What's New?
2005
Danny's Blog
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Top Marks for Gary!
Congratulations to Gary for passing his 'Odour Control' course with a pass mark of 96%.
Gary found the course very useful and he and the rest of the staff will be attending more courses in the new year in order to exapand our knowledge on areas such as fires and flood damage, leather care, carpet and fabric cleaning, and 'Applied Microbial Remediation'.
Click here to view Gary's certificate.
Sunday Times
We were mentioned in the Sunday Times Car Clinic again for the second time... it made our phones ring.
A mention in a national newspaper is always good for business. Were mentioned and this site recommended in relation to paint sealants.
New Auto Detailing web site for the UK.
It seems that UK detailing enthusiasts have grown in number (and enthusiasm) enough to warrant their own web site. The very fact that there are people out there enthusiastically promoting the idea that Car Care is a 'good thing' is no bad thing for the valeting industry even though these people are never likely to become customers of ours. The very fact that they raise the profile of things like buffing paintwork and help provide a valuble resource for people looking for answers to car care problems means they are worthy of support.
So here is the link - www.detailingworld.co.uk Well done fellas, I wish the web site great success.
If you find detailing your car relaxing and get an imense sense of satisfation from making your car a work of automotive perfection, then go along to Detailing world to pick up all the tricks and tips, not to mention the low-down on the latest products.
Willy Returns! August/September
buffmeister Willy Winterfalk from Allbrite Europe visited us again for the second time this year, to spend some time with us and train us on the new AllPad buffing system.
Oh! I almost forgot! The other big piece of news is that I married Willy's Daughter Anna this August (hoorah for me), so I can now call Willy "Dad". (I believe in keeping close relationships with out suppliers... so lock up your daughters!) So with any luck, 'Dad' will visit England on a regular basis and do what he does best, which is buffing cars. While Willy was here he buffed an Audi, a Mercedes, a TVR and a Porsche - more details are in the articles.
What with me getting married, Willy's visit and a whole host of other stuff that has been going on, I am about a month behind with my work, so please petition Gary to give me a raise.
Don't Jump off the roof Dad! 11th September 2005
Five of the team from Clean Image (along with many other people) took part in a Charity Abseil on 11th September to help to raise money for
Unity Club ( PHAB Club), luckily nobody made a hole in the yard. So I have written a full report and post up the very scary pictures... (scary because I'm in them at least my back-side is!). [link]
Peach or Lemon? September 2005
While looking for information about some
lemons we have seen recently, I came across the Peach or Lemon web site - a fantastic idea for a web site and very much needed. Anyway, one thing led to another and I am now helping out by writing a few articles and answering questions on the forum. So please sign up - the more members the site gets the better the information it will contain, so please go along and contribute your opinions. Members can ask questions and get advice on the forum from a host of experts in various car related field for just £10 per year which is cheap at twice the price.
www.peachorlemon.com
Clean Image is proud to announce..
that we will be supplying a raffle prize
for East Coast Extreme.
The prize is a voucher to have four alloy wheels refurbished - worth £282. If that isn't a reason to pop along on the 30th and 31st of July, I don't know what is! Although I should mention that there will be lots of cars there, lots of lovely looking young ladies (including one wearing the Clean Image colours) and the event will be supporting a number of charities - The Bridge Project, S.A.R.S & the East Anglian Air Ambulance.
Leather Smell -  Service April 2005
For years we have had customers ask us if we can do anything to get the new leather smell back into their cars and although we had a great leather conditioner which smelled of leather, it didn't have enough smell and didn't last. But now we are proud to announce that we have found the products that are the solution.
We can now put the smell of leather back into your car and it lasts... we are still testing it so we don't know for how long, but we have had a test running for 4 months. Clean Image Sponsors Tsunami Project March 2005
We are proud to announce that we are sponsoring Glenda Wood's Tsunami relief project. Glenda decided volunteer to go out to the disaster area to help, but found that most large charities were only accepting graduates. Undaunted, Glenda started raising funds and set up her own charity project.
Please visit www.mytp.org (link removed) and see if there is anyway you can help, you can sponsor her at her web site, you can donate items needed for the trip, Donate money directly to the Thailand Charity(link removed) , or you can even go with her!
There will be a fund-raising auction on 24th March 2005 at the Kings Arms - Crouch Street, Colchester.. and by all accounts, Elvis will be in attendance!
Allpad System by Allbrite,
coming from America via Sweden March 2005 
Lennart, Willy and JJ outside Clean Image | |
At the end of February we were visited by Jitu "JJ" Jhaveri from Allbrite Car Care Products, who was kind enough to supply us with the AllPad paint buffing system. We were also Joined by Allbrite's European distributor and our old friends Lennart Nilsson and Willy Winterfalk who flew in from Sweden. Mr Winterfalk gave us a demonstration of the AllPad buffing system which he has had a major part in developing as it was designed to his specification. | | 
Willy with AllPad lambs wool mop |
The system consists of 7 different buffing pads which go through various grades. At one extreme is lambs wool pad for polishing badly damaged paintwork, at the other extreme is another special lamb's wool mop for final fine buffing. In between are 5 colour coded foam pads from coarse to fine, these have been developed to work with Allbrite's polishes. Our experience of the system so far has produced amazing results... the pads themselves are the best we have ever seen and of the finest quality and they work perfectly with the Allbrite polishes, generating enough heat to allow the polishes to work at their optimum temperature.
The system was launched in Sweden last month and covered in the motoring press. I will add more at a later date when we have completed the translations of Willy's articles on the subject.
Professional Detailing Technician’s Association January 2005 Clean Image are proud to announce that we have joined the PDTA. The association is based in New Jersey USA and has recently been set up by Jim Hammill and Brian Angelucci, who are to people who we have gained enormous respect for since first running across them a couple of years ago. We believe that an association is just what's needed in the detailing/valeting industry to help publicize the benefits of our services, and to help those in the industry share information.
We wish Jim and Brian all the best with this venture and we look forward to being able to contribute in any way we can.
www.detailersassociation.com Browser compatibility February 2005 Yet again my Microsoft Explorer browser became infected with an advertising virus. It seems that no matter what I do the occasional piece of spyware or malware manages to sneak through. As they only seem to exploit weaknesses in Explorer and not other browsers, the most logical course of action is to switch to another browser. So from now on, our computers will be running Firefox. Using this browser for the last few days has highlighted glitches in the Clean Image web site, but don't fear, I've fixed all those little glitches, cleaned up the code, switched some tags to CSS and other technical stuff which means that our web site is now fully cross browser compatible.
“Beware of spyware. If you can, use the Firefox browser.” - USA Today
Site Updates
2005 | | 
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Buffing with Allpad part 1 Nov 2005
Willy winterfalk talks us through a paint buff on a Porsche - this walkthrough is part one of the article, in part two, Willy will share his many years of experience of auto buffing and paintwork correction, for those readers who are interested in how it is done. There will be tips on how to use a buffing machine, knowing where to start, when to stop, which buffing pads to use etc.
Good Morning Japan Sept 2005
Paul, who works in Japan saw our porsche article and sent his Dad down to check us out. So after we valeted and buffed Paul's Dad's Mercedes, we put the photos into an article so that he could see them in Japan the next morning. so the article is in the form of a letter to Paul telling him whats-what. The Buffing was done by Willy winterfalk and so is a top class job.
Concrete splatter fallout removal + Paint Restoration & PDR Sept 2005
An Audi with concrete fallout - it also needed a buff, so we gave it to Willy to work on.
It also needed Paintless dent removal, click the link to see the transformation.
TVR Swirl Marks July 2005
Another car buffed and detailed by Willy winterfalk using the AllPad buffing system - serious stuff!
The Green Bonnet
July 2005
It's a story of four guys and a car bonnet rescued from a breaker's yard. It was in a state, we made it worse, and then we made half of it better.
Mark gets to work first with a scrubbing brush and some mud - then with a buffing machine and some polish. The end result was a sample piece which will astonish and astound you.
Company Showcase June 2005
We often refer people to various companies that that do sterling work in related fields. I am slowly building a directory called The Detailing Review which will list companies that we recommend or that are recommended to us, and this will appear and grow over time. We have many useful numbers in our address book, and many useful links in our favourites - we are willing to share, so I will paste these in as-and-when I am asked.
In the mean time I will be trying to tackle confusion about what we can and cannot do by adding more information to the site about services such as Upholstery Repair. There are limits to what we can do - at which point we need to refer our customers to specialist companies like Anglia Trimmers, Trimcare, and Ace Performance cars. If I am to show you what we cannot do, it only makes sense to offer alternative solutions and the companies that provide them. For this reason I have added a Company Showcase section to the bottom of our articles page.
Company Showcase: Trimcare - Cigarette Burn Repair
To begin what I hope will be a rather large section of the site, have begun by giving an example of work by Trimcare who are a vehicle trim repair specialist, we show you how they deal with a cigarette burn repair.
Article: Removing light scratches 26/05/05
Just to show you the kind of thing that is possible, what damage can be removed and how easily, we knocked up this short article as we had the photos anyway. Light scratches and even scuffs can be removed without the need for a respray, or even a complete body buff (So don't panic and pull your hair out just yet).
In our effort to bring to light the possibilities of paintwork correction, this article almost completes the whole set! (See also Paintwork Restoration) But stay tuned for our Porsche article, which we 'give it the works'.
Article: Cigarette Burn Hole Repair 25/05/05
"Is it an invisible repair", we get asked this question a lot so I thought it high time we show you exactly how we deal with burns and why we use the methods that we do. Updated Connollising pages
Connollising has become one of our most popular services and we get asked a lot of questions about how it works, so we have created a page called How we deal with worn and cracked leather. We have also updated our connollising gallery by adding a second page. Alloy Wheel Refurbishment FAQ 20/05/05
Commonly asked questions about our alloy wheel repair service answered, covers split-rims, Magnesium wheels, broken, cracked and dented wheels, colour matching and much more... Article: Stone Chip & Scratch Repair Advice 29/04/05
Due to popular demand, I have answered some of the most commonly asked questions - how to go about taking care of stone chips.
Valeting tips - trade secrets 7/03/05
Over the course of 18 or more years, we have picked up many little tips and tricks which may be use to car enthusiasts. We are going to put a different tip on our front page every week, and over time we should build up a nice little archive of these items. Site Updates Page 20/01/05
To help you to keep track of what's going on, our first job of 2005 was to add this site updates and news page. We have so much planned for 2005, that it will probably take until 2007 to get it all done.. so stay tuned! Job Vacancies Page 20/01/05
We can already tell that this year will be busy so we are looking for new staff. Special Offers Page 02/05
During 2005 we are planning to bring you special offers and deals on many of our valeting services and products. And as we need a place to announce these offers, we have made a special offers page. Keep on checking because as you read this, we are working lots of good stuff
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