Well I’ve been eagerly awaiting a phone call for one of these trucks, well I finally received a phone call and not only was it for a truck but it was actually for two fire trucks! I had to get these ready for a show. The only catch is that I had a time frame, very tight time frame aranoia:. The good news is that it was to be full paint correction only on both fire trucks :woo: It’s been a wile since I’ve done a full paint correction on a fire truck, let alone paint correction on two fire trucks within the same day. Now realistically I couldn’t do the full paint correction on both fire trucks. Instead it was one and a half paint correction, as on the second truck I was quite drained and the family/helpers were also drained. Things started on a positive note, when I arrived the trucks were both rinsed off, here is what greeted me: As you can see lots of bugs and lots of etching. This is the second fire truck: Still some bug etching but not as bad as the previous truck. Lots of water etching though. Well the shop had shut down for the weekend, it was just the owner and my family/steam :thumb:. I couldn’t really give the trucks a traditional wash…you know bucket soap with rinse bucket and making a big mess, the good stuff. There was no room for splashing around, so ONR it is: I enjoyed my self ONR’ing these large trucks, let me show you: Well I had great support…um..I mean my team was well prepared and ready to go :roll: when I say team, I mean my family :thumb: Actually I’m very fortunate to have such an understanding wife and a very high endurance little girl as they both played an extremely important role through out the detail, you’ll see what I mean as the write up unfolds. Just wanted to take a moment and give credit where credit is due :thumb: Any who after several hours of ONR’ing one truck I proceeded on claying the truck, which took an hour or so to do. Now I’ve detailed a few of these fire trucks in the past, so I have an idea as to what to expect, first I know that some fire trucks are single stage paint but those are usually the older fire trucks, these particular fire trucks are fairly new so they will have the tinted clear coat and most of the time quite easy to correct. So the first combo was Menzerna Intensive Polish partnered with a Meg’s Polishing foam pad: Now before I began the paint correction, I took paint gauge readings with my PosiTector gauges 6000 and 200. As expected really high numbers, all is good to proceed with the paint correction, but here is what I was up against: I took this picture because I made a mental note for my self, these rivets showed really thin paint, which makes sense. Any who the fire trucks are covered with these rivets, like air planes. Any who, it’s quite easy to burn through the clear/paint on these rivets, so extra caution is to be taken when polishing such areas. Oh look buffer trails…just like a car, not even fire trucks are except from buffer trails :shakehead: The entire front and areas and areas that were flat were covered with bugs and quite heavily etched as well. Well I had my work cut out. I decided to give a full paint correction to the fire truck that needed it the most, in this case the “red” one, the other fire truck is white with red colors and it’s in much better shape then the red one (it’s been driven less). The fire truck was taped up and a test section was also selected and taped: Here is a picture of the test section before: After: That’s with just one pass, like I said not very difficult to correct fire trucks…just takes time due to size. Here is a 50/50: Well now that I have my combo I’m ready to get going with the paint correction. Driver side fender Before: After: Before: Before: After: Before: After: For this area I used my 4inch Ultimate foam pads with my M14 small backing plate from the UK (with my adaptor of course). Before: Before: After: Before: After: The wife had finished ONR’ing the other fire truck (the red and white one, she did it all by her self and our little girl of course) so I put her in charge of bringing life back to all the chrome on the fire trucks, this was done with Autosol and a demoted Cookie Monsters: Here she is hard at work :thumb: Here is the result of the driver side: Wife did a great job :applause: I on the other hand continued with the paint correction, here is another spot that had really bad etching, before: After: Driver door before: Extra caution was taken due to the sticker on the door. During: End results: More bugs, before: After: Well this covered majority of the front of the red fire truck, now it was time to concentrate on the rear of the fire truck and the rear was a bit more extraneous as I had to keep my RPM’s low and speed up on my passes due to stickers and decals. Time was running out so no more pictures of the paint correction for the rest of the red truck. After several hours past and I completed the red truck time to move over to the red and white truck: This truck, I was only able to do the paint correction to the front end, the rear I couldn’t do because of time and as you can see lots of decorations on the rear. I wasn’t able to get as many pictures on the white and red fire truck, as I was running out of time but I managed to get a few in: Before: After: Before: After: Well once I finished the entire front end of the red and white fire truck, including the driver side and passenger side it was time to go back to refine the finish with Menzerna 85RD and a Blue 3M UK finishing Pad. Once I was completely done polishing the final wipe down was done with Menzerna Top Inspection. I then sealed the finish, the owner has been quite pleased with Duragloss so both fire trucks received a healthy coat of DG#105..well what I had left of DG that is, as I’m now officially all out of DG aranoia: Applying sealant to these fire trucks took time and by the time I applied sealant to the entire truck it was ready to be buffed off, that’s where wife and little girl come in :thumb:. Well the missus and little princess did a great job (and what troopers they were, specially when we were all stumbling around tired trying to get it all done) on all the exterior chrome and I made sure to seal all chrome as well, tires were dressed with Optimum Tire (lots of Optimum Tire). Windows were cleansed with Stoners Invisible Glass and several glass micro fiber towels. Exhaust tips were refined with Autosol and I believe that about concludes these two fire trucks. Now for the end results, regrettably by the time we finished these trucks we were a few hours in to the next day, so no out side pictures of the trucks as it was still pitch dark. But I managed to get the following pictures inside oh and this is a personal record, I’ve never done two fire trucks in one day but like I said I was fortunate to have my family helping me out because with out them I would have never been able to complete these two fire trucks within the same day. Well on to the final pictures: I thought this was a neat picture, that’s the reflection of the many chrome panels these fire trucks have. Excuse the wheel well on this picture, I missed this wheel well and wife pointed out. This picture was neat, I got on top of a third fire truck (smaller compared to the ones I detailed) to take it :thumb: Here they are back to back. Well that concludes this detail, hope you enjoyed it and it’s not as thorough as my usual details but like I said we really had to move on these two fire trucks so I had to sacrifice a few pictures from my regular routine.
OMG..Buddy..my hat goes off to you!!:worship2::worship2: There's no wonder you keep getting more jobs...man do you earn the fantastic reputation you have. A question for you..how did you reach the hood by the windshield? I'm assuming you stood on the bumper, but it's hard to judge how far back the reach would have been. The DG sure made the paint and chrome shine too..congrats!! Take a break; I think you earned it!!:applause:
Thank you, yes these trucks are quite large but with time and help anything can be done :thumb: Glad you enjoyed it, family's help sure came through on these fire trucks with out there help there was no way I could have completed both fire trucks...I owe my family big time...they have already requested a reward and a well deserved reward :thumb: Thank you, glad you enjoyed it eace:
:worship2::thumb::mounty::applause: Nica pure awesome, both are just amazing. It really is great when the family helps. The more I do the more my fiance has been helping and it is great. Today we went out I looked at a car and was like wow that is nice, her comment was "Well it is full of swirls" I just laughed
Thank you my friend, very much appreciated eace: Yes, I stood on the bumper. I laid a large bath towel to stand so I didn't scratch up the bumper any more but for the most part that was the only way I could reach the entire hood, the windshield was another challenge. I had to get on top, like in the picture, to properly remove all the bug etching it had on the windshield. I agree DG does a great job, the owner of the business prefers the sealant all the time now, even on his own vehicles. I'm very happy with DG on these fire trucks, not to mention the chrome. As for a break, we all dropped like flies when we got home :nod: If some of you have a hard time sleeping, detail a fire truck and then let me know how well you sleep after that :giggle: Thanks for the feed back richy and glad you enjoyed it :hippie:
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. Like I said, I'm very blessed to have such a great wife and family. I grew up in a family where when it was time to work we worked as a team/family and I'm pleased to say that I'm passing the same tradition to my very own family. Family needs to stick together, glad you found a partner that is a great fit with you...it makes for a much better, enjoyable life if you ask me :thumb:
Carlos, you have done some amazing work! That's one big truck to detail, you must be tired. By the way, speaking of DG #105, doesn't Chris (eshine) carries it???
Thank you my friend, I'm just glad you enjoyed it...no need for a standing ovation, the kind feed back is plenty for us...but okay if you insist on the standing ovation :takeabow: :takeabow:...hahaha just messing around, but I haven't used that smilie for ever and it's a good one too :thumb: Glad you enjoyed it eace:
Thank you super, glad you liked it. :nod: Chris has DG and I was on the phone with him about a few of my orders...but I used every single drop of DG I had..I even had to cut the bottle in half to scrape off every inch of product within the bottle...wife described it as an addict trying to get another hit....but she helped cut the bottle baaaaahahahahaa :lol2:
I deem you officially insane my friend :crasy:, but I'll also give you some of this :worship2:. Those things are humongous. Do those actually belong to a fire department? If so, I hope the citizens of that city don't find out where their tax money is going. :giggle: At least, they can be proud to say that their city puts out fires in style. Great job Carlos. :thumb:
Very nice work Carlos, I bet you sleept really good that night, hehe. Two fire trucks on 1 day, thats insane!
Great work by you and your family...Kudos [...glad you found a partner that is a great fit with you...it makes for a much better, enjoyable life ... ] Great advice > >
You know, that's what my wife said but when I got the call and the word "fire truck" was said I was like a kid in a kandy store forgot all about how long and hard work these things take..let alone that there were two fire trucks lol. Glad you enjoyed it eace: Well come on doc we all know I'm a little :crasy: :crasy: or as I like to say it I'm 'unique' :giggle: Yes, these fire trucks belong to a department/station. If I remember correctly, these trucks are sold to the departments/stations and because these fire trucks get driven from the US to Canada then to the owner they get quite dirty. So the owner of this outfit goes out of his way to please the customer and has me detail these fire trucks. You know, who doesn’t like a brand new fire truck looking brand new :thumb: These trucks get lots of abuse and lots of miles...not to mention these are not cheap at all, so I'm surprised they don't get detailed as much. The owner of the company I detail the vehicles was shocked to hear I detail for fun and actually enjoy detailing these big rigs. So he keeps phoning me when he gets these trucks in, no complaints from me. I look forward to these fire trucks :thumb: :nod: it was more like I passed out as soon as my head touched the pillow :thud: I've never done two fire trucks in one day though, I've done one full detail on a fire truck in 2 days so this experiance was a personal record for me. I'm just glad I had my family backing me up, I told the wife and little girl they are hired :mounty: Thank you for the feed back pirex, very much appreciated. Glad you enjoyed it Denzil, family and I had a restfull weekend after these trucks. Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the kind words, very much appreciated.
Amazing, just amazing. Used to detailing smaller vehicles, I get a little frustrated with how much more of everything there is to do when I help a friend detail an SUV or a wagon - can't even imagine something like that truck. Well done! Speaking of - how do you guys correct the roof of an SUV? Stand on a ladder, or on the vehicle's door sill?
