The car wash "workout"

By Carl Fothergill
on July 23, 2013
With 0 comments

Wash your car and get fit

 

There is a certain irony that we drive almost everywhere and then go (by car) to the gym and spend 20 minutes running on a treadmill like a hamster. But that’s just modern life isn’t it?

The activity of cleaning the car, regardless of how vigorous, will still count towards your daily cardio workout, but so far we haven’t had a boffin put into writing, how many calories. Also having a satisfying cup or glass of something at the end, while you admire your efforts, often undoes the previous workout.

 

Mens health magazine have gone one further with this article, it seems to kill two birds with one stone, but how many people will try it? Those that try it, will they stick to it?

Ok, I get the point about driving to the gym, I can also see some health and fitness benefits to making washing the car a “workout”, but really can you imagine the average home car washer doing “bucket curls” to pump their arms etc? It will be very entertaining in suburbia if they do!

Hosepipe Ban

By Carl Fothergill
on July 23, 2013
With 0 comments

Hosepipe restriction

 

If you have lived in the UK for more than twelve months, this is a phrase you will almost certainly have heard, depending on the region, you might hear it more frequently. What baffles most of us is, we have one of the wettest summers on record (2012), one of the longest, coldest, wettest winters (2012-13), one week of beautiful sunshine and boom, some parts of the country are subject to a hosepipe ban.

 

As frustrating as this is, the decisions are made by people in power and we have no direct access to them. But we do have access to, are the facts.

  1. This is a hosepipe ban, not a car (vehicle) wash ban. So you can use a watering can, buckets of water and various other ingenious devices which will carry water onto your vehicle.
  2. Restrictions and bans are normally “domestic” restrictions and using a hose for commercial purposes is acceptable. Please check with your local authority!
  3. We believe that more than ever you should use a bucket filter. If you are being responsible or are subject to a restriction, then you will almost certainly be using less water. That is great for the environment, but not so good for those little particles, often invisible that are normally washed off the vehicle surface, when using liberal amounts of water. Better to be safe than sorry.

So be responsible and check with your local authority, use the least amount of water, regardless of the hosepipe ban and check if it restricts domestic or commercial activity.

 

Check here for the latest reports

3 is the magic number

By Carl Fothergill
on July 09, 2013
With 0 comments

Like so many practices, professional valeters/detailers were the first to use bucket filters, a simple but effective way of showing them to be caring and professional, the qualities you require in a valeter or detailer. The benefits are obvious from the start, the debris, grit and grime settle at the bottom of the bucket and regardless of how careful you are there is a good possibility that you could pick up some of the debris, when “re charging” your wash mitt. Plus the added bonus of using it to agitate stubborn debris, that may have been stuck inside the mitt.

Then came the wash and rinse, two bucket, two filter system, now this really separates the professionals from the enthusiasts. One bucket with shampoo and the other with fresh water, both with bucket filters, but one purely to rinse the dirty wash mitt.

Colour coding was the next stage, the adopted system seems to be blue for wash, red for rinse, this extreme attention to detail, really helps ensure there is no cross contamination between buckets, serious attention to detail.

The ultimate “set up” that professionals and enthusiast aspire to is, the “three bucket system”, wash rinse and wheels. The “wheels” bucket is a loose term for wheels, engine bay, under arches, really dirty areas, maintaining the same colour code for wash, rinse and black for wheels. We think the most important issue is making sure a bucket filter is used, we have seen the benefits of the two and three bucket systems and understand there is definitely and advantage to colour coding. So three really is the magic number!

 

15 minutes of fame, more like 12 months!

By Carl Fothergill
on July 08, 2013
With 0 comments

Do you and your pride & joy want to get 15 minutes of fame? Well how about twelve months then?

Last year we ran a competition for our customers, send us a picture of your pride and joy, we then post on facebook and twitter, the twelve with the most likes featured on our calendar. If you would like your pride on joy featured on the 2014 Scratchshield calendar, simply send in your pictures. Although we don’t need high resolution for the facebook and twitter, when it comes to printing it will need to be the fairly high resolution. 

Should you be a winner, not only does your pride and joy get featured, but you will receive a free calendar! This competition is free to enter and is open to all!

Dedicated to detailing

By Carl Fothergill
on July 08, 2013
With 0 comments

Who would have thought that you can fill the East of England showground, Peterborough with detailers and Enthusiasts? Well if we hadn’t seen it for ourselves (twice) we wouldn’t.

Over the last few years the boom in detailing has been apparent, but now there is a show totally dedicated to it, Waxstock. Sunday July 7th 2013, was a sombre reminder to the London bombings in 2005, a day of joy for British sports fans and day of pure indulgence if you like a shiny car or enjoy detailing (also know as valeting). Waxstock for the second year, incorporates manufactures, resellers, top industry professionals and enthusiasts. Throughout the day, there was a steady flow of people and we are proud to have donated the medals for the winners of the show and shine, for the second year.

 

 

I’m sure this show will grow and grow, so if you are into detailing/valeting, we will see you next year!

Create your own topping!

By Carl Fothergill
on June 21, 2013
With 0 comments

January saw the launch of our new seat lid, the lid was designed to fit our bucket, a wide variety of buckets that are in circulation and the popular US and US style buckets.

In our short trading history we established that is regardless of size, your brand is important to you and if you are an apparitional business, often you try and portray an image of being bigger than you are. So the custom branding option with No minimum order has been a welcome option on the seat lid. Just a one off tooling cost and you can have as many or as few custom branded seat lids as you wish.

This has (accidentally) opened new markets for us!

We are exhibiting at Waxstock

By Carl Fothergill
on June 17, 2013
With 0 comments

Waxstock is the UK's dedicated Show for Valeting, Detailing and Care Care. Sunday 7th July, at Peterborough Arena, UK.

Waxstock is back. Our first year was massive and we would like to thank all the attendees, traders and event staff for pulling off the greatest detailing show ever seen in the uk, perhaps even europe, maybe even the world. 

But why stop there? We are going bigger and better in 2013 with more hall space, more features, more traders and more swirl police.

 

Venue and date is set – Sunday 7th July at Peterborough Arena – and now all you have to do is like us, get a ticket, think about entering your car into the showdown or the arrive and shine and generally spread the word...

For more details visit: www.waxstock.com

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