Concours Crunch
Concours Crunch
Praise the Lord and pass the Q-Tips
IF IT’S TRUE, AS SOME STALWART ONCE SAID, that God is in the details, well I’m here to tell you that the Devil himself is in the detailing-at least when it comes to concours competitions. For this year’s 25th-anniversary Del Mar Concours d’Elegance, I foolishly decided to enter five bikes, which meant I’d be working well past midnight the week leading up to the show washing, waxing and detailing.
Now, the weapons in a detailer’s arsenal are many. A dirty bike has to be attacked with Gunk, suds and sponge, then blown dry with compressed air. Even an already-clean bike will have accumulated dust-bring in the air tank again or go to your Dust Buster mini-mop. Waxing comes next. For older paint jobs that have acquired fine surface
scratches, a carnauba paste wax works best. Less-damaged finishes respond well to liquid waxes-Eagle One's new teflon-impregnated Wet polish is my current favorite. Paste or liquid, make sure you wipe the dried wax off with a soft, well-washed cloth. Some prefer baby diapers for this task; I'm from the old T-shirt school of buffing.
For quick general touch-ups, it’s tough to beat a sprayon-wipe-off wax/cleaner like Protect All. Bonus here is that it and similar products can also be used on chrome, seats, control cables, plastic parts and footpeg rubbers. They can be used on tire sidewalls, too, though some of the dedicated tire-cleaning products do a better job. Be careful in all cases, of course, of getting too much of the slick stuff on the tread-dropping your trophy-getter as you reel off a victory lap in the parking lot is deflating to the of ego. It has happened.
If oxidized exhaust headers are a problem, uncork old standby Blueaway, or one of the new upstarts Blue Job (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) or Blue Buster.
Time to tackle the aluminum-brass fittings and copper fuel lines, too, if ya got ’em. For this, Barry Weiss, he of the sumptuous all-alloy Norton featured in our January issue’s “Rollin’ & Tumblin,” prefers Cape Cod polishing cloths. Me, I’ma Nevr-Dull man (never mind what my girlfriend says). Pull out a clump of the chemically treated wadding, massage it over fenders, polished engine cases,
etc. until everything turns an ugly brackish gray, then buff to
a chrome-like gleam with your ever-ready Jimmy Buffet commemorative “I’m Only Here For The Beer” T-shirt.
Now comes the minutia, what sets winners apart from alsorans. Break out the soft-bristled brushes, the toothpicks and the Q-Tips, it’s time to get on your hands and knees for a stem-to-stem crawlaround, hunting down any residual wax or persistent pockets of dust. Hit any remaining grease/gas/oil stains with a quick spritz of contact cleaner. Last but not least, reach into your handy cleaning kit for those little vials of automotive touch-up paint to camouflage the inevitable nicks and chips.
All in all, figure three hours per bike, easy. So did all the elbow grease pay off at Del Mar? I’m happy to report it did. My Velocette GTP took Best 1930s British; my just-restored Clymer/Tartarini/Indian/Enfield (ask me about its convoluted lineage when you’ve got an hour or so) nabbed Best
1970s American; my 1940 Indian Scout bob-job got second place in Street Specials; and my little 1960 MV Agusta 125 went home with the Best Italian of Show trophy. No complaints here.
Well, one perhaps. A downside to Del Mar’s popularity is that show-goers, some 15,000, tramp past your bike all day, raising dust that then settles like an abrasive blanket onto its every surface-meaning that the detailing process has to be repeated once you get the blasted thing back home! Oh well. Waxes to waxes, dust to dust... -David Edwards
