How to improve your detailing efforts?

A

a.k.a. Patrick

New member
Its obvious, the detailing "wheel" has a small offset. There is by no means, the perfect tool fo every aspect of detailing. (Or maybe Ive been living in my cave too long? Insert monkey joke here) What if any product, which is currently non-existant, would make your spring and summer detailing jobs/tasks, easier? In other words, what are we missing, as detailers, that could improve our efforts? Not so much product specific as "tool" oriented. For me, it would have to be items needed for wheel cleaning. I mean its difficult enough to get in lug nut valleys, air stem valves, back offsets etc. These i find troublesome with whats currently available.
 
About 10 years ago I had a tool that was sold through auto parts store..dog chewed it up!! Anyway it was a cylinder type tool with brushes on the inside and outside. Absolutely perfect for lug nuts. I have searched the world over for another and not found it again.
 
Patrick, in trying to figure things out, the area I find most perplexing is the wheels! Just about everything else has an approach and a product, but the wheels are still a nightmare in my thinking, but one of the most spectacular objects viewed on any vehicle !

I don't particularly want to jack up and take off a wheel to get it detailed!!

There should be some way to easily come in from the front with a pollishing wheel to get at the back! I know, it might sound dumb, but you asked, and I answered!!

Change
 
They sell lug nut cleaner brushes at Kragen and/or AutoZone. I have one myself and it works pretty well. As for the stem valves, I have a variety of brushes and those usually take care of it whether it be one or the other.



As for anything else, I have trouble polishing the nooks and crannies. I kind of wish we didn't have to hand polish those and could just take the PC straight to it without spending extra time by hand.
 
I usually take the wheels off if I am asked to detail the inside of the rim. I was wondering though how efficient that power ball thing would be at getting through the spokes and cleaning up the insides of the rims. Probably wouldn't be perfect but it might help. The other thing is that it would probably fill up with brake dust and grease pretty quickly and maybe render itself useless. I would like to find that lugnut brush though.....the search begins!!
 
a.k.a. Patrick



I would like to see an attachment head that has longer and softer bristles that will fit onto my Sonic Scrubber just for reaching looong into the lug recess.



Here is one device which saves me time … for me time is money. It not only saves me time it also doubles as a knuckle saver for those hard to clean areas when you would normally use a detail brush.



a.k.a. Patrick sells the detailer version of the Sonic Scrubber which is a battery operated brush with some stones compared to doing this task by hand or with a normal battery operated toothbrush.

Long enough and slender enough that I can clean the inside part of the wheel from the outside without having to take the wheel off the car.

Using the different additional brush heads [separate package] this baby will get into the hex head bolts on wheels/rims and quickly takes care of lugs and badging when used properly.



I purchased mine at the grocery store in the household section and I also bought the additional brush head set because it has the tip I need the most for getting into corners.

Total cost was about $30 bucks and has paid for itself many times over.



Al
 
PaintPolisher said:
Google Sonic Scrubber which is a battery operated brush with some stones compared to doing this task by hand or with a normal battery operated toothbrush.

Long enough and slender enough that I can clean the inside part of the wheel from the outside without having to take the wheel off the car.

Using the different additional brush heads [separate package] this baby will get into the hex head bolts on wheels/rims and quickly takes care of lugs and badging when used properly.



I purchased mine at the grocery store in the household section and I also bought the additional brush head set because it has the tip I need the most for getting into corners.

Total cost was about $20 bucks and has paid for itself many times over.
Click to expand...
Or you could just get it from Patrick: :usa



Sonic Scrubber Pro Detailer

Sonic Scrubber Pro Detail Interchangeable Brushes
 
Patrick I did that know that you sold the Sonic Scrubber so this one is my bad. Had I known I would have kept my money in our community and purchased from you.

My request for the longer and softer head is still valid. Got any pull with the Sonic Scrubber people.



Al
 
Patrick- heh heh, you brough up one of my pet peeves when you mentioned the lug/valvestem valleys! The stem valleys are just so tight that I can't see anything working except a swab so I keep a few foam ones of the right size in my wheel/tire bucket.



For the lugs, I use the round BHB in Griot's 15520 kit. It works *OK* for the valve stems but I really do a better job with the swabs. And yeah, sometimes I have to use the swabs around the lugs too. It sure does add time to every wash :(



For the back sides I always end up going back to the Quickee Sponge Mops (made for cleaning the insides of glassware) but you sure have to be careful about the steel loop core and they don't always fit (gotta use the foam swabs for those wheels). I've yet to find anything that really cleans the back sides of the spokes any better than simply reaching through with whatever will fit back there (sometimes just the fingertips of my rubber gloves). It's another thing that always takes a lot of time.



If somebody would rework the sponge mop specifically for cleaning wheels, I bet it'd sell pretty well, but the backsides of the spokes...well, I just don't see any way around doing it the slow way.



The tool I wish somebody would make is a BHB/foamgun combo, where the foamgun's output would be directed into the BHB's bristles. Holding the BHB in one hand and the foamgun in the other is simply awkward at best; if they were combined into an integrated unit it'd be a lot handier. On most vehicles you wouldn't even need to rinse out the BHB, the foamgun's output would do it automatically.
 
Denzil said:
They sell lug nut cleaner brushes at Kragen and/or AutoZone. I have one myself and it works pretty well. As for the stem valves, I have a variety of brushes and those usually take care of it whether it be one or the other.



As for anything else, I have trouble polishing the nooks and crannies. I kind of wish we didn't have to hand polish those and could just take the PC straight to it without spending extra time by hand.
Click to expand...

I have one of those...three loop deal, right?.... It is fine if the lugs are totally enclosed but for center hubs that only enclose half the lug nut it tends to get deformed.
 
Do you have this?



ads-lugnut-brush-02.gif
 
Accumulator said:
For the back sides I always end up going back to the Quickee Sponge Mops (made for cleaning the insides of glassware) but you sure have to be careful about the steel loop core...
Click to expand...



Wow, thanks for mentioning that! I finally got around to using mine last week, and I didn't even realize there was metal in there until you said that and I went and looked; I thought it was all plastic.
 
Accumulator said:
The tool I wish somebody would make is a BHB/foamgun combo, where the foamgun's output would be directed into the BHB's bristles. Holding the BHB in one hand and the foamgun in the other is simply awkward at best; if they were combined into an integrated unit it'd be a lot handier. On most vehicles you wouldn't even need to rinse out the BHB, the foamgun's output would do it automatically.
Click to expand...



What's BHB?
 
Wheel cleaning is a non issue for me. For lug nuts, cracks and crevices I use a $2.00 soft paint brush with electrical tape around the metal so it won't scratch. You can buy all sorts of sizes and shapes. For behind the wheel I use an EZ Detail brush. It conforms to tight spaces without a problem.



You don't need fancy tools or gizmos. This isn't rocket science!
 
Spilchy- yeah, as long as you choose a nice soft brush your suggestion is a cheaper alternative to my little Griot's BHBs.



Gotta be careful with the EZ detail brush though, it *will mar* certain painted surfaces as will those "lug scrubber" brushes. This is first-hand experience as I've had to polish painted wheels that I washed with not-soft-enough materials including those two.



No, no, not always; it won't matter on a lot of wheels, but e.g., the "Avus" ones on my Audi "S" cars always seem especially fragile with regard to light marring, must be the clear they used. Stuff that'd *kill* the finish on those does no damage at all to some of my other wheels. But on some wheels I won't use anything that isn't soft enough to use on the hood of the car.



For some reason I can't get the back sides 100% with the EZ brush :nixweiss I still use it for the initial passes on the A8 and the minivan, but I always end up having to reach back in there to do the back sides of the spokes anyhow. What I *really* like it for is undercarriages, it's great for the minvan's coil springs/etc.
 
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