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It's an ongoing battle keeping the garage clean, but I enjoy the process. I was able to do a full wash of the floor yesterday and then my son and I filmed a guided tour video. Check them out:
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A buddy of mine hadn't mounted his winter wheels all winter, but we had a pretty brutal blizzard hit this weekend. He brought his car over and we did the swap using my QuickJack portable lift system. Due to the snow he tracked in under his car and in the wheel wells, I was left with a bit of a tidying up once the job was complete. No worries. What is a better way to unwind after a busy work week than spending time in your garage detailing the interior and exterior of your daily driver? I worked late into the night on this one and finished off the finer details on Saturday morning. I even was able to catch the Flames game. This video features some new title animations I put together using Keynote. I am looking forward to playing around with the design of the animations in future projects. Enjoy:  I'm pleased to announce that I am able to offer a discount code for Carzilla.ca purchases. Use "RADGARAGE" at checkout to receive 5% off your next Carzilla order. To head over to the comprehensive Carzilla online shop, just click here.   My buddies at QuickJack sent me these cool wall hangers recently. I used to store my QJ frame units horizontally under my Thule roof box, but now I have them hanging vertically on the opposite side of that big wall. I took the opportunity to repaint a large portion of the wall and install some shelves I had in the basement. Things worked out great. Here's a video as well as some photos showing the progress and final result. Here's a project I have been anticipating for a long time and finally got around to tackling. I ordered two slabs of Kaizen foam made by Fastway. I don't have an extensive collection of exotic tools, but the tools I have are now super organized. Here's a breakdown of the three drawers I customized using this innovative and easy-to-work-with layered foam. Drawer one This is the big drawer in my 56" Craftsman rolling chest. There is an awkward channel that runs along the middle of the base to strengthens the structure, so I was able to carve out a niche so the slab of foam sits flush on the base of the shelf. I burrowed out cavities for all my main tools. Because Kaizen comes in 48" lengths, I had to add a portion on the left side to fill the entire space. It came out great. Drawer two This drawer houses my collection of drivers. The most fun part of this project is laying out your tools in a pattern prior to tracing. I am looking forward to having much more organized tool drawers now. Drawer three This drawer houses a variety of useful tools including my sockets. This gallery illustrates the process you use to trace, cut, and burrow out the cavities for each of the tools. I found the entire process very satisfying and the results are highly pleasing. I'm excited to be featured on the second in a series of videos produced by YouTube sensation, Pan the Organizer! His "Pan & the Organizers" series features viewers touring people through their detailing themed garage spaces. I am enjoying reading through the comments left by Pan's viewers and feel very proud that people seem to dig what I have created. The best part of being featured on Pan's channel is the amount of feedback from his viewers. I will admit to reading each and every comment and I am so impressed with the amount of positive feedback my garage has received. Here's a sampling. Click image to enlarge.  Our friend came by last weekend to photograph my garage. Heather is super talented and I am very pleased with the final results of her work. Here's a little gallery highlighting her talent and the beauty of my place! I was fortunate to receive a care package from Adam's Canada yesterday. It was chalk full of amazing goodies. Here's some pics and I included a breakdown of the order below. I'm very excited to play with all the products, especially the Foam Gun and the Ceramic Spray. Just need this weather to warm up. Many of the liquids arrived frozen (see Car Syrup below) so I had a bit of cleaning up to do since a few of the bottles burst their seals. No big deal. Liquids (16 oz)
Ceramic Spray Coating 9H (8 oz) Limited Edition Red Standard Foam Gun (32 oz) 5 Gallon Detailing Bucket with Grit Guard Insert Microfiber
Pro Tire Hex Grip Applicator (For Tires & Trim)
After three weeks of suffering with a bare concrete floor, my Swisstrax floor arrived this weekend. Here are some photos of the install process and final result. I am very pleased with how things have come together. I need two Pearl Grey tiles and the edges weren't included with the order, so it's about 98% complete at this point. I am looking forward to putting it to good use and sharing my insights into its performance. Here's a video I put together: Here's a collection of photos that represent the current state of my garage. No major changes, just little tweaks here and there. I'm pretty much satisfied with how I have things laid out. Time to just use and enjoy it. I put a good twelve hours into this gorgeous FX 35. I just love these cars. I was extremely happy with the end result. Here's the video:  Following on the heels of the black R8, an Edmonton R8 owner popped down for a detail. I spent the entire day obsessing over this car and just before I was about to post the video, my MacBook crashed. For days I thought I had lost all the footage, but I was able to salvage it in the end. Here's the video and I hope you enjoy it:  If you click, on "Automotive and Tires" on the main page of the Costco website, you will see a large advertisement for the QuickJack portable lift featuring a stunning photo of my old SQ5 in my garage. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have formed some wonderful relationships with some of my favorite retailers. The team at QuickJack and I have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship since I first added a QuickJack to my garage back in the Spring of 2016 and I am pleased to see these amazing shots getting some good press. My two weeks of holidays have come to an end. I really enjoy the vacation time we teachers get, and I was able to accomplish quite a bit in terms of the garage and SQ5. I performed an extensive detail on two friends' cars as well as a thorough detail on my own. I had the opportunity to experiment with almost all the products sent to me from Jay Leno's Garage and I have to admit, they are spectacular. I am still in the process of collecting my thoughts on their performance and I will be posting my review shortly, so stay tuned for that. I helped a friend swap over to his summer wheels using my QuickJack, and I also swapped over to my Spring/Fall setup. The extra time allowed me to create videos that comprehensively demonstrate the extent I go to when maintaining my ride. Check them out if you have the time: I finished up a 8-hour detail of a friend's Kia Sorento. I am quite pleased with the results. I was a bit pressed for time, so there's no video for this one. Just a few photos. This SUV is used to transport a dog so lots of time was spent vacuuming. I have a Sonax pet hair brush that does a pretty effective job of loosening the hair, so the vacuuming went well. This SUV is not garaged, so there was a lot of tree debris on the inside and outside which took up a bit of extra time. Enjoy the slideshow. Products Used Leather | Leatherique Rejuvenator Oil Carpet | Tornador Foam Gun loaded with diluted Griot's Garage Carpet Cleaner Doors | Jay Leno's Garage Interior Detailer Dash and Console | Jay Leno's Garage Interior Detailer Wash | Jay Leno's Garage Vehicle Wash Wheels | Griot's Garage Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner Tires | Jay Leno's Garage Tire and Trim Care Plastic | Jay Leno's Garage Tire and Trim Care Glass | Jay Leno's Glass Cleaner Wipe-down | Zaino Gloss Enhancer I performed an epic detail on a friend's Volvo XC90 this week. I was able to put almost all the products I received from the team at Jay Leno's Garage. They performed remarkably well. I am still trying some of them out and I will be sure to share my impressions on the JLG line up in a few days. In the meantime, here's the video I made showing the Volvo transformation. I have three sets of winter liners for my SQ5, and none of them are able to prevent salty water from staining my black carpet. Using a variety of products and equipment, I am always able to restore the carpet but it is such a drag having salt residue on my floor for so many months of the year. How do ordinary people cope? I don't even want to know. The process involves a thorough vacuum followed by a liberal dousing of Blitz all-purpose cleaner. I let that dwell and then use my Rupes iBrid to work the APC deep into the fibres. Then, I just use a microfibre cloth to dry the area. If any salt has really hardened, I use my Mytee steamer to loosen it up.
I was tired of having my polisher arsenal stored away and out of sight, so I mounted them on the Craftsman pegboard above my workbench. I want to add one more polisher to my collection, but that will have to wait until Father's Day. I also moved my pad collection from my 56" Craftsman to two of the drawers beneath my workbench. Here's a few pics: A few weeks ago, the Director of Business Development for Jay Leno's Garage contacted me and offered to supply me with some detailing products to see what I thought of them. I am going to be detailing two SUV's next week, so these products are going to be put to the true test come Monday. I plan on doing a video of both jobs. I am really looking forward to it. In the meantime, I have to say I'm quite impressed with the packaging of these items. They look real good on my main shelf! Stay tuned for next week's Sorrento and XC90 details using these Jay Leno's Garage products. Package contents: Quick Detailer Hand Wax Vehicle Wash Tire and Trim Care Interior Detailer All-Purpose Cleaner Glass Cleaner Microfiber Super Drying Towel Plush Microfiber Towel Microfiber Wax Applicator Blue YoYo Wax Applicator 2 x Black YoYo Applicator Honestly, I don't know how any retailer can be so consistent as Auto Obsessed. I made my online order late in the day on Saturday, and the package arrived Tuesday before lunch. That's just incredible. I am giving their OBSSSSD line of microfibre towels a try. I ordered twelve and I expect big things! One thing I really appreciated about these towels right out of the box, is the tags are not sewn into the edges, rather they are easy-to-remove stickers. Slick! I also ordered some bags for my Metro Vac 'n Blo vacuum cleaner. I had totally forgotten you need to replace vacuum bags. The new bag has doubled the suction power of my awesome little vacuum. Here's a shot of what I ended up ordering. Headed over to my favourite local detailing retailer, Carzilla today. Picked these items up. I have two detailing projects lined up for next week. Both of them are family haulers. I have an order from Auto Obsessed scheduled to arrive very soon also. Now that I look at this photo, I wonder if that yellow Rupes pad is too small for my Rupes Mini. I'll have to check on that.  I now have three complete sets of floor liners for the SQ5. The latest addition is a set of 3D Maxpiders. I am loving them. They don't offer 100% protection from salty water overrun, but they, by far, look the slickest. Here's a video of me cleaning my new Maxpiders. I have added a Rupes LHR15 Mark II to my collection of polishers. This one came from Carzilla and it was a demo model. I saved a good chunk of change picking up the floor model and the owner of Carzilla assured me it had less than one hour of use on it. I picked up a few other supplies. I am looking forward to doing some paint polish and corrections on friends' cars this Spring/Summer.  The people over at QuickJack put a video together demonstrating how their lift can withstand soap and water. They included some footage from a video I shot in the early summer. Worth a look: |
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