Mobile Tech Expo

Total Est. Time: 4 hours, 30 minutes

Total Est. Distance: 283.38 miles

Sucks, I would've gone if it was 1-2 hours away.
 
Heck, I would love to go just to meet the participants, i.e. Budman3, Totoland Mach, and Troy. Unfortunately it is not in the cards THIS year. It is an annual event is it not?

It is 1178 miles for me so I would/do need a little more time to make plans. Even though I am not a pro. I would like to think I am. Plus there are a lot of things that I would like to learn that are featured in this little get together. I like looking at mobile detailing trailers. Several local pro's have mobile detailing trailers and I liked looking at their different setups. And to be able to rub shoulders with some of the pro's on the forum would be a plus as well.

I am envious of all the attendee's. Hope you have a lot of fun. Make sure to get some pictures up for us wannabe's.:D
 
I will be there on friday and going to try in get my wife to go on saturday. Very excited since this is my first year in the detail business.
 
Hey everyone :)

I just wanted to update this thread to let you know about what I saw at the Mobile Tech Expo. I went to two seminars taught by Jason Rose, field marketing manager for Meguiar's and another taught by Randy Lowe, from Custom Detailing, about RV detailing with a demonstration by Tom Horvath from System One products. Overall the seminars were very helpful and if you are ever able to attend one, do it!

After the seminars, there were a ton of vendors in the Expo hall, which was overwhelming. There wasn't a lot of products specifically for detailing rather PDR, mobile painters and other mobile techs. I was able to see some guys doing PDR on a door and I was impressed.

I spent some time talking with Aaron from Edge Pads. He walked me through the entire Edge line, including their new, to me, industrial adaptor (quick disconnect), shmitts, detailing apron and an orange foam conditioning brush. Aaron is a great guy and is always looking for new ideas and products to help the detailing industry.

I also spent some time talking to David G. of Optimum. I won a giveaway on AG and I was finally able to thank David in person. We went through the entire line talking about the products including their new ones :). If you haven't heard, they will be coming out with:
-A wheel and tire cleaner (APC) which can be diluted up to 3:1
-A carpet cleaner & protectant- all in one (very interesting!)
-A new QD gloss enchancer
-A new tire dressing/coating
-An updated version of OCW.

He had a panel with the new OCW dried on it and there was a nice layer of carnauba... just like a paste wax! It was very cool. It was easily removable as well... unlike the older version.

I didn't take any pictures from inside the Expo or the other seminars but here are a few at the RV seminar:

Here is the before condition of the class C RV- lots of oxidation and black streaks, nothing major:
HPIM1840Small.jpg


Here is Randy talking about process and procedures:
HPIM1842Small.jpg


Here is Tom from System One doing a test spot:
HPIM1841Small.jpg


And here is Tom using his X3 on the oxidation with a wool pad:
HPIM1843Small.jpg


It was misting during the seminar and the close up pictures didn't come out at all. This RV has aluminum siding so it was pretty easy to correct the oxidation and black streaks with the X3 and a wool pad. The gloss was definitely restored, which was good.

Feel free to ask any questions, I just got back from the Keys and trying to catch up on everything :). I'll try to update this again when I go through my notes when I get home.
 
Thanks for the update, Budman. I am not a professional but would certainlylike to have been able to attend this function. PDR and spot painting are something that I would like to learn.

Maybe next year.....:cheers:
 
The siding was aluminum but the sleeper over the cab was fiberglass / gel coat. Not too many MFGs use metal siding but Holiday Rambler did on this coach (note the metal rivets about 1/2 way up).
 
I'm just going to list a few things that I learned while at the expo-- I found some of these very interesting and hopefully you do as well. They are in no order, so read carefully :)

-Heat generated from rotary polishers goes from the pad right onto the paint (down)
-Heat generated from orbital polishers goes from the pad up into the backing plate
-Smaller pads on rotary polishers are less powerful/aggressive/effective
-The further away you get from the middle of the pad, the faster it is moving
-Smaller pads on an orbital are more powerful/aggressive/effective
-The closer you get to the middle of the pad, the faster it is moving
-The UDM, PC, and Meguair's new orbital buffers all have the same orbit diameter- 5/16"
-The smaller the orbit diameter, the better the finish
-Amp/watt ratings are very important when choosing a buffer
-When working with scratch resistant coatings, slow the speeds, reduce the pressure, and use a finishing polish
-There is a big difference between dual action random orbit and dual action forced rotation.
-The Makita BO6040, Bosch 1250DEUS and Festool RO150FEQ are switchable from forced rotation (dual action, not like a typical rotary) and to random orbit (like a PC7424).
-The Makita BO6040, Bosch 1250DEUS and Festool RO150FEQ have gearing inside the machine head for dual action forced rotation whereas the Flex 3401 has it outside on the backing plate (can only use MFG BP, limited pad size, easier to strip the gears?)
-The Dynabrade Dynalock pneumatic polisher is switchable from TRUE rotary to orbital
-RVs have about 4x the paint on cars = charge accordingly
-A possible RV price estimate: Length / 2 * hourly rate


That is all I have for now. I know I have more information and I'll post that when I find / remember it :).
 
Sounds like you learned quite a bit. I'm going to make sure we are there for it next year. We just got piled up with too much detail work. I could have made it Saturday afternoon but by then I was exhausted.:passout:
 
I'm a bit confused. The further from the middle or the closer to the middle of the pad the spin speed increases? I always thought the further from the middle the faster it's spinning.
 
It is confusing and hard to explain...

On a rotary, the fastest part of the pad is the outer edge. Meaning the center of the pad is moving slower than the outer edge.

However, the opposite is true with an orbital. The orbits make the center of the pad faster / more effective, which is why 4" pads correct more defects than 7" pads.
 
OK that probably didn't help all that much. It really isn't the speed of the pad when using an orbital, but the part of the pad that is most effective. The nature of orbiting is prevent the pad from staying in one spot, like a rotary. Since it orbits and oscillates, the center of the pad is going over the same paint more than the outside edge of the pad so the center is doing the most correction. I made a little diagram which may help a little, hopefully :). Again, the slow and fast is a lack of better words to use...
untitled.jpg
 
Budman3:
Thank you for the kind comments about about the seminar. Hope we had the chance to meet, I met so many great people there I lost track of who is who and the E-mails since have kept me hopping.
We needed more time and that's my fault, thought an hour would be enough but I was answering questions until I had to leave. Also competing with the 3 compressor's and pneumatic tools was tough.

Thanks again
 
Custom Detail said:
Budman3:
Thank you for the kind comments about about the seminar. Hope we had the chance to meet, I met so many great people there I lost track of who is who and the E-mails since have kept me hopping.
We needed more time and that's my fault, thought an hour would be enough but I was answering questions until I had to leave. Also competing with the 3 compressor's and pneumatic tools was tough.

Thanks again
Click to expand...

Randy it was a good seminar and would have / could have been better as you say without the compressors and generator and weather. But I learned a lot and I'm sure the others did as well... and that's all that matters. So Thank you!

Also, welcome to Detail City. This is the site that got me into detailing and ultimetly to the Expo this year. It has been 4 years this month since I signed up here and I have been learning ever since. Its just a hobby for me right now but who knows what will happen in the future :cool:
 
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