Recon-it Right Products is LIVE!

You read it right! Recon-it Right Products is LIVE! Viper Products and The Interior Guy, LLC. have teamed up to bring you the New Midwest Distribution Center located right here in the heart of the Midwest, Springfield, Missouri.

This will give all you guys located in or around me the ability to get your products faster, more efficiently, and for some cheaper by knocking down on the shipping costs. You can visit us right here right now online at ReconitRight.com .

I’ve been putting this together now since the Mobile Tech Expo, when a fire was lit under my butt and I decided I wanted to tackle this little monster. Well it’s been kinda slow going with a few road bumps along the way but I’m pretty confident I’m up and ready for operation now.

After the expo one big snag I ran into was the huge influx of business Tom got hit with at Viper Products. Which is an incredibly good thing, but wow it blew us away! Viper Products business all but tripled in volume and Tom literally ran out of product for me.

So after time and patients on my part, (which if you know me I have none, I guess its that OCD in me or something, but hey I get it done lol )I’ve got most of the product I need to get started with most small orders and a few larger ones and as you all keep trickling in I’ll just keep adding on and getting bigger and better.

I’m here to tell ya guys I’m pretty excited about this little adventure here. I have got so much to bring you and so many great products. Not only am I going to have Interior Restoration Products but Exterior Detailing Supplies as well. Now the Exterior Detailing Supplies wont be widely available at first but just hang on cause this rides gonna get wild I’m telling you.

I want to bring you guys everything that I can get my hands on that is top of line product, officially tested and proven to work top notch. I want you guys to have the best of the best. I’ve spent years in this business doing my research and after many trials and errors, I’m here to try to eliminate all doubt about this industry.

So don’t hesitate to jump on over to ReconitRight.com and SIGN UP and take a look around at the products and get familiar with all thats there. Now when you register I have to approve you before you can order so give me just a few. I check in several times a day so it won’t be long before your ordering from one the largest suppliers of Automotive Restoration Products in the nationRecon-it Right Products, Viper Products NEW Midwest Distributor!

Mike, Tom, Phillip, Randy

What an incredible time I have to say The Interior Guy and the Viper Products Team had at the Mobile Tech Expo 2012! From what I heard over 9000 people went through the Worldgate Resort in Orlando, Florida. All I know is it was awesome for all of the people that were there both exhibitors as well as Mobile Techs and you newbies too. A ton of information was shared between all techs which is something I thought was so awesome. No matter how seasoned you may be there is always something new and better to learn. This business is always a learning adventure for sure, I love it!

The range of booths that were set up was almost perfect, there were booths from Dent guys to Interior Guys to Paint and Autobody and even a few in between. The show is growing bigger and better every year for sure. Now being the first year that I went I really don’t have much to go on but from I’ve heard this one was the best. Of course there’s always room for growth and improvement so I’m definitely looking forward to next years show and what The Interior Guy and Viper Products will have to show as well as the other exhibitors and the Mobile Tech News crew.

Well its been a week since Ive gotten back and wow what a week I’ve had. First I want to say I don’t like the weather here as much! Man it was nice in Orlando, nice 80 degree days in January is something I could get used to for sure. But I have to say its nice to be home to my family and my clients. Kinda got a little behind being out of the loop for 3 days so as u know when you get behind its always tough plus add my new adventure and well let me explain…

Big things are happening here at The Interior Guy! While I was in Florida soaking up the warmth I was also soaking in the idea of expanding. Starting next month if everything works as planned The Interior Guy will be a distributor for Viper Products. Yep a distributor! This is gonna be incredible for you all as my following as well as for The Interior Guy. Not only will I be posting about new products as well as instructional help but I will be able to supply you with the products as well, cool huh? Location is also a big thing with shipping costs these days and with us being right smack dab in the middle of US, how could it get any better. So now Viper Products will have the country covered for all your Automotive Interior Repair Products. The main office in Orlando, a distributor in California and now here in Missouri. With all this at one place you shouldn’t have any probs getting the top of line automotive interior repairs to your customers.

I’m stoked and my wife is as well. She will be doing most of the order taking and shipping and I will still be doing repairs and taking care of my clients here, as well as my interior repair training, since my training program is designed around the real world situations I surely don’t want to leave my clients. Plus now that I’m wearing the big boy pants I cant forget who put the diapers on me . For now you will still call the 1-800 number and place your orders with my main man Randy Singh, and it will probably be that way for a while until I can get my wife up and going with this.

So keep your eyes out for changes here at Automotive Interior Repair with The Interior Guy. I hope to get products up soon as well as reopening my forum for more access to Q&A. My forum just got out of hand with spammers and I just didnt have the time nor patience to put up with them, but I’ll bite the bullet and get’r back up soon.

One thing I have added is a map locator on my contact page which is the beginnings of a nation wide locator for automotive interior professionals. This is going to be my way of networking everyone together. So with that said if you want your info on the map shoot me an email with what you want in the bubble and I’ll put it up there. I think this will be a killer tool for all, so get your info emails in soon!

Well the Mobile Tech Expo 2012 was definitely a big success in my book and it really put a fire under my butt to get things rocking and rolling in the automotive interior repair profession.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did in Orlando and I look forward to seeing each and everyone of you all again real soon.

Talk to ya soon – Mike “The Interior Guy”

The Aztec Hot Rod Hot Water Extractor is the newest addition to The Interior Guy. After quite the research and contemplation I decided to bite the bullet and purchase this little jewel. I’m needing to get some of my customers seats and carpets cleaner then what they are to sell. I also think its a great partner to dyeing carpet the right way. There’s endless possibilities to the uses of a hot water extractor like this one.

My decision on going with this Aztec Hot Rod Extractor was based on size, mobility, suction, and heat.

The reason for size was amount of room I have available in my van, which is very limited. I’m running a Dodge Caravan with just enough room for me and everything else I carry. So a small unit was really my only option.

Mobility of course goes with the biz, you don’t want a big bulky machine when doing mobile interior repairs and detailing. No since breaking your back more then what we already are. It only weighs 18 lbs, so carrying it around from vehicle to vehicle should be a breeze. It does come with casters that you have to install but right now I’m not using them, no real reason other then rolling around in the van. It’s light enough I shouldn’t have to much of a problem, but I do have the option of installing them if needed in the future.

The suction or lift was pretty important too, a lot of the stains or just dirt I run across in vehicles need quite a bit of suction to get them out. This unit carries a whopping 102″ of lift, more then any small unit I researched.

Now heat was probably the most important second to size. The grease and grime that gets tracked into a vehicle is what the dirt sticks to, which no matter how much you vacuum won’t come out. Hot water helps to remove this grease and grime which in turn removes the stains. The Aztec Hot Rod Extractor reaches a temperature of 200 degrees in a matter of about 10 – 15 minutes depending on the temp of water you add.

One thing about this extractor is that it is a hot water ONLY extractor. You don’t add your cleaning chemicals to the fill tank (you’ll void the warranty if you do, so no chemicals! ). Instead you spray your cleaning solution onto the areas your cleaning then using the extractor you remove the chemicals with a blast of hot water. I was a little disappointed in this but really this gives you more control of where you want or need chemical if you think about it. Believe it or not the hot water itself will clean too, a chemical isn’t always needed for cleaning. Also what about rinsing, one of the most important parts of cleaning. If the residues of the cleaning products are left behind they will cause the fibers of carpet and materials to become sticky which will actually attract even more dirt and can also damage the fibers altogether. So basically your cleaning with your chemicals and a little scrubbing and elbow grease then blasting your stains away with 200 degree hot water.

I have only used the Hot Rod a few times now and have to say my research and contemplation has really payed off. I am really pleased with results of this little machine. Here’s the features and specs that helped sway my decision…

• 200°F Heated solution tank
• (110°F water heats to 200°F in 8 minutes)
• Ready to use when dwell time on pre-spray is completed
• 1.5 Gallon solution tank capacity
• 2.5 Gallon recovery tank capacity
• Piston pump delivers 60psi
• 1600 Watt heating element
• Lights indicate when heating and when temp. is reached
• Power requirement less than 15 AMPs
• 50 ft Single flow cord
• 16ft 1 1/4″ ID flexible vacuum hose
• 16ft 3/16″ ID spray hose
• Weight of Spotter without solution is 18lbs.
• Maneuvers easily on 2″ casters
• Easily accessible to fill, empty and clean
• Dimensions of Spotter: 17″ high, 18″ long, 13″ wide
• 3″ stainless steal upholstery detail tool
• 3 year limited warranty

Pretty sweet huh? I thought so too!  This really is a professional extractor and not just some cheap wanna be. I was also told by the Aztec rep that any standard head attachment will fit the Hot Rod Extractor. This makes it nice for adding a crevice tool or any other attachment that fits any other extractor. In fact my last trainee purchased a head that is specifically for upholstery for his extractor. The water jet is set up differently so not to leave the upholstery as wet. Great idea just a little pricey for me right now though, lets get this paying for itself first.

If your looking to add a nice professional extractor to your mobile interior repair and detailing business then I would definitely recommend you take a good look at the Aztec Hot Rod Extractor.

Just wanted to put this color chart up here for you do it yourself people who are looking to match a Sem Aerosol vinyl and leather colors to the interior upholstery parts of your automobiles. Read the rest of this entry »

The holidays are finally over and we all can relax again. Hope you all had a great time spending it with family and friends. It’s always great spending some good quality time with the ones you love.While spending that time it never fails you come across an old piece of furniture in your parents garage that catches your eye and reminds you of your younger years. It’s still in great shape and you want to take it home but the only problem is it’s just ugly and out of date. There is a solution though, make it new again. It’s not that hard, it just takes a little spare time and very little money, which I like. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that time of year is here again. The cold weather has arrived and here we go with trying to get our automotive water based dyes to dry in a reasonable amount of time.

Painting in temperatures less then 40 degrees makes it almost impossible to yield a perfect repair without a little preparation first.

The first and foremost thing is to heat up the area where the repair is being made. Now the best way to do this is with a hairdryer, not your heat gun. This will heat the area just enough to make it easier to work with and not damage the area any further (like a hole in vinyl getting larger due to to much heat being put to it). Heating the area will also help your compounds work like their supposed to along with giving you a warmer surface for the dye to stick to helping in curing time. Read the rest of this entry »

I get into so many autos that the buttons on the radio are peeling off and what your left with are white buttons that just look awful. At night it can be at the least distracting. Have you seen one of those? Well Viper Products has done it again and has come up with a fix for those peeling buttons. Its a two part film. A translucent film and a black film with cut outs for the lettering. All you do is sand the peeling radio button to give you a smooth surface to put the film onto. Prep, then lay the film over the radio button and heat it to reform the coating to button. The lights from the radio still shine through the lettering and the finished product looks, as Viper Products always does, factory. Read the rest of this entry »

What a dreary day….It’s rained here now for 2 days solid. We’re getting whats left of hurricane Hanna. We needed it though, things were starting to dry up. It’s hard to believe we needed the rain after all we had this spring. I makes it hard doing interior repair when it’s so wet outside though, water based dyes take forever to dry and whats really hard is trying to fix a cigarette burn in cloth when the humidity is so high, virtually impossible. But I did manage to get some stuff done today, and one that I’m going to talk about today and it’s those ugly screw holes in plastic that have been left from the previous owner of the automobile. Read the rest of this entry »

Well I hope your holiday weekend was a good one. Labor Day is always the last blast of the summer here for us. We spent our time at the lake soaking up some sun, and fun. It was a beautiful weekend, and the lake was finally back down to pretty much normal from all the rain we’ve had here. This year was definitely one for the record books. With the lake being up so far and so murky that the fishing has been terrible, but I did manage to pull a few out this year. I caught two this time down, a 14″ and a 15″ Bass, not real sure what the weight was on them though, but they were a couple of beauty’s.

As I was sitting there on the dock this weekend I couldn’t help to think of what I was going to write this week. I started thinking of some jobs that have been somewhat of booger for me, and I couldn’t help to think of the fist time I painted silver plastic trim. You know where the paint rubs off or scratches off and leaves you the black plastic underneath. Read the rest of this entry »

What a beautiful work day it was here in the Ozarks! We had 60′s in the morning and low 80′s this afternoon, which is really unusual for August.

Well I said in my last post that I would give you guys a post on my daily activities, and here’s the first. Thought I’d share a little of what I do on a daily basis, to let you all know in a little more detail of the repairs I do on a daily basis. The way I’m gonna try to do this is to not just list the vehicles I worked on and tell you what I fixed and so on, but I’m gonna pick a couple that either gave me fits or I feel would be a good one to talk about. Some will be long and some short, but I hope to give you a lot of info. Read the rest of this entry »

Weather change is here and the cracked padded dashes are rolling in. With every weather change I get the phone calls. “My dash is cracked and what can be done to fix it.”

Due to the exposer to old mother nature, these materials become dried out and crack over time leaving you with a crack in your dash. Left unattended this small crack can and will get larger.

There are measures that can be taken to prevent the dash from getting cracked in the first place. Now I know your dash is already cracked and your wanting to know how to fix it, but this will prevent further cracks and keep your car cooler and looking nicer, and well…. for further reference. Read the rest of this entry »

Automotive interior repair is a skill of a combination of art and magic, yes I said magic…What I really mean is it’s a skill to be able to trick the eye from not seeing an interior repair that has been made, that is the magic.

One little trick that we keep in our bag of pixie dust, is the art of texturizing a repair.

If you look in your automotive interior you see many different textures on the surfaces of the plastic trim pieces, vinyl covered door panels, and your leather and vinyl seats. All of these textures you see we have to imitate in someway to repair whatever has been damaged.

Texturizing a repair takes knowledge of products to use, skill in using them, and a lot of patience. Yes patience, when doing any automotive interior repair, patience is a virtue, if you get in a hurry you will fail, I promise. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dash Peel. A problem I started noticing in some of the earlier model vehicles a few years back and have been fixing them ever since. The cause is the water based dyes being used on dashes and some trim pieces being lifted from the plastic by solvent based dressings and cleaners being sprayed on the inside of our cars in the attempt to keep them looking new and clean.

Solvents and water based dyes just don’t mix, obviously. Read the rest of this entry »

Color Matching is a huge skill and a must in the leather repair industry. I’ve been coming across a few vehicles lately that have been dyed with not so good color matching. Knowing that it’s usually someone either color blind or just down right…well I won’t go that far, but if the color isn’t right then your repair will look worse then if you had just left it alone.

Good lighting does help and pretty much a necessity. Natural lighting is better but in the garages we get stuck in the winter months it doesn’t help much, but what do you do, you improvise as my wife says. I use a dent light, which works pretty good, but I have also have used a under the hood light bar then hooking inside the car that stretches the width of the car and hooks on the door jams, they work great. Shorter light bars are great for light in a small places. Be careful with using florescence they sometimes throw your tinting off, if you can get some natural light to your project then great. The customer sees the the car in natural light mostly anyways so your color needs to be spot on.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a must see. Leather Magic is something else, if this product does what it says then wow. Not only is durable it stretches and holds in place.

There are a few downfalls, one the curing time. 48 hours, maybe for an individual but not for a tech in the field. The compounds I know of are quick and easy…And work. But if there is the repair that will hold up like that and then I’m all for to checking it out, looks. The other concern I have is dye, dying onto a wet surface…HMMMM. Don’t know. Well I’ll make a check into this and see.

Leather repair is a craft and not all products will work on everything. Trial and error to extent, but cleaning and prepping your area extensively, before you start any project will make your ending result a success.

Hope you like this it is pretty wild stuff.

If you got any comments on this one let me know, I’m really curious to see what everyone thinks on Leather Magic.

This is a hard one for me to put out there for the average person to read because a lot of the products I use in my leather repairs are sold for professional use and if you don’t know how to use them properly you can make a bad thing look like a really bad repaired thing. It’s taking me a long time to master the craft of leather repair, it’s something you can’t just learn by reading this article. But I wanted to help out those of you who need a helping hand with that worn leather seat. Read the rest of this entry »

So your driving down the road with what looks like an open parachute attached to the interior roof of your car.
Well that open parachute would be your headliner material. Read the rest of this entry »