The Secrets of Metal Polishing with Mark Farrell of Briliant Polish

If you're into auto detailing, you'll love this episode of the Australian Detailing Professionals Podcast, where host Alex Schrader chats with Mark Farrell from Brilliant Polish. It's not just a talk about metal polish; it's a deep dive into the world of maintaining and restoring the shine on your vehicle's 'metal bits'.

Mark shares his personal journey, which led him from being a customer to owning the company that makes his favourite metal polish. The discussion covers everything from the basics of metal polishing to more advanced topics like the impact of ceramic coatings.

What sets this episode apart is Mark's detailed explanation of different metal polishes, their applications, and the unique qualities of Briliant Polish. It's a must-listen for car enthusiasts and professionals alike, providing insights that could transform the way you care for your vehicle's metal components.

Get ready to be educated and entertained in this informative episode. You won't look at metal polishing the same way again!

For a comprehensive list of reputable detailing professionals to keep your car in top condition, visit: AusDetailingPros.com.au.

Transcript

 Welcome to the Australian Detailing Professionals Podcast.  The premiere destination for expert advice from Australia's leading detailers and aftermarket professionals.  Talking auto to marine, and everything in between.  Here's your host, Alex Schrader. 

Hi everybody, Alex here from Australian Detailing Professionals, and today I'm sitting with Mark Farrell, the owner of Brilliant Polish. So we're talking metals and metal polishing mainly in this episode, but who knows where we'll segue, right? Basically I'd love to hear Mark's story and then I'd also like Mark to give us a crash course in identifying the most common metals on our vehicles and how to keep them looking their best through polishing and other means and tips and tricks.

Hey Mark, how you going? Thanks for being with me. Have Oh, absolute pleasure to be with you, Alex. I'm doing good, mate.  Awesome. A bit of background here. We spoke, funnily enough, nearly a year ago, and we had a conversation I thoroughly enjoyed, and we've just had one prior to this that straight away we're just jumping into the deep end on everything, which is pretty cool.

And it's a topic I don't really have much expertise in, so it's fascinating to hear you.  There was some really interesting comments you made that, even just one just came to mind then, Mark, that I didn't mention prior to this, was The pros and cons of ceramic coating metal, which you touched on, but we can leave that for further on in the one, that's the one that I said will upset some people.

Ah, good. Okay. Excellent. Let's get controversial. Love it. Excellent. So I we'll start off, I think if we start off with a bit about you and how you got started in this industry, your relationship with Brilliant Polishes, and then we can talk about your range of polishes and products after that.

Okay. I'll try and keep this pretty short because it's a really, really long story. Basically I've always had, you know, nice machines and like to keep them pretty nice. Anyway, back in 2011, I imported a Harley Davidson from the U. S. And this thing was next level the metal work and everything on it.

And everything I had in the cupboard. Nothing was doing it for me, basically. Anyway I happen to be in Bendigo, which is where I now live. And there was a heap of really, really nice Harleys lined up on the street and they were basically show bikes. And I was mumbling under my breath about, you know, metal polish and Can't get a decent one, et cetera, et cetera.

And a guy said to me, he said if you want a good metal polish, you got to get it from England. And I looked at him and I went, what do you mean? He goes, oh, a brand called Brilliant Polish. He goes, fine, you Google it, you'll find it. He goes, it's worth it. Anyway, I went home.  Jumped on the internet, found it, ordered a couple of bottles, turned up a couple of weeks later.

I went, oh, well what the hell, we'll try this stuff, see what it does. And just using it, I just went, wow, this stuff is, is truly different. Anyway. A week later, I was looking at my bike and it still was mint. Two weeks later, it's still mint, and I was riding it three weeks, four weeks, a month, two months later.

And I'm like, wow, I've never seen anything like this. So I, I contacted the company. I said, you know, are you looking for a distributor? And they went, yeah, tell us about your company. I said, I don't have one. So anyway we got talking and 12 months later we started importing the product from the UK. It was going well, but just sort of as a hobby business.

And then in 2016, we bought the company outright.  Again, there's a lot of stuff that went on in between, but yeah, we bought the company outright and moved the equipment from the UK to Bendigo and it's been basically growing ever since. So, okay. And what were you doing prior to distributing this product?

I've always just been in sales. I, I'm, I, I have basically an engineering background but always been in the sales side of things. Sold everything from lighting systems to industrial coating where you get the best, do the best before batching on, on milk bottles and things. So yeah. Right, right.

Nothing, nothing to do professionally with polishing or anything. Okay. But yeah, when I went to the States, oh, not the states, when I went to the uk  I, I spent a heap of time over there. With the guy who owned the business and man, my knowledge on, on polishing and products and everything just went through the roof.

So,  and then, and it's been a continual learning curve ever since I got back. Yeah. And learning, well, I did a lot of work in manufacturing in production lines, so setting it up to do it here wasn't an issue. The issue is, is basically getting people to know about it.  Yeah, sure. As a guy said to me once, he said, you're going to have a wheelbarrow full of 100 notes that you're selling for 20 each.

If nobody knows you got them, it's not a good thing.  So, unfortunately, we've got one of the world's best kept secrets. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, it must have been a pretty amazing product for you to go and put so much skin in the game like that off the bat. Well, we basically, my wife and I and Yeah.

I feel sorry for her because, you know, we, we, we, we are still continuing to, to get back where we were, but , we basically sold everything we owned. Yeah. Okay. Wow. And I, I know, I mean, everything we own. Yes. Right, right. Yeah. What a commitment. Amazing story. But, but the product there is, there is nothing else like it out there.

It really isn't. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And it obviously resonates that it's now in the hands of Australians, which is wonderful. It's Aussie and it's never going to change. We've been, we've been approached by some, let's just call it overseas companies to manufacture it for us. And that will never happen.

So it's all coming out of Bendigo, is that right? It's all coming out of Bendigo. We make it from scratch. Okay. So, yeah, most of the raw materials we buy in Australia locally. Okay. There's some of the specialty products that go into it, like in the metal polishes, the actual abrasives, the abrasives that go in our polishes aren't used by any other polish company in the world.

Right. And, and they actually come out of Europe.  Okay, fascinating. So, yeah. Yeah, great. But yeah.  Okay. So from here, let's talk about the range and you kindly sent me some time ago a few of these to try. As I just mentioned to you, I haven't, I'll start with what's still in the bag. I have a lot of things to test.

Good to see it's been used. Yeah, exactly.  Importantly, I tested the actual polishes. These are a little bit I just, you'll have to forgive me, Mark. I do have quite a lot of things that I tumble with. Look, I'm getting there. It's all good. I can see what you've got. Yes, a lot of these things go a long way, you know.

You buy them and then you go, shit. So, yeah, I've got the UltraShine Quick Detailer. I'll hold that up there. Okay, so, our specialty, I'll jump back a little bit. Our specialties are metal polishes. Yes. But that said We truly do the most insane quick detailer and for those, I guess, the people that don't know what a quick detailer is, and there's plenty out there, we, we, we do a lot of trade shows and things like that, and we still get asked, what is a quick detailer?

So, a quick detailer is that product where your car's pretty clean and you might take it to a show, or you might have just driven it for a day or so, and it's got a bit of dust and grime on it. You want it clean. You don't want to have to wash it again, quick detailer  so it's just, it's just a light spray and wipe off with a super soft cloth.

Yes. And, and the difference I'm guessing here is there's some endurance and protection in yours. Is that right? So there is, there is some protection in it. The biggest thing that's, and it's got some, so it's a micro polish and shine in it. But the most important thing about it, the lubricants in it. So, I literally had a guy a few years ago had gravel, and I mean gravel, over the side skirts of a hot rod.

And he just swept the gravel off with a broom and then sprayed, and this, this paint job would be it's probably 150 grand paint job on this car. Pretty impressive car. And he just grabs out the quick detailer, gives it a spray, wipes it. Back to mint, not a scratch. So, it's crazy stuff.  Excuse me, so obviously a very handy product  to keep around the car if you've got bird poop and things on it.

It helps you remove all that. Absolutely. And it's what all the show guys all the elite show cars, all the hot rod guys you know, even just the weekend as they take their car to a local car show. Get there, spray it down, wipe it down, any hard surface. So, glass, metal, paint, yeah. Just not on soft fabrics or suede.

That's, that's, that's basically it. And that's not just ours, it's pretty much Yeah, so rubbers are fine. But just not, like I said, materials and, and suedes and things. Yeah, fantastic. Excellent. The other product you had was our paint polish. So  Like I said, we're renowned for our metal polishes.

Yes, exactly. So we do one and one only. Paint Polish. It's a super high grade canoba wax. Most people don't even know what canoba wax is. Canoba wax is the hardest natural wax on the planet. It comes off the leaf of a a canoba tree in Guatemala and Brazil. They scrape it off the leaf, it gets processed, but it's a super hard wax.

Now, because it's a natural product, it won't last as long in a shine as some of the synthetics.  But it actually, in my opinion, actually gives you a better shine.  So it's one of those products you need to do on your car three or four times a year. Whereas some of the synthetic waxes you can literally do once a year.

There's an argument that wax can give a bit of a warmer gloss, so to speak, or color to the paint. I love it. And the thing about ours, it's actually, it's unique in the fact that it's so easy to put on.  I get people going, Oh, I don't want to wax my car. Seriously, with our product, with that stuff, if you can't wax a car  in 15 minutes.

You're not trying, it doesn't set hard, it, it, it will, you, you use a small amount, it just goes back to a light haze, couple of minutes, give it a buff off, you can do your whole car and then buff it off, you don't have to wait and do one panel at a time most others, if you, if you leave it too long, you will never get the stuff off, the stuff, you can actually go and polish 20 cars and then come back and buff them off.

So who's your primary target market for this, this product? Basically the enthusiast. Yep. So most, and I, I I'm brutally honest about things. We have, there's a couple of very high elite show cars guys that use it. But a lot of the elite guys prefer to use, I don't know, I guess the, the expensive polishes cause it's not expensive.

It's, it's, I think it retails for 40, 45 bucks a bottle and it's a 500 mil bottle. It's a big bottle.  Yeah, there's enough in there to do 15, 16 cars. So it's, it's not expensive but so easy to use. And one of the most important things about it does not leave white residue on black rubber or trim. Hmm.

Okay. So if you've ever done any polishing and you've touched a bit of black trim with your polish and  you get that white residue on there and some of it will not come off. Yes. It doesn't do that, but it's so easy to use that it's, it's, it's suitable. So all our products, I say to people, it's designed for amateurs, but they're all used by professionals. 

Okay. And that goes for pretty much every product we make.  Fantastic. I've got two more products in front of me and I know there's more, but basically I have your aluminium and stainless steel.  Polish. Okay. Yep. And I also have the chrome and nickel polish. Yep. And I remember boring you with trying to get my head around.

Again, I have no real experience with this. There's cut numbers on the side. So the aluminum and stainless steel, we've got cut eight and the chrome and nickel polish, we've got cut six. And I was trying to do your head in with, can you give me You know, sort of sanding numbers, equivalents, and how harsh is this stuff, and I want to use it on some glass, and yeah.

And it doesn't, unfortunately, it doesn't really work like that. It's, and it only relates to our products. So the most coarse product we do, the higher the number, the more coarse it is, the more cut it has. The lower the number, the finer it is. So if you're, if you're working on a metal.  Aluminium, stainless, brass, that's been really, really neglected.

You can start with our 12. Now I'm happy to mention other products. There's a product on the market that I'll occasionally refer people to. If you've got something that's very, very neglected because it is really coarse. You can actually feel the abrasiveness in their product. And that's good.

I'd order. So being around, I don't know, a hundred years  look, it, it, it will bring a lot of products back that have been terribly neglected. Unfortunately, the problem with it, unlike, and this is where our product becomes so unique is every metal polish on the market, they all, they will say they have a sealant in them and they, that they'll, you know, give a great shine and they'll, they'll seal it.

And none of them work.  Absolutely. None of them work. The only one that works and I'm, you know, okay, yes, I'm pushing my own wheelbarrow a little bit. It's free and polished. And that, and that's why people like the stuff because they do the work and it holds a shine. And that's what blew me away. That's why I bought the company.

Because it's different.  That is. So, yeah. So, which one did you start out with at Blew Your Way? What was the Okay, so, so the two that I actually bought from the UK, we've changed the labels a little bit and everything, was exactly the two you held up, which was  the aluminium and stainless and it used to be the chrome and nickel used to be called chrome slash hot environment because it's actually suitable, it'll never stain or mark on Any metals that get hot, like chrome exhaust pipes if you want to use it on aluminum rocker covers, if you leave any on there, we get a lot of people come to us, especially hot rods, and I don't know why hot rods, but we get a lot of hot rodders come to us and they say, Oh, I've got watermarks  on my aluminum rocker covers.

Yes. And I, my first question is.  Do you ever wash it? And nine times out of ten hot rodders, they don't wash their engine. You know, most people, you know, they wash the hot rod, but they don't lift the bonnet and wash the engine. So my thing is, is, well, how did it get water on it? It's not. It's actually, it's actually polished residue in most cases it's been left on there,  and it burns in and it leaves like water marks.

Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen with anyone's polish. If you buff it hard enough to clean it up, but the beauty of our polishes is you don't have to buff hard to clean them up. It's just a wipe down. But yeah, so the chrome one is actually probably the only metal polish in the world.

That's actually designed for really, really hot metals, but it got really complicated and trying to explain it to people  because they'd say this hot environment. And I get people going, Oh, my chrome bumper sits in the sun and gets hot. So that's the thing. Yeah, you need it because it's a chrome polish, but not because your chrome bumper gets hot in the sun. 

It was more engine temperature. Thanks. So we changed the name. It's, it's finer than the aluminium polish being a six for chrome and nickel, ie plated finishes. Okay. Okay. So, so the, the thing about plated finishes.  They're micron thick and I get people going. Oh, I've got chrome. I've got scratches in it.

How do I fix it? You can't unfortunately with chrome the best chrome will ever be is when it comes out of the factory Everything you basically do to it afterwards  could  Or might damage it.  So that's why you've actually, and Chrome's not cheap to get done. That's why you've got to be really careful what you put on it.

So, and going back to again, and okay, I'm happy to, like I said, talk about other products, products like AutoSol.  AutoSol should never go near Chromeware. It is too coarse. Like I said, it's a good product for bringing things back, but it will actually put micro scratches into your Chrome.  Fascinating stuff.

Yeah. So I guess this this goes to my question. What advice would you give about selecting the right polish for your needs? So I guess talk a little bit about your average car and what components your products are suited to, so to speak. Okay. So the average car, well, modern cars. Modern car, yes.

Modern car basically has no chrome. Yes. Okay. If they have what looks to be Chrome, it's not.  So if you use a metal polish on it, you're  going to regret it. And to identify that, Mark, what should you do? Ah, look, basically,  it's pretty much, if you give it even a flick with your finger, you can tell it's plastic.

Okay. So it's vaporized. It's a chrome finish over plastic and if you put a metal metal polish on it, ours or anyone else's, you'll actually damage it. So all those chrome finishes and chrome trims on all new and modern super modern cars there's very few out there that are actually chrome. So it's a, it's a wipe down with a cleaner or a quick detailer or something like that, or just, just wash it.

A lot of them have clear anyway over them now as well, right? Exactly, exactly. So, in, in the modern cars, it's more for your aluminium where people will get rid of their wheels that come with it and they want to go custom wheels. Because most of your aluminium wheels that come with a modern car, They're actually not polished.

They'll be usually painted or powder coated, and then they'll have even a clear over that. So they're not polishable. It's when you actually get rid of those and you go and put a set of Simmons on or, you know,  you put a set of billets on now you're back to aluminium wheels or billet wheels, billet and aluminium, same thing.

And that's where you're doing your polishing.  So, okay. And so, so the biggest product we actually sell is. The aluminium and stainless polish. What about those big metal ball bars? Okay. So again they're either painted or they're aluminium and if they're, oh, stainless, there's a few stainless, not many, most of them are steel or aluminium.

Steel ones are always painted. Your aluminium ones can be painted, but are usually just aluminium, raw aluminium. And again, our polish on it is just nuts. And a, and a tip for anyone polishing a ball bar. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll jump back to our polish just for a second. So it's. It's  liquid. It actually has a ball inside it to mix it when you when you shake it and if you actually tip some out  They're all different colors.

The aluminium one is actually a green liquid  So  You need you if you're polishing a wheel or etc You only need a couple of drops a little bit goes it goes a long way So you give it a good shake put a couple of drops so getting back to your ball bars If someone's got like tubular tubular ball bar The best thing you can do is not your wife's best towels, but go and get a nice soft towel.

You know, 5 one from, you know Target or Kmart or something. Cut it into strips only, you know, inch and a half,  50 mil, two inches wide sort of thing.  The bit that, where you're going to be polishing with, put a few drops of the polish on it, wrap it around your bull bar, and then it's just, I don't know whether I'm making any sense, the cloth goes around your bull bar and then it's just.

Backwards and forwards, you work over your ball bar. It's just so much quicker and easier. Follow the contour of the bar, basically, and all sort of back around for people that are listening and trying to visualise this. Yeah, if that makes sense. And on all your flat areas, if you're, so The thing I get from everyone is, oh, metal polishing, I hate it, it's too hard.

Okay? If you neglect your metal and let it, leave it for a long period of time, yeah, it's a lot of work to bring it back. But if you keep on it, it's actually not that hard. But even if you do neglect it, The beard of our polishes. You can use 'em all on mechanical buffs. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. So you can put, it doesn't matter if it's lambs wool foam calico, our polishes work well on all of them, and you can't burn our polish.

So it doesn't matter whether you are got a big, you know, six inch lambs wool buff and you are running it over your aluminum, your bull bar, or you know, the center of your wheels or something, and it's turning at a couple hundred revs, it's fine. Or you put some wheels So. I don't know whether you can see these.

I'll take, I'll take them out of the pack. I can. Can, can you explain what they are to people listening? Yep, that's, I'll take them out. So what we also sell are these, can you see those are right Alex? Yep, I can, yes. So they're, they're micro buffs in different Shapes and sizes, so they're actually a felt pad, and because our polish is a liquid, you can put one or two drops, and that's all you put on it, and you can whack them either in a drill, or a Dremel, or a die grinder and for hard to get into areas, rather than trying to get your fingers in, and  you know, that hard work that kills people, and makes people hate polishing yeah, you use these, and it's just, they just run over it, and then all it is, our cleanup is a simple wipe off.

We don't have any of that white residue that you're left with with everyone else that, like, my Harley, for example, there's Alan Key heads and things like that on it.  I used to have to, when I finished polishing it, I used to have to get cotton buds and you know, you'd be getting little screwdrivers with cloths wrapped around to try and clean all the excess gunk out.

With Brilliant Polish, there is none of that.  So it actually halves your polishing time. Fantastic. And it's, that's everything we do is about making life easier.  That is excellent. So the short answer is this aluminium stainless steel polish is the go to. That's the go to. That's, that's, that's our biggest selling product.

Yep. Okay. And it, and it actually, like I said, I don't want it to be, it's more about what we, what it does than, than anything. But  yeah, it's in  two different, there's a I've got a random one for you. What about jewellery?  Okay. Jewellery. I don't know whether you can  Ah, yes. Right. So we're looking at an orange bottle called Silver and gold polish.

So,  on that scale that you mentioned a while back you said there's a scale, so, it's, like I said, it's only applicable to brilliant polish. So, it starts at 12, goes down to 1. So,  We do a restorer, which has got a lot of cut. We're actually reformulating that there'll be a new one out, even better just holding at the bottom for people that, so they can see their, so that's the crime with, with a six on it?

Yep. Yeah. So there's a restorer that's a 12. The aluminum is an eight. We do a brass and copper. That's an eight. Now. The brass and copper and the aluminum polish actually both have the same abrasives in them. That's why they're both an eight. But what they have that's different, and this is where we differentiate ourselves from everyone else, they actually have different sealants because aluminium oxidizes differently to brass and copper. 

So we specialize in metal polishes because not all metal. So it scares me a bit. Some companies, they'll have a, they'll have a bottle and they'll go, yeah, this bottle does everything. It'll do. You know, you're superfine gold right through to stainless steel and as, as I say to people, do you really want to be polishing a family heirloom, like maybe a silver goblet or something that might've been passed down 10 generations?

With the same polish you go and polish, you know, stainless steel truck exhaust or something.  Metals aren't all metal. So that's why.  Sorry, this sounds like a good time to jump into a couple of products that I mentioned beforehand that it may be controversial and then you're going to drop a bomb after that on another,  another popular method for protecting metal.

But I want to touch on this one because I was actually quite a fan of these products and what I'm about to hold up a, a bottle of can we see these? Again, no sponsorship, plugging or cash has changed hands here. So we've got I'll just explain my little story here. So I've got a bottle of green fluid, which is a first part system called aluminium deoxidiser, which is step one.

And then I have what's called the original purple metal polish and the idea is that you, you rub this on and it does the heavy work of deoxidizing, basically. And then you come along and you polish purple and the context of my use with this, this product and where I was quite happy with it was,  I had a camper trailer and the front of that camper trailer had a secondhand camper trailer which I restored and it had a checker plate all over the front of it and, you know If you try and use a polisher on checker plate, it can be pretty, pretty consuming of pads and  arms and finishing all this kind of stuff.

So I was kind of happy that I could just Yeah, okay, cool, cool. All right. So I was really thrilled that I could just rub this stuff on and it did that heavy lifting for me. And then I used that purple metal polish and I think it's going back quite a while now, but I think I might have even put some sort of sealant over the top of it, which would have been pretty typical of my, my process.

But That made life really easy for me on checker plate, that's the bottom line, but behind the scenes, you just told me to throw this one, the green one in the bin and you can go now Mark and explain to me why. I'll give you, I'll give you a story on that green one. Okay.  So we do a trade stand at Summer Nats every year.

The crazy car festival Canberra, most people know of Summer Nats. So a couple of years ago, there was a young guy and he was probably 18, 19, had a stunning. Pretty sure it was a Falcon from memory. Anyway, he had made the top 60  show cars, which is a pretty incredible feat. Right? In pre judging.

Anyway, his dad decided he was going to help him do a full detail on this car prior to it going on display for the final judging. So he grabbed the deoxidizer and he went over this guy's, this young kid's billet wheels. Okay?  It destroyed the wheels.  So what deoxidizer does, it takes the oxide off aluminium.

Okay? The oxide that comes off aluminium is what you're trying to polish off.  By using a chemical to strip it,  right, you're actually doing it really harshly. Now, if you're talking truck wheels or something like that, where, you know, you only want them to look good from 20 feet away, fine, not a bad product, okay?

But if you're talking something that is going to be inspected up close, i. e. a show car or something like that, or your pride and joy, it can actually stain. The aluminium. And that's what happened in this case. Okay.  And so he did the  oxidiser on it and then ripped out the purple and tried to polish and this guy spent hours and I mean hours trying to get these wheels back right.

And it wasn't, it wasn't fixing them. Anyway long story short, they came and saw us. They knew that we were there and said, what do you suggest? I went and had a look at it. And.  It took, it took probably half an hour a wheel, but with our aluminium polish, we managed to actually get the stains out. But,  so a deoxidiser, yeah, if it's a dirty, grotty,  like I said,  and not even a, you know, most trucks on the road, you shouldn't even use it on because they're too good for that.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not a nice product.  Yes, it has, it has some applications, but in typical detailing and things like that, even on checker plate. So checker plate, you just get a foam pad on a random orbital, put 10 drops of our polish on it, go to town, wipe it off, you're done. Yeah, okay, fantastic.

I just noticed a claim on here that it removes rust from chrome.  Okay, so any polish, and I don't care whose it is, will remove rust from chrome. The problem with that, right, so I'll do a step back and I'll give you a little explanation on chrome. Right? Chrome is porous. Most people go, Chrome is solid. It's a hard surface.

No, it's a soft surface. It's porous. And if you don't keep it sealed and keep those pores sealed, what happens? And everyone's seen it. You get those tiny little pin dots appear on your Chrome. Eventually, those pin dots, they'll get moisture in them.  And they'll start to actually rust,  and then, then, or corrode, and then they'll get bigger and bigger, and all of a sudden everything blisters and falls apart.

Okay? Pardon me. So, the rust you often see will be either from under the chrome, or typically the steel that's underneath. Right? So getting rid of that rust, all you're doing Like I said, any polish should get rid of that rust, right? All you're doing is masking and polishing the holes that are in your chrome to make them look better.

You're not fixing your chrome all you're doing is masking it to make it look better. The best thing you can do for  chrome is twice a year.  Get some polish, some metal polish.  Couple of drops on a cloth, and if it's good chrome, it's not hard work. It's a couple of drops on a super soft cloth. And I mean, like, the softest microfiber you can get, right?

Couple of drops on it, and it's a wipe. No, no, no pressure. It's a gentle wipe over. All your chrome work, buff it off. If you do that twice a year, your chrome will last forever.  What do you think, on, on, on rust, what do you think of the method of using a little bit of alfoil and water to rub? To remove that rust.

Bad news.  It'll take it off. But it's not going to fix anything. Yes. I went to a car club a while back. I do a lot of guest speaking at car clubs and motorcycle clubs and things like that. And there was a guy stood up and he goes, Oh yeah, I keep all my chrome maintained with Coca Cola and aluminium foil.

Well,  the aluminium foil is just going to eventually scratch. The hell out of the chrome and the coke. Yes. It'll clean it up because you're washing it with acid.  I don't know whether you've ever thrown a, you know, the old two cent coin in a glass of coke and leave it. It's a coke's acid. Okay. Like all soft drinks, basically.

So what it's doing, it's, it's, yes, it's stripping everything out, but all those micropores that I was talking about, your coke's actually making them all bigger.  Interesting. So yes, you're washing them out and it'll look great for a, for a, you know, a week or a month, but as it starts falling apart and the, and the, and, and, and everything, those pores just get bigger and bigger because you're not sealing anything.

So even if you start to get those pinpricks in your chrome, if you can seal it, you'll slow that down dramatically. But things like Coca Cola and aluminium foil are not going to do it for you. All you can do is do more damage. Look good. Very, very short term, but long term. Nah, not gonna do it for ya. Yeah.

Okay. Interesting. So we entered this part of the this, this, this conversation with perhaps a little bit of a bombshell you want to share with people regarding some wizardry called ceramic coding.  Okay. So.  A lot of people, when we talk about metal polishing and everything, they think I'm against ceramic coating.

Not at all. If, if, if you want to ceramic coat your vehicle, whether it be a motorcycle, car, truck, whatever knock yourself out. Okay. Me, as long as you put a good wax on it a few times a year. That does what you need. I understand what ceramic does. It's it's a super hard coating. And it's to protect it and make it easier to clean and all those sort of things.

Can I jump in really quickly for people that aren't perhaps familiar with it or have bought through a dealership and haven't really had it last long anyway, but really the key advantage. Beyond wax and then the evolution into sealants, polymer sealants, and then into ceramic coatings, perhaps longevity would be the key thing.

So it's people who don't, don't really want to spend their time on a regular basis maintaining things. Yep. Yep. So I'm, I'm actually not against ceramic coating. Some of them,  there's some really good ones out there and there's some really poor ones. And I don't get involved in which one's which and all, and all that sort of thing.

At all, but yeah, but for me we still sell a lot of that to people that have ceramic coated their cars because ceramic coat still needs to be maintained. You can't, the ceramic coat isn't the be all and end all. What was that product, Mark? Sorry, I couldn't quite see. That's, that's, that's our high gloss premium polish and wax.

Yeah, right. Okay, so you use that over ceramic coatings. Absolutely. We sell a lot of it for that. It just, it just adds a little bit more shine and, and yeah. Like I said, ceramic coat still needs protecting. So, like I said, I'm not against it.  In general, where I am against it is metal polishing.  Polished metal should never have a permanent seal over it of.

any description.  Number one, it needs to breathe. Okay. The other thing is if you ceramic, let's say you've got an awesome set of billet wheels, it's a show car, you've polished them up insanely, and you ceramic coat them. Great. They look great. And they'll probably look great for a long time. But if you actually have a drive that car and a stone or something like that hits that ceramic and does actually chip it, all of a sudden you've now got a A weak spot in your ceramic coat where oxygen is going to get to your metal.

All of a sudden you're going to start to get black marks under your ceramic coat that you can't fix  and you'll have to chemically strip your wheel or hard sand it back.  So that's interesting. A lot of people think about that. A lot of professional metal polishers and I know some of the most professional metal polishers in the world will recommend you don't ceramic coat. 

Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty that do. I know a couple of really, really, really high end detailers that do. It works for them. That's fine, but it's, it's definitely not recommended. Okay. That's, that's great. Excellent. I'm just going to ask you something on that note. You were mentioning that's right.

The use of, I'm intrigued a little bit by the use of this high gloss premium polish and wax over the coating. A bit of an Achilles heel with ceramic coatings tends to be water spotting. And have you noticed any difference in water spotting, or water spotting, I should say behavior?  Water spotting, when this product is applied over ceramic coatings, does it reduce water spotting from Well, it will because it's a wax and the wax will repel water. 

Right. So, yeah, yeah. So, all, all we've had is great results. I've never had anybody come back and go, yeah, nah, don't want to do it.  Right. So interesting. Yeah. Yeah.  Most ceramic coats, you, you, the good ones, you probably don't need to, but there's some people that use, well, I know some guys that have got some show cars and I'm talking very high end show cars, there's ceramic coated and they still.

Run a wax over the top. Hmm. Are there any metals or finishes that shouldn't be polished with your products on that note? Not really. When I say not really, because we do that big range of metal polishes, like I said before, you don't want to, if you picked up like auto sole and I'm not trying to, you know, can auto sole at all, like I said, there's some places for it.

But auto sole, for example, should never be used on jewelry. You know, silver and gold, you know our silver and gold one. Did I pick the right one up? No, I didn't even pick the right one up. I'm losing the plot. The silver and gold one, that's a rating of one. That will not remove a grain of gold off pure. 

Gold. I actually, funny story, I actually had a customer come up to me a little while ago and he's in the car game So there's a chance he'll see this and he said to me he goes, I love your silver and gold polish I'm like, yeah, okay. Okay, he goes there's nothing better than opening up my safe and seeing all the gold bars in there shiny And I said and I said I can relate to that.

I said I open up my safe and I see nothing  That's it exactly  Hey, I know that feeling well too.  But yeah, I'm like, wow, how cool is that? He actually has all these gold bars that he actually polishes. They're all investment gold bars, any safe that he polishes with that, so. But we've actually, we've actually now got in the very elite hand of show cars around the world, so. 

Pretty much everyone in the world uses those, okay, but we've now got, so we do one called Ultimate. So Ultimate was designed, like I said, this was a UK company originally. This was designed for Rolls Royce. Rolls Royce, I believe, through our distributor in the UK, still buy a couple of bottles a year. So it's designed for the old Rolls Royce radiator shrouds that were made out of German silver.

Sorry, what was that product there, Mark? Which one were you holding? Silk. That's the purple one. I see. Yep. Yeah. So it's called ultimate.  All right. So it's, it's a, it's a four, I think four.  Three, three. So it's very, very, very fine. So German silver is a very, very soft metal. So the old Rolls Royce radiator shrouds if you tried most metal polishes on them and I mean most and I don't care whether it's the biggest names in the world, you will scratch them.

So that was designed for that, but we've got a lot of show guys now with really, really high end cars than. Use that now as, as the final polish on all their metal work. So I'm talking, you know, blowers and, you know, all polished engine bays and things like that. But then we've actually had a few lately that have actually gone to the silver and gold.

Like I said, it's a one. So there's some guys from South Australia. They've goldy color coupe and they use that one. They won. They won everything last year.  Motorex, Summonats. What was the car?  It's just called 35 coupe. Okay. It's 35. Oh man, I'm doing my head in today. It's, it's a, it's a Chevrolet Ford.

I don't know. They'll kill me. They'll, they'll ring me and kill me. You're in trouble now, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's, that's the level that some of these show guys are going to now. Like they spent, and this is where it gets to be crazy, they spent, I think it was eight hours a wheel.

Mm.  You know? Now the average bunny, I remember mentioning that in our first conversation. The, the average person out there does not have eight hours to spend polishing one wheel. Yes. But that's, that's, that's, that's the craziness that people are going to, and their motivation for going to that product is, is with that, that level of abrasive is just the, as much gloss as they possibly can pull out.

Oh, the shine, it's, it's shinier than Chrome.  The finish was, people are going, they're chrome wheels. No, they were polished aluminium wheels, you know, it was, it's just nuts. So yeah. But another, another big tip for people, if, if I can interrupt with our metal polishes, because they're a liquid and you don't use much of it, if you get people going, Oh, I've got aluminium and it's got a scratch in it and whatever, I don't know how to get it out.

Right. And you mentioned. Just sand it out, and people just get really, really scared.  Sanding aluminium isn't an issue, right? People shouldn't be scared to do it, okay? If you're doing it with a mechanical sander, yeah, be really, really careful. But if you're doing it with hand, wet and dry you know, if you've got a bit of a gouge in the side of your alloy wheel or whatever, you can normally sand them out.

But the biggest problem that people have is they do the sanding and they, and they look at their, their aluminium and it's a sanded finish. And they go. Well, that's not shiny at all. So what you can actually do with our polishes is when you get down, if you're sanding and you get down to a, like a 2000 grit wet and dry, he actually put a couple of drops of our polish on there.

And that will instantly then really, really quickly go from a sanded finished to nearly a polished finish. So while you're sanding, you're saying put the product on the sandpaper. Yeah, on, on, use, use  the aluminium and.  Stainless polish or even the chrome one, even the chrome and nickel one, use it instead of water on your wet and dry.

And then you'll, you'll, you'll nearly immediately go from a sanded finished. To a, to a, a semi polished finish, and then it's so easy to actually then just hand polish it back to being mint. That is fascinating. Great. You can't, you can't do it with anyone else's polishes. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Alrighty.

So let's unless you want to share any tips and on that note or anything else, I will. Oh, look basically Anyone that's got nice wheels and things like that, the most important thing for people is use good polish. Yeah, I'm going to give Brian a bit of a, half a plug. The, the, the thing about these polishes that make them so unique and like we're now supplying. 

Most of Australia's top car builders use it. So many professional details around Australia and the US. Car builders in the US are using it because it's different. So, there's no mess when you're doing your polishing. Very, very little clean up. Usually just a wipe with a soft cloth over cleans it up.

You don't have that white gunk getting in everywhere. And it's got a sealant in it that actually Last, so I probably shouldn't tell some people this, but my Harley using  maybe the product that you held up just before, I used to have to polish my bike every three or four weeks with the purple gear. Yeah.

Yep. Dead set. I now do my Harley once a year. So that was what you used to use.  That's what I used to use. Okay. So people go, Oh, you don't know anything about purple. I've used purple a lot. I, I, I know it pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a bad polish. It's probably after brown and okay. I'm, I'm very biased, but after brown, it's probably one of the better ones on the market.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. And, and I mentioned to you, sorry that I, I. have typically used Angel Wax. Angel Wax products are first class. I can't, I'm not about knocking, you know, everything that's opposition. There is some really good products on the market. Angel Wax is one of them. This is a paste, basically, which is different again.

Yeah, so  usually what you can feel in any of your pastes or your creams, if you actually get a couple of, get a little bit on your fingers and actually rub it together, you can actually feel the grit in it.  Okay. You can't feel, other than our, like, number 12 polishes. Yep. Any of our aluminium, our chrome any of those polishes, you actually can't feel the abrasives in them.

So it's not about the, the thing about polishing metal. It's not about the size of the abrasive. It's about the efficiency of it. So our abrasives are super, super, super fine, even in our aluminium polish.  But they are 10 times efficient than the bigger abrasives. So you get amazing results with the SuperSign fine polish, which like I said, you, you'll be in most cases, you'll get your results quicker with our polish than you will with a way coarser polish and way more incredible and result. 

This, this you know, obviously sounds like a fairly innovative product in its own right. But, you know, what's the future of metal polishing look like? Can you see any innovations? Is there technologies evolving now that we should watch out for? Look, in the, in the auto game you know, I wish I had this business back in the, you know, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, where, you know, chrome bumpers and, and all that sort of stuff.

Unfortunately, most cars today. are all plastic. They have some metalized plastic on them. Even most of your, you know, everyone's going to your four wheel drives and your SUVs and things like that. And they're all going black wheels, which to me always looked like they're dirty. Doesn't matter with how clean they are.

So our, our market really is the custom car guys. That is your hot rods, your custom car guys or the street people that get sick of the black wheels and want something new. more stunning. So that's, that's where our current market is. Down the track, I don't see that changing. Although there seems to be a trend in the U S it's looks like black wheels are actually starting to go out. 

And they're actually starting to come. It'll be interesting to see what SEMA for most people there's a big show in Vegas and it starts this week or next week called SEMA. Yeah. And it's a specialty  aftermarket people. We'd actually like to have a trade stand there very soon. We're actually doing okay in the States.

So there will, my gut feeling is there'll be a number of the top cars at SEMA that get unveiled next week that will be done with bring it polished. But my gut feeling is I think you'll start to see more cars at these high end shows in the States going back to your polished wheels and things like that.

You know, your blowers and, and all that sort of stuff. So look, you know, painted is, is nice. Black is okay. Bling is, is mint. You know, you, you look at an old 57 Chev that's fully polished. Oh my God. They are just stunning. The chrome and everything. And I, to me a modern car with black wheels. 

It's not even comparable, but that's, that's me and my bias, I guess. And, and clearly bikes, right? The Harleys and the Oh, look, our, our, so our biggest market around the world is the show cars, custom cars, hot rods Harleys, Indians. We've now got some of our polish into some of the Indian and Harley shops around Australia.

Not enough, obviously. But yeah, so that trucks we've had truckies that have gone to our polishes and they've gone from some of the truckies will be, they'll polish their truck every week, all the metal work. They'll do it every week. And we've got guys who have gone from doing it every week to doing it three or four times a year. 

So yeah, it's just, it's, it's, but that's, that's where our market market is. Yeah. Great.  Yeah. Before I wrap up, is there anything else you wanted to share Mark that I've missed or you get asked commonly.  I think we've possibly I'll, I'll get off here, Alex, and I'll go bugger. But no, I think, I think we've pretty much  covered the majority of it.

People shouldn't be afraid of, of polishing metals. Then they're not that hard. Just make sure you use, you know, the applicable products. It's like everything. If you've got a nice car.  Everything comes down to either the buff pad you use, or the microfiber you use. So we actually now sell, and I haven't put it on our website yet, so some people will go crook at me, but we're back in stock again of, we do a microfiber that's specifically for metal polishing.

And it's actually, and I, I've got no idea whether you can see it, but it's actually,  A long fibre microfibre. Right. So most of your microfibre cloths are really short microfibre. These cloths actually aren't that great for typical detailing. But for metal polishing, oh my god, the difference they make is insane.

Do you happen to know the GSM and blend sort of factor on those? I do but I don't want to say. Okay, fair enough. Yep. No worries. Buy one and use it and live the dream. It's it's the unique, the unique to us at this stage as far as I know. Ah, cool. Yeah yeah, long, long story. But, but yeah, they'll be back on our website.

Hopefully in the next day or two. We've got stock again. Speaking of websites, how about we give everyone the web address who's listening. It's just, yes, we're an Australian company and very, very, very proud to be Australian. As I said the product will never be made anywhere but Australia. It's just brilliantpolish.

com.  It is. And, and so that's for the Aussies everyone. So,  so brilliant. Brilliant. With  one L,  right? Because it's one L of a shine.  There you are. Now I did, I didn't make the slogan up. It came with the business, but yeah, so it's brilliant with one l. So brilliant. polish.com for Australia, brilliant.

Polish america.com if you happen to be in the us. Yes, right. And, and you stopped on, on a handful of, I'm just Googling Detailing Shed, which I'm a fan of. So, yeah, if you're a professional detailer, Detailing Shed carry our products Oh, he's going to kill me. The detailing outlet in Melbourne Central, Central.

Oh my God. How can I forget that? Yeah. Yep. Yep. So the boys at Detail Central carry it, detailing shed, carry it. It's pretty readily available. And the guys in the States obviously head over to brilliantpolishamerica. com. Yeah, brilliantpolishamerica. com for the US. Okay. Yes. So. Yeah, fascinating. And if anyone's got any questions, I'm, I'm happy for them to, on our website, there's a link there to send us messages.

I'm happy to answer anyone's questions about metal polishing or, you know, car, general car detailing. If I can, I don't proclaim to be a car detailer. I know more about metal polishing than I do about you know, correcting paint. Like I said, we, we actually only do one paint polish, as I said, it's a finishing.

polish wax. We don't get involved in cutters and things like that. It's stuff that we don't want to be involved in, basically. On that note before you go, what pad combination, obviously just a very very fine finishing pad for those people who are learning or wanting to dabble. This is actually a very safe place to dabble with a machine polisher, isn't it?

You get a very soft foam, get a dual action polisher and this gear and you can have a play. Absolutely. So, a soft foam pad I've had people put it on with, put it on and take it off with woolen pads of, of, Calico's too coarse for it, but yeah, super soft foam pad or, or wool yeah, absolutely beautiful. 

Or even, like I said, every product we do is designed to be used by hand, but can be used with machine.  That's great. Like I said, the metal, the metal polishes you cannot burn at any speed.  So unlike your purple that you've got there, if you try that on a buff, any more than two or 300 revs. And it will burn and go black and sticky. 

Auto solves the same thing and as are pretty much everyone else's polishes. Ours, I've got guys that run them on die grinders at 20 revs.  Wow. It won't burn. It won't burn. That's a huge advantage. It's crazy stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Mark, unless you've got to add you'd like to add anything else at this point, I can probably wrap it up.

No, that's cool. I just  hope it's been entertaining for people and I hope people have learnt a tiny smidgen about metal polishing. I'm sure, I'm sure they have. Absolutely. Again that website address for people in Australia, if you don't mind reading it out again. Yeah, it's just brilliantpolish.com but brilliant with one L.

One L. Excellent. Mark. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me today. Alex. Absolutely. Pleasure, mate. Thank you very, very much. Excellent. Take care, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. We'd be grateful for your support with the like and subscribe. Cheers.