took about 10 minutes total actually. I've had that clear one for over a year with no issues. I think the problem with the clear plastic is when you go bigger than 3.5 gallons, the 5 gallon buckets have issues.
You might be right, as mine was indeed the 5 gallon bucket. I use it now when I work in the garden, put weeds in it.
not sure if you guys have a Ace Hardware or Marmac Hardware store but they have some real nice buckets there in different see through colors. USplastic also have some very nice logo free buckets but are solid in color and are not see through: US Plastics Buckets
