Last Updated October 3, 2025
Transcript
Hey, welcome to this video. I’m going to be sharing with you how to install a ceramic coating. So, if you’ve never done this before, uh, no need to take notes. You can actually download a PDF checklist. It’ll cover everything I use and all the steps. Plus, I’ve written a blog article on this that actually goes detail by detail how to go from start to finish to ceramic coat your own car.
So, if you’ve never done this before, you’re an absolute beginner, I’m going to make this as simple as possible. This is a three-part video series. So after this first video, which is how to prep your car for a ceramic coating, there’s two more videos. How to install the coating and then there’s how to take care of the coating, how to maintain that coating after all the hard work is done.
So first of all, the thing we want to do first before to prep this car is obviously we need to wash it and get it clean. And I’ve already done that to this car. And then of course bring it into a nice enclosed area to keep everything dust-free. That is also very important, and plus you don’t want to work in full sun.
And if you’re working in any places that’s like very windy or, uh, high humidity, that can also affect how fast or how slow the coating actually dries. So, first we start out by washing it.
The Baggie Test and Why It Matters
Now, after I’ve already washed this and dried it, the next thing we want to do is we want to do the baggie test, okay? So, if you’ve never done the baggie test, this is just some simple sandwich baggies. And what this is for is this thin film of plastic. When you place your hand in here, what this is going to do is it’s going to increase your sensitivity so you can feel what’s going on at the surface level.
And, uh, this thing is just absolutely completely contaminated. So this means we need to clay the paint. And the reason why is because there’s a layer of bonded contaminants on here and it’s going to keep the coating from actually getting to the paint so it can make a proper bond.
The other reason you want to clay paint if it’s contaminated is because most of this, when we’re talking about a glossy paint car, the paint looks good if it’s shiny and glossy. Well, gloss comes from a smooth surface. So, anytime you’ve got this texture on here, u, it’s going to diminish the gloss, uh, because it’s just not a smooth surface.
So, clay restores a smooth surface that maximizes gloss. It also removes all the contamination so the coating can make a proper bond.
Claying the Paint: Technique and Feel
So, the first thing I need to do now that I’ve washed and dried the car and done the baggie test is I need to go ahead and clay the paint. Now, normally, uh, normally when I detail a car, I start at the roof or the highest point—say it’s a truck, a roof, a van—and then work my way down and around.
Uh, but for simplicity, to make this video easy to watch, we’re just going to do like everybody else does. We’re just going to work on the hood. It’s waist high. It’s a lot easier to do.
So, uh, this is actually a brand new Tesla. It’s four or five months old, but it is basically brand new. And the thing I want to point out about that is when your car is brand new, that is the best time to put the ceramic coating on it cuz it’s going to have the least, uh, chance to have swirls, scratches, water spots, or like this car has. It’s got some kind of contamination and it’s also got some kind of chemical film on it.
And, uh, you can see that in the video, and polishing is going to take that away. But the first thing I do want to do is I just want to clay the paint. And here’s how you use clay. First, you noticed I sprayed down some clay lube. And then I took and I kneaded my clay. This comes in a little bar, but I kneaded it into a patty, kind of the size of a pancake. And that fits across the palm of my hand.
Then you just want to push this clay over the paint as you rub it like this. And as you’re claying, here’s what you’re going to feel. When I first start out, the clay is kind of grabbing the paint cuz there is real contamination on here. But as this clay patty removes the contamination, that’s when this clay patty starts to glide effortlessly and it’s—and you can feel it become more slippery.
So that is what clay does. It removes the contamination, uh, through mechanical means. Now a lot of people think clay works because it’s sticky. And if you feel some clay, it is kind of sticky, but that’s not how it works. The way a clay bar works is there’s actually an abrasive. It’s a pulverized abrasive inside the clay, which is a synthetic form of plastic basically. And what happens is when you’re rubbing that clay bar over there, it abrades the contaminants off. And because the clay is sticky, it pulls them onto itself.
And for that reason, as you work around the car, at some point you’re going to take and knead this to expose a fresh surface and then keep on claying. And at some point, this will get so loaded full of the contaminants coming off the paint, you’ll want to throw it away.
Re-Testing and Confirming a Contaminant-Free Surface
Anyway, so I just clayed that one little section there. And now what I’m going to do is I’m going to redo the baggie test and that way I’ll know if I did a good job or not. Okay, much better. This feels like—you can hear it—it feels like sandpaper. This over here, quiet.
Okay, so there is a contaminant-free, uh, finish right there.
Why Prep Dictates Coating Longevity
Okay, so the next thing you want to do, and this is really important. So people want to know how long does the ceramic coating last? Well, how long anything lasts always depends on how the surface was prepared to accept the ceramic coating, or if you’re using a car wax or a paint, how clean and polished and ready that paint was to accept again a car wax, a synthetic or ceramic coating.
That’s the key—it’s the prep work. You know, the coating is going to last a long time if you take care of it, but you gotta get the paint perfectly clean so the coating can make a proper bond.
So, now that we’ve removed the contamination over this area, the next thing we want to do is we just want to machine polish.
Machine Polishing Basics for Beginners
Now, if you’ve never machine polished before, I’ve got a couple polishers up here, and I like to keep this really simple. So, if you’ve never machine polished before, first of all, you pretty much need to. Uh, gone are the days where you could actually rub out a car by hand. Ever since we got clear coats, the thing about clear coats is they tend to be harder and they’re what’s called scratch sensitive. That means they show scratches real easy to your eyes.
And the idea of actually taking some kind of applicator pad in your hand and applying a polish to the entire car, uh, it’s a noble idea, but I don’t know too many people that can actually do it. It takes a long time, a lot of work.
So, here’s a better alternative. You can go down to Harbor Freight and you can pick up this polisher for about 65 bucks. Comes with a backing plate. They also sell some buffing pads down there, so you can get everything probably for a hundred bucks.
Tool Choices: Harbor Freight vs. Porter-Cable
But I do want to share something. My personal preference is is this Harbor Freight polisher is actually a copy of the Porter-Cable. This is what’s called an 8 mm free-spinning random orbital polisher. And that’s what this is. It’s an 8 mm free-spinning random orbital polisher.
The thing is is for about 40 more bucks you can get the real deal versus the copy. Uh, go up to jbtools.com, you can, um, pick one up for about $100. So about $40 more than the cheaper one. You will have to buy a backing plate.
Um, when you buy one of these brand new, it comes with a foam pad that’s glued to a backing plate. Most people take and throw it cuz the foam is so thick, it won’t rotate. It won’t do anything. Uh, and you can pick up a backing plate pretty easily. Source it on Amazon.com.
Why This Tool Works Well and Pad Selection Overview
Okay, so that’s the tool. Now, the reason I like this tool is cuz it’s lightweight, compact in size. It’s a short-stroke polisher, so you get really good pad rotation, really good pad oscillation, and that means fast and efficient defect removal. You’re also going to need some buffing pads.
Now, I have a selection of buffing pads up here. These are actually the Buff and Shine Edge Guard in 5 in. So, they fit this 5-in backing plate. And, um, the correct order here would be like this. The black is the softest. This is called a finishing pad. This is called a polishing pad. This is also a polishing pad. This yellow is a little more aggressive than the white. This is their blueberry pad. It’s called heavy polishing. This is cutting. And this is heavy cutting.
So, in the Edge Guard pad line, you’ve got a complete line of pads to tackle anything you’re working on. So, if the paint’s in good shape, maybe you only need a finishing pad. If it’s in really bad shape, you might have to start out with the cutting pad.
Inspecting With a Swirl Finder Light and Watching for High Spots
Now, this thing only has—this is like four or five months old. So, we’ve removed the contamination, but it still has this film on there. And I’m going to take—this is a Swirl Finder light. And if you’re going to install coatings, let me just talk about this. You need a good handheld light. And the reason why is cuz first, you want to be able to inspect for swirls and scratches.
And when I come down here and look, there’s virtually no swirls and scratches. Again, this car is four or five months old. Um, it’s been well taken care of since it was driven off the lot, but there are no real swirls or scratches. There’s just this film everywhere on every body panel on here.
And that’s mostly because this is, uh, the guy that, uh, works next to me—this thing is parked outside. We’re kind of in an industrial park, so who knows what’s landing on there, but it does have a film of something on there. Uh, but the other reason you want this Swirl Finder light is because when you go to put the ceramic coating on, at some point you need to inspect for what are called high spots.
So, what’s a high spot? A high spot is when you—just kind of like in the old days when you put a car wax on your car—if you didn’t get all the wax off, you might see a streak or a smear of wax and you could come back with your towel and wipe it off. Well, with the ceramic coating, if you leave a little coating, a little streak or a patch of coating, you don’t get it wiped off—if you don’t get it wiped off before it hardens and dries—you won’t be able to wipe it off. You’ll have to polish it off.
So therefore, every time you apply coating to a section of paint, before you move on, you want to come back, hold this thing up about a foot and a half from the surface. You don’t put it down here like this. You put it about a foot and a half away. And you want to angle it so it’s about a 45° angle to your eyes. And then you just want to inspect every place you put coating and make sure you’ve completely leveled it and removed any excess or you’re going to be hating life because you’re going to have to come back and polish it off.
Choosing Polishes: Dr. Beasley’s NSP Primers and the Plan
Okay, so anyway, that’s what we’ve done. We’ve got our inspection light. I’ve just shared with you two different polishes. Besides a polisher and some pads, you’re going to need some polishes. In this case, I’m going to be using the Dr. Beasley’s NSP primers. And I’m going to share something with you at the end of this video of the benefit of using an NSP primer with this nano gel over any conventional compound polish on the market today. There is something that’s very unique and different about these.
Now, because all I really have to do on this car is remove this film, I don’t think I’m going to need anything too aggressive. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to just, um, do a test spot and I’m going to be doing—using what we call the least aggressive method to get the job done.
So, in most cases, a black foam finishing pad—it’s just going to be too soft to really do anything. This yellow pad here might be too aggressive. We don’t need that much, uh, cut power from that pad. So, I’m going to go right there in the sweet spot and pick out this white foam finishing pad.
Free-Spinning Safety Tip and the Sharpie Trick
And, um, let me share another little technique. So, when I talk about these things being a free-spinning polisher, here’s what I mean. It’s free-spinning, okay? Uh, it’s not gear-driven. Therefore, the pad just spins freely on the spindle.
And one of the things about this is—let me turn this down—is it’s very safe. I mean, it’s pretty safe. It’s really hard to hurt anything unless you drop this thing on the hood of the car. Uh, because it’s free-spinning, though, here’s a technique I like to share. Take a Sharpie marker. And as you can see, I’ve already used this pad and done this, but mark the side of your pad and also mark the side of your backing plate. You can do this in a couple places.
And here’s why you want to do that. So when you’re looking down on it and you’re polishing, you want to be able to maintain good pad rotation, good pad oscillation, and sometimes if you hold this tool crooked or you’re buffing into a curve or maybe you got the speed too low or you’re pressing down too hard, you’ll actually see this pad stall out. And those little lines help you to see that.
Otherwise, without the black lines, this would be a blur of white. And because this is a yellow backing plate, this would be a blur of yellow. And you really couldn’t tell, is it rotating? Is it not rotating? So, putting those marks on there—now you can see it’s spinning—it just makes it easier for your eyes. There’s the low speed. That’s what pad stalling will look like. So, lack of, uh, lack of rotation, lack of oscillation.
And it’s just—you’re going to get faster defect removal if you got both rotation and oscillation. It’ll still remove defects if it’s just oscillating—you don’t see the pad rotating—but more efficiency if you get both.
Performing a Test Spot With NSP 95
Okay. So, then to do a test spot, here’s the NSP 95. This is what we would call a fine cut polish. And I’m just going to start out by putting three drops of product. Oops, the lid’s coming off, not the spout loosening. There we go.
Okay, so I’m just keep this real simple. This is a fine cut polish. This is the area that I clayed. And here’s—here’s a real important tip. If you’ve never machine polished before, then what you want to do is before you turn the polisher on, you want to place the face of this pad against the paint, then turn the polisher on and kind of spread the product out. If you turn this on while it’s in the air, it’s going to throw this product everywhere. So, there we go.
And usually what I like to do for this—on this type of tool—I got it on speed three. And I’m just going to take and spread this out over the area that I want to work. And I’m going to show you how big of an area you should work at one time just with a visual here. This is a microfiber towel. This is just an average microfiber towel, 16 in x 16 in. And this is about the size of area that you want to work at one time.
And then when you move on to a new section, you want to overlap a little bit into the previous section so you thoroughly remove any swirls, scratches, water spots, and in this case, this chemical film that’s built up on the paint here.
Cross-Hatch Pattern, Pass Counting, and Thin Panels
Okay. So, then after you’ve got your product spread out, the next thing you want to do is you want to start making slow overlapping passes in a cross-hatch pattern. And that’s for your larger panels. Now, I just want to cover something in this video. I’m just demonstrating right here cuz it’s easy to do on camera. But in the real world, and I see a lot of detailers make this mistake when they’re teaching or just doing it as a detail, you don’t start on the outside of a panel and work in. You start in the center of the panel and work your way out. That goes for polishing, clay, coating, whatever you’re going to do. You never work into the center. You work from the center out. But again, for this video, I’m just doing this part to show you the process.
Okay. So, now that I’ve got this spread out, I’m going to bring my speed up. This is all—this is all the way to the highest speed setting. And I think you’ll see pretty good pad rotation. And I’m—I’m going to make a series of four section passes. And then I’m going to wipe off and inspect the work to see if that film is gone.
I just went over that section one time. So that would be called one section pass. And one of the techniques I like to share in all our detailing classes is when I’m by myself is I count my passes out loud so I know where I’m at so I don’t forget. So follow me along. I’m overlapping by 50%. Two, three, four.
So that was four textbook examples of a section pass. Now, real quickly, if you look at this body panel here, here’s a thin plane and then here’s another curved plane that make up the top of this fender. When you’re working thin panels, there’s no way to really make a cross-hatch pattern because you don’t have the surface area to do it. So, on a thin panel, you just run the polisher in the direction of the length of the panel, okay? So, there’s a technique tip for you.
Inspecting Results and Microfiber Towel Usage
Um, let me go ahead and wipe this off. We’ll grab our Swirl Finder light and inspect. I can already tell just from overhead lights that, uh, uh, I think I’ve removed 100% of that film, whatever that film is.
And here’s another thing. If you’re going to coat your own car, you need lots of microfiber towels. You’re going to need them, uh, for the paint correction step, and then you’re going to need them, uh, for the prep step before you put the coating on. Then, of course, you’re going to need them for the coating itself.
Okay. So, just using overhead lights, um, I can already tell that film is 100% gone. So, we’ll come in and we’ll show you that. And the paint is also very, very smooth and slippery, just like it was when it was brand new.
I will go ahead and demonstrate using the Swirl Finder light just to check it out. And I’ll show the camera here. And of course, we’ve got—we’ve got a totally swirl and defect-free finish. I don’t think that film shows up, but let me run it over here and we’ll just see.
When Multi-Step Correction Is Needed and Why New Cars Are Easier
Okay, so that is how you do the paint correction step. Now, of course, the worse condition the paint is, probably the more paint correction steps you’ll have to do. If this car was completely swirled out, say someone had been running it through an automatic car wash with those spinning brushes, you’d probably have to do at least two steps. You’d have to come in and compound it with an aggressive pad, an aggressive product, then come back and polish it with a less aggressive polish and a less aggressive pad before you could get to the part where you’re going to put the coating on.
So that’s why I just want to emphasize if you buy a brand new car—doesn’t matter if it’s a Tesla, Ford F-150, Hyundai—the best time to put the ceramic coating on is right then when it’s brand new and you have the least amount of defects to have to remove cuz it’ll shorten down the prep process. That’s really what it comes down to.
Panel Wipe vs. Nano Gel: Residues and Bonding
So I said I would share something with you that would make sense kind of after I do the demonstration. But one of the things is is when you—whenever you polish the car, you gotta come back and wipe that polish off. And as you look at that visually, you don’t see any polish residues. But at the microscopic level, there’s a film left over from whatever you’re using.
Now, if it’s a conventional polish or compound, all these products use some type of mineral oil, solvents, polishing oils, or fillers. So, you gotta come back and use what’s called a panel wipe and chemically strip the paint. What the panel wipe is is usually some sort of harsh solvent like isopropyl alcohol or mineral spirits or a combination of these types of things. And so it’ll break up and emulsify the oils that you cannot see but are still on the surface so you can wipe them off.
And the reason why is because in order for this coating to make a proper bond, it has to be applied to pure, clean paint. You don’t want any oil residues on there.
So, what’s different about our products is instead of using mineral oils or solvents or any kind of oils, they use what’s called nano gel. Nano gel is a water-based ceramic carrying agent. And as you use it, you actually lay down a ceramic foundation for the coating to bond to, and you can skip the whole panel wipe process.
Not only does that save you anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour trying to go around the whole car re-wiping it after you’ve polished it just to get the oils off, but if you’re ever working on a car with soft paint, the act of wiping down a soft paint with a microfiber towel and a panel wipe, which is a solvent, can actually mar the paint. So now you could be undoing all the work you’ve already done.
So there’s one reason why it’s important to choose your products carefully before you use them. And I’d encourage you to take a look at the Dr. Beasley’s NSP primers cuz they’re—all the carrying agent is nano gel. It’s not oils. So that’ll save you some time and also they work really good too.
Recap of the Prep Process Before Coating
To prep your car for coating, you start out with the normal process of washing and drying the car. In this particular case, I always wash the wheels and tires first, then go to the top and work my way down so I don’t have water drying on the car, potentially leaving water spots.
After I washed and dried the car, I came in, I just did—used a simple sandwich baggie. I did the baggie test. I could tell the paint had some kind of contaminant. It didn’t wash off, so it’s not going to wipe off. So, that’s where clay comes into play. So, I clayed the paint using detailing clay and a clay spray, wiped it off, inspected it, and felt it. And I could feel the contamination was removed.
Then, the next step is I took a Swirl Finder light and I inspected the paint for swirls and scratches. Now, in this case, this thing being brand new, it doesn’t have any swirls or scratches. It does have a very visible, spotty-looking film over the entire car. So, that’s where polishing is going to pull that film off.
Entry-Level Polishers Are Safe and Why to Do a Test Spot
So then I explained kind of the difference between some of these little polishers here. These are what are called an entry-level polisher. Just real quickly, let me show you how safe these things are. I’m—I’m pushing as hard as I can. Okay, I was pushing down as hard as I can. I’m not hurt. The paint’s not hurt. The polish not hurt. So they’re very safe in case you’ve never done this before.
Uh, you’re going to need a selection of pads because you’re going to want to do what’s called a test spot. A test spot is when you take the product and the pad and the tool and your technique and you test it out in one area and then you inspect it and make sure it’s removing the defects to your satisfaction. And if it is, then you can repeat that process over the rest of the car.
And then after you do that, then you’re ready to put the coating on. And of course, just good general practices are start at the top, the highest surfaces, and work your way down.
Work From the Center Out and Trim-Protection Tip
And just let me just show you by example when I talk about starting in the middle of a panel. Even though I started here for video work, in the real world, if I was just here buffing out this car, I would have started out here. I would have done my section here. Then I would have done a section here. Then I would have done a section here. Then I would have done a section here. You don’t start on the outside and work in. You always start on the inside and work out. Just as a good best practice.
And then I went ahead and I wiped off the residue. I inspected. The finish looks good to me. It’s ready to finish out the rest of the car. Then put the coating on. We’re not going to do that in this video, though.
Um, and because I’m using products that use nano gel for a carrying agent, I don’t have to use a panel wipe. But that’s how you would prep your car for coating. The only other thing I would recommend is, um, some cars have exterior pebble-textured plastic trim. And while our polishers are very trim-friendly, a lot of stuff on the market—if you run that polisher and you hit that plastic trim, it’s going to stain it.
And I’ve been doing—I’ve been detailing cars since the 1970s, technically in the ’80s even more intensely. And once you stain plastic trim, that black trim that’s on the outside of cars like fender flares and on the side mirrors and things like that, I’ve never really seen it 100% fixed. You can’t get all that polish out of the cracks and crevices of the texture of that plastic.
So, that’s where you want to have some different types and widths of tape and tape off any of that plastic trim. And it’s faster to tape it off than it is to come back at the end of the job with the toothbrush to try to get the wax out of the cracks. So, tape off any sensitive trim.
Closing: Next Video, Resources, and Contact
When I look at this Tesla here, even the plastic around the mirrors here is smooth and hard, so it’s really not going to be an issue. Plus, I’m not going to run the polisher over anyway. But there you go. That’s how you prep a car for the ceramic coating. Stay tuned for the next series. We’re going to show you how to put the coating on.
And remember, I have a blog article about this and you can—in the information below this video—you can download the PDF checklist to make sure you got everything you need and follow all the steps. And if you like this video, make sure you like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And also, if you have a friend that you think might enjoy learning about how to do this, share it with them, too.
And if you ever have any questions, I always make my personal cell phone available. Give me a call. I will help you through the process. That’s 760-515-0444.
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