Automotive Interior Repair with The Interior Guy

Just got back from a 2 day Auto Interior Training seminar I held for Viper Products in the big city of Dallas, Texas and I have to say what a success it was. This was the first of its kind for me though. I’ve never had more then one person to train at one time, but it worked out very well I must say.

Randy Singh from Viper joined me on this little adventure of mine. He of course had everything all set up for me so all I had to concentrate on was the training.

We went down to get a ” Getready” Detail company with over 500 employee’s and over a hundred stores to service throughout the DFW area and the Houston area as well. We had 4 guys to train which were basically their top guys, 2 from Dallas 2 from Houston.

We flew in Thursday afternoon and met up with the guys for a little dinner and greet n meet then back to the hotel for some rest. Friday we kicked off the training, first things first was going over their kit that they had gotten prior from Viper Products.

This is always a crucial part of my training to show each person what each product is, what its used for, and how to use it. Your only as good as your product and knowledge of your supplies is crucial.

Next we moved onto color matching, which is the hardest and one of the most important things in Auto Interior Repair. You can have the best product, make the best looking repair in the world, but if your color is not right then you might as well have not have done the repair at all.

The kit that they had purchased was the pigment scale method, which if you all know me you know I only mix by eye so this was a learning experience for me too. Now I had experience with a scale system from my exterior touch-up days so picking it up for me wasn’t a problem. Its a good system for someone who has never mixed colors before but there is still a need for an eye for color. This pigment system is designed to get you close but not necessarily an exact match, you still have to tweak your color. This is something that takes a bit to get but once you get it, its second nature.

Once we worked on the colors for a bit we moved into doing some repairs and showing these guys what can and can’t be done with the supplies they had.  After a few repairs they jumped right in a were doing repairs like mad, which really I hadn’t planned on that till Saturday but what the heck the only way to learn is to do it. So off we went and lots of things were learned for sure, some mistakes but mostly success. These guys picked it right up and just soaked up the information. Its really nice to work with eager to learn people, makes my job easier for sure.

Saturday was our last day of learning and we started the day off by refreshing what we had done the day prior and then off to work we went. Repair, repair, repair! This was a good day for some good repairs. We went over the Velour kit first which didnt take a lot of time and did a few burn hole repairs and also did a blind stitch repair. Not to many blind stitching repairs are done these days with the nylon interiors, mostly seams and such, but it was good to show them how being able to hand sew is a definite benefit in the Auto Interior business.

After the Velour part of the training we packed up and went to one of the dealers they serviced and found a cracked leather repair on an Escalade which was great teaching tool for these guys. I was not only able to show off my skills with the repair of the seats, but was able show them a few other repairs that could be done that they will run into in the future.

We finished the day off with some dinner and great entertainment to wind down and finish the training. Relaxing and getting comfortable with each other is the best training of all, that way a long time relationship is built with the client and you.

I’m so glad I was able to do this type of training for these guys, its something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I finally got the opportunity and I’m definitely looking forward to many more like this to come.

The first day of Automotive Interior Training began today for me and the first day of a New Career for my trainee, and what a wonderful day it was. I was a little nervous being that this was my first trainee but I got over that pretty quick when we got to our first job. Bob my trainee took to it like a natural. He’s a very personable guy and one that is very eager to learn. He wasn’t afraid to ask questions and understood everything I told him, it was really nice to have someone on the same page as me. I think that was what made me the most nervous was I was afraid he wouldn’t understand my way of thinking, but he did, and that was awesome. Read the rest of this entry »