Kevin Brown Method - My understanding

[Pats300zx]

Wow...what drama. What don`t we all just ease off and skip all the speculation and just wait for Kevin to finish his paper on this. It`s obvious that he is putting alot of time and effort into documenting it properly which will be a great benefit to all of us.



Why are we trying to guess the correct KB method before he has even finished things?



I am sure Kevin will answer plenty of questions when he is done.

[imported_Detailing Technology]

Hmm.....



Maybe its the "I Love Kevin Brown" avatars people have now?





Like paparazzi outside Britney Spears rehab, we shall wait with our 500mm zoom lenses.

[blk45]

Wow, there`s a couple posts with a sour note to them. Shoot, I was hoping we could have a constructive thread around here without the usual drama involved.



Jakerooni, just because a guy isn`t a pro detailer, does that mean that it`s not worth listening to his input? I thought Autopia was meant to be a place where *everyone* that is interested in detailing can come share experiences, insights, and opinions? :nixweiss



Maybe I`m just taking offense to your post because I definitely fall into the category that you are singling out; I am a seasonal detailer. I *am not* a pro. I do exterior only details for hire on a limited basis during the warm months. Does that mean my experiences and opinions hold no water? Guess to you the answer is yes.



As for all the hype this new process has gotten (seasoned pros as well as weekned warriors alike are excited about it), why do you feel the need to question it like you have? It`s really cool that your experience goes back to when non-dimiinshing abrasives were the norm. Mine goes back that far, too, but so what? What everyone is so excited about now, is the fact that this "new" process is yielding such good results with such a time saving. Well, a time saving for those of us, that, according to you, are taking so long to do an exterior that you just can`t get your head around it.



A lot of us have been stuck in the three-step correction routine for so long that this really is a new way of doing stuff. Others of us just get excited about detailing in general, whether it`s a new product, a new technique, or a modern spin on both, we`re just excited about detailing.



Can`t we *please* keep this thread constructive wihout having to go through the whole Autopian drama thing?

Good points Supe! Just for the record, I know a lot of "weekend warriors" that are much better detailers than the majority of "pros". There are of course, some pros that are VERY good at what they do. Just because you get paid to do something doesn`t mean that you are very good at it. Regardless of the profession, everyone is entitled to their opinion and a lot more info can be shared/learned/taught if everybody would just check their ego at the door. Regardless of how good you are, there is ALWAYS someone better. That is what has impressed me the most about some of the members here that are considered "the best". Not only their skill, but their willingness to help others and share ideas instead of being egotistical about it.

[PresdntialDtail]

Hmm.....



Maybe its the "I Love Kevin Brown" avatars people have now?





Like paparazzi outside Britney Spears rehab, we shall wait with our 500mm zoom lenses.

What avatars are you talking about?



BTW..Kevin first introduced me to his method using a rotary. The entire foam pad process is whats new to me now, and I cant wait to get a DA and try it. I have used the process on my rotary with both wool and foam, both netting GREAT results!



This is my experience from TODAY. DISCLAIMER: THESE PICTURES WERE AFTER ONLY KB METHOD ON WOOL USING A ROTARY, THERE WAS NO MIDDLE-FINISHING STEP PERFORMED!! Also, no more than a couple minutes was spent on each step. I fully corrected that trunk in less than 15 minutes total, even while taking the pictures.



Mercedes Benz trunk, probably the worst marring Ive seen since Ive started detailing.













This is after 1 pass with M105/Megs Yellow Solo Wool using the KB method of priming the pad with M105, keeping the speeds at about 1200rpms, no higher than 1300-1400rpms. Then once the product has flashed, you spritz the panel with distilled water and work the product again until it flashes once again and then do one more pass at low rpm to finish off.







As you can see, it removed quite a bit of the marring, but these defects were DEEP. I thought for sure I was going to need to wetsand the trunk on the car, THINK AGAIN!



After two passes with M105/Burgandy Wool using the same process.

[imported_Detailing Technology]

Wait - I thought if you joined the old PDA you were instantly labeled a pro?



100%, This level of detailing is a weekend warrior game to me. Who else has the time to sit there and perfect these wild processes? A guy out all day trying to make a living has enough trouble keeping the register full. I sit in the garage with a pinot noir some nights until 2am trying different polishes/compounds and pad combos on my own cars. Thats where I have the best mental clarity and peace to experiment.



If I had a guy in the driveway waiting for his car and 4 employees beating me up for advances on their pay, my head would be elsewhere.

[imported_Detailing Technology]

What avatars are you talking about?

Its you. If you didnt know what you were doing, people would be like "Charlie Brown Mehod", who gives a sh...?

[Setec Astronomy]

...non-diminishing abrasives have been around forever. This is not new or advance technology. They used to be the very norm of what this industry was all about. We phased them out because we found the new "diminishing" abrasives to work better. Now with the newer ceramic clears and nanoclears old technology is coming back to light again. ?

This is what I was getting at. What is it about 105 that makes it "better" than the old school abrasives? Is it the size of the grit (small?), the uniformity of the size, the sharpness, or the hardness (or something else)? Or has it just come back because of the new paints, as you mention, the way trichlor came back to degreasing when ODP became an acronym?

[Setec Astronomy]

Setec - It`s time to clear your PM`s! :xyxthumbs

Done...you guys and your PMs...

[Scottwax]

BRB, buying 32 oz spray bottles...

[PresdntialDtail]

Its you. If you didnt know what you were doing, people would be like "Charlie Brown Mehod", who gives a sh...?

I know what I am doing(dont take this the wrong way bc I am in every way still learning every day) because I have been on the phone with Kevin Brown extensively over the last two weeks trying to perfect this method using these products. I have been using Menzerna for about 7 months now exclusively, and to be honest I just got tired of how finicky they were and how long it takes to get the results I am after(im sure it has to do with my climate here in FL).

[Accumulator]

So you have polished about 10-15 different vehicles and most detailers I know have polished 100s. It seems that you have had issues on at least 25% of cars you have put a machine to (please correct me if I am misreading.) My guess is most detailers who have polished over 100 cars have had issues on maybe 3%.....:nixweiss

Uhm, you and I have exchanged posts (in what always seemed like an atmosphere of agreement and mutual respect) so many times that I`m kinda by the above. I listed a few specific examples culled from decades of machine polishing, examples I thought illustrated that it`s possible to over-thin paint, even by PC.



Corrections:



I`ve polished a *LOT* more than "10-15 different vehicles" over the last few decades. Can`t imagine where you got that idea. I`ve done *dozens* of just my own vehicles (and I don`t mean only four or five dozen ). I`ve been doing this a long, long time, including as a jr.-level pro in the days of (only) single stage and on numerous cars when I owned a used-car dealership, not to mention dozens of cars for friends and family.



While I try to emphasize my *relative* inexperience compared to *some* of the pros here, it`s not like I`m inexperienced in an absolute sense or in any way deficient in my work. People who know my work IRL, including concours judges, agree with my self-assessment.



No, I don`t plan to do a whole lot of polishing in the future as my vehicles stay marring-free to the point that serious correction is a *VERY* infrequent occurence these days, and I seldom do vehicles for others any more; that`s what I meant to convey but apparently I failed miserably in getting my point across.



I`ve had issues as in overthinned paint on the following vehicles out of [I have no idea how many]: 1) the never-detailed Volvo I inherited, 2) my BMW, 3) my minivan , 4) my friend`s Audi. Only those were thinned enough that it mattered (the thinned paint on the Audi is the least of its worries as it has extensive cc failure, the RIDS on the minivan was down to metal anyhow so I didn`t mind experimenting, and the single-stage Volvo was already messed up right down into the primer).



I`ve posted bout a few other detailing "oopses" that I`ve committed over the years, but I sure haven`t messed up anything very often by *any* standards.



Again, I`m simply mystified by your post and I can only think that I`ve somehow given you an inaccurate impression that has in turn somehow counterbalanced any and all of the posts I`ve made on the threads that you and I have shared over the years.

[imported_Detailing Technology]

Too many disagreements on this site in the past 30 days or so.



People seem on edge.

[imported_weekendwarrior]

I would liken DA polishing with a non diminishing abrasive polish more like wet sanding with a super high grit paper, since we have eliminated the variability (and clumsiness) of abrasive break down cycles. I found wet sanding to be among the most effective tools for paint defect removal only because you can sand flat until the defects are removed, then stop. Non diminishing abrasives are similar in application, polish until the defects are gone, then stop. No need to work through a cycle.

What Todd said above is the best explanation of this process. Kevin told me about this method last April with the PC after I had posted a question about using M105 on the PC on the Meguiar`s boards, and got some not so friendly responses. I have been using it ever since on everything from C5 Vettes to freshly painted single stage cars that have been wetsanded.



Kevin will be posting a write up soon. I had posted an email a week or so ago that Kevin sent a few guys with his method. I didn`t know he was working on a more in depth write up to what I had posted, so I removed it pending him putting his write up here per his request (he called me after he saw the email posted). Apparently his final write up will have pictures and better explanations of processes and theories than what the email I posted last week had.



What Todd said above is spot on. When you fully prime the surface area of the pad with the M105 (or M86 or M205), you have what can be likened to a sheet of sand paper, that is fairly evenly covered in non diminishing, uniform sized abraisives. The other lubricants in the polish act like the water in wetsanding. Once the lubricants have been used up, that is like the water drying up when wet sanding...you need to stop (actually, you need to stop before that). The PC is like a DA sander...although it has a slightly longer throw. But, you can kind of look through the polish when using the method, and watch the scratches/swirls lessen, and you can stop when they are removed.



I would advise everyone to wait until Kevin posts the method before trying it out based on a lot of speculation that has been posted. Kevin is the type of guy that researches A LOT, and dots his "i"`s and crosses his "t"`s before posting something like this.

[Todd@RUPES]

This is what I was getting at. What is it about 105 that makes it "better" than the old school abrasives? Is it the size of the grit (small?), the uniformity of the size, the sharpness, or the hardness (or something else)? Or has it just come back because of the new paints, as you mention, the way trichlor came back to degreasing when ODP became an acronym?

I would imagine that it is the technology of the abrasives specific to the lubrication? Also, most (I am NO expert in older polishes for sure!!) of the older stuff I have ever used had larger abrasives, ie rocks in a bottle.



What are some of the old school polishes that featured ultra fine, micro milled, non diminishing abrasives? I would be curious to try it out.



But at the end of the day all that really matters to me (personally) is the results I`m getting. I`m not above learning new (and old) techniques that allow me to work faster, more efficiently, and produce great results.



The truth is that I MISTAKINGLY thought that a rotary was the road for best results always and that you just had to put up with the mental mind games that come along with it (on occasion). If polishing naked, on one leg, while listening to Journey, and clucking like a chicken would give me best results, I would do it.



My question is that if this is a new take on an old method (and assuming the old method worked as well) then why did anybody stop using it?

[Todd@RUPES]

What Todd said above is the best explanation of this process. Kevin told me about this method last April with the PC after I had posted a question about using M105 on the PC on the Meguiar`s boards, and got some not so friendly responses. I have been using it ever since on everything from C5 Vettes to freshly painted single stage cars that have been wetsanded.



Kevin will be posting a write up soon. I had posted an email a week or so ago that Kevin sent a few guys with his method. I didn`t know he was working on a more in depth write up to what I had posted, so I removed it pending him putting his write up here per his request (he called me after he saw the email posted). Apparently his final write up will have pictures and better explanations of processes and theories than what the email I posted last week had.



What Todd said above is spot on. When you fully prime the surface area of the pad with the M105 (or M86 or M205), you have what can be likened to a sheet of sand paper, that is fairly evenly covered in non diminishing, uniform sized abraisives. The other lubricants in the polish act like the water in wetsanding. Once the lubricants have been used up, that is like the water drying up when wet sanding...you need to stop (actually, you need to stop before that). The PC is like a DA sander...although it has a slightly longer throw. But, you can kind of look through the polish when using the method, and watch the scratches/swirls lessen, and you can stop when they are removed.



I would advise everyone to wait until Kevin posts the method before trying it out based on a lot of speculation that has been posted. Kevin is the type of guy that researches A LOT, and dots his "i"`s and crosses his "t"`s before posting something like this.

Great Explanation (much less wordy and far more direct then anything I could type)!!!



:2thumbs: