Hey, what's up, everybody?
Gene Fetty with the
Automotive Appearance
Institute back at you with
another episode of our All
Access podcast.
This is number twenty five.
We are a quarter of the way.
Two, one hundred episodes.
Super excited to be back out with you,
back at you for another week.
Man, running solo today.
I was actually out of town
all week in Boston doing
some training and had a
crazy busy Friday when I got back.
So Dylan is not working Sunday night,
but I am here to make sure
that you get your show first thing,
seven a.m.
Eastern Sunday morning, Monday morning,
Monday morning.
I'm here sunday night
anyways uh so this week's
episode is like I didn't
know it could do that and
that's why you need more
training I want to talk
specifically this episode I
want to talk about glue
pull training uh but really
and not just because I'm
promoting our level up
training mine and john's at
the end of the month uh but
because training in general right
I believe if you're going to
be a high level technician,
somebody who wants to
continue to get better,
you need to pursue other
avenues of knowledge, right?
You don't, you can't just,
I guess you can just learn
on your own through trial and error,
but that is not the fastest way to go.
So maybe a little backstory
on where I was.
So I have a customer in
Boston or in the Boston
market that I think is four shops,
three full,
three full body shops with a
fourth one coming online very soon.
Not quite a year ago.
Well, actually, rewind from there.
They wanted to sign on to be
a Rivian shop.
So part of being a Rivian
approved body shop is you
need glue pull and maybe
even specifically Kiko.
I know that I personally was
with Kiko a lot at Rivian
and Kiko and Rivian have a
good relationship.
So it may be that you need a Kiko system,
but certainly you need a
full on collision glue pull
system to be a certified Rivian shop.
Well, through content here on AAI,
not the podcast at this
point or at that point,
but through content here
and being out of trade shows,
I sort of made it on the
radar of a company that
does recruiting for body shops.
And then in turn,
like I started following
him and then this body shop
showed up as like suggested,
like somebody to follow
somebody to engage with.
And Steven, the guy who owns the company,
the shop, I really liked his philosophy.
I liked a lot about what he
was talking about.
So I sort of reached out and said, Hey,
you know, really like what you're doing.
Love the messaging you're
bringing out to text.
And we started an online conversation.
really,
and then talk to his recruiter at a
trade show, so on and so forth.
Stephen comes into my world, right?
Stephen comes into AAI and he's like, hey,
here's what we've got.
We've got a few shops.
I've got a Kiko system.
But honestly, my guys don't use it.
We bought it because we have
to be with Rivian.
And right.
It's just been collecting dust.
Can we do some training?
Can we get some more kits?
So on and so forth.
And I worked with them and
got them some more systems.
But more importantly,
went up and did a couple of
days training.
Now.
This is a good argument for
our online training, right?
Like the GPR masterclass versus in person.
Now to see what glue pool
can do to understand how well it works,
to see how simple it is to
do in person is fantastic,
but there's an inherent
problem with that in-person training.
And that is that we are
typically there for one day.
whether it's a training I'm
doing through AI, or, you know, you're,
you have a trainer coming out with Kiko,
like Danny hacker, Mike Mack,
or Dave jet laugh, or any of the trainers,
right, they show up,
and they're in for a day.
And now Kiko does do two,
three and five days,
but neither here nor there.
We show up, you show them, and even like,
I love those trainings.
And I love watching like some of the,
like I call them the
crotchety old body guys, no offense,
crotchety old body guys,
but like sort of the guy
that's sitting in the back
of the room and like, well,
this isn't gonna work.
It's not strong.
I know what I'm doing.
You're not gonna show me something new.
Those were always my
favorite guys to have in a class.
They're still my favorite
guys to have in a class.
I find it to be a bit of a challenge.
Not a challenge hard, but a challenge fun.
I like to show them what it can do.
So anyways, we go up.
Good shop.
Lots of young techs.
Actually, they carried a pretty young...
demographic in the shop with
a couple of older guys.
But anyways, we jump in,
we start doing some heavy pulls.
We start showing them how simple it is.
And the shop is excited by
the end of the class.
Next day, I go to another shop,
brings his other guys in full day.
We make it through a ton of stuff,
lots of great pulls.
Everybody's pumped up and
excited at the end.
And then, right, we take off.
And really you could plug
this scenario into a lot of the training,
right?
We're in,
we get everybody pumped up and
then we go.
It's just, that's what a one or two person,
one or two day in-person event is.
Like in, boom, gone.
Which, side note,
part of that is why we
created the masterclass.
One,
and this is not a sales pitch for the
masterclass.
This is more of a, like,
I want you to be aware that
you need training.
But I ended up hearing a lot
of feedback that, hey, you were here,
you were here for a day, it was great,
we learned this, we learned that.
man I forget I forget this I
forget that how did you do
this what did you say there
right that's where the
master class loads right up
on your phone and it's not
a resource in your bay
right log in right here
boom how did we do this
what was what were these
temperatures what did that
tool look like how did we
fix that repair right it's
all there for you to have so
Same thing, right?
Both shops stoked.
We leave.
I sort of do a follow up with Steven,
the owner.
Everything was great.
The guys love it.
They're having success.
Fast forward.
I don't know.
It was late, late twenty four,
maybe November, December.
And Steven reaches out and he says, hey,
I've got a handful of my techs,
maybe like six or seven
that are like they're hot
on the glue pole,
but I know they can be
doing more with it.
I know they're not using it
to their maximum ability.
Well, Steven, let's see what we can do.
Right?
So he said, Hey,
I would like to go a little
bit more intense, uh, instead of one day,
can we do two days?
And then instead of the whole big group,
you know, uh, eight guys in the,
in the shot rate guys in the class,
can we break it down and do
three or four guys and then
do the same two days again
with three or four more guys?
Really?
So we can get deep and get good knowledge.
And more importantly,
like good hands on a good
repetitive training with these guys.
Mark, Steven, you're speaking my language,
dude.
I think that's a fantastic idea.
So we set it up.
Um,
to come up for the week or for four days,
right?
Monday through Thursday, uh, and train, uh,
it was three guys for two
days and then four guys for
the next two days.
So a total of seven texts, uh,
got a beater car, you know,
something we could create damage on.
We could get in and do real world.
We go up for the training or
I go up for the training.
They're there already.
Walk in and sort of like the syllabus,
like what we're going to
walk through is like, first,
let's start with what are
you guys struggling with?
What's not working?
What is working?
What are you seeing?
What's holding you back?
Then some new tools, right?
Lateral tension wasn't what it was.
Isn't,
Isn't what whatever last
year it wasn't as big of a
deal as it is this year and
the way that it has
unlocked repair ability is unreal.
So anyways, I said, hey,
we'll go into that.
We'll start doing some larger,
more complex repairs,
show you a little bit more production.
Right.
Instead of just education,
exactly how to like more
real world and how it does
work and what it takes to make it happen.
I always like in the first
day of glue pull,
like the original one day
glue pull training is like driver's ed.
And I'm going to give you all of the rules,
exactly what to do.
It's very repeatable.
And if you follow all of the steps,
much like if you follow all
of the steps in driver's ed,
if you have an accident,
it's not going to be your fault, right?
Something else went wrong.
Same idea.
If you get a bad pull, it's not working.
You know that you broke one of the rules.
These two days, more real world,
more how would I attack it?
Let's go after it.
So the first group of guys
is the younger technicians, right?
They call it, twenty-one to thirty-five,
right?
Young bucks.
Those are definitely young
bucks in the auto body world.
And we come in and now mind you,
I personally did this training, right?
Both all of these guys that
have gone through training,
I did their training, uh,
left them with the knowledge to do it.
So we came in and we start
talking and the first
problems they're having are
these little tabs don't stick.
Now that's like one of my
favorite things to hear, right?
Because I always get like my dad joke,
bad joke,
or jabs in when we start pulling
and we're following the steps, right?
Following Kiko's six Cs,
we're following the steps
and these tabs won't let go
until you rip them off or
hose them down with alcohol, right?
It just, it works every single time.
Pull.
pull with a slide hammer, it hooks up,
it pulls a big high.
So instantly, right,
we spend spend a little bit
of time walking through,
start going back over
cleaning and temperature.
And I've got these guys
ripping high spots into a
panel immediately, right,
call it our one.
They all go or they all come back.
And they're like, man,
I guess I was doing that wrong.
I guess I was doing that wrong.
You know,
I remember you talking about
those temperatures.
So I remember having to
flash off and they had had some retention,
right?
They were even like, well,
I think maybe it's temperature.
I know I have to heat it up this way.
I know I need to do this.
But they weren't going back
and checking themselves.
Right.
And they were getting bad
pulls and then frustrated.
And then they throw the glue
pull stuff to the side,
grind it down and go to
their stud welder and pull again.
So that's like evidence one that, man,
the retention just wasn't there.
They just didn't buy in, right?
They didn't,
or they didn't pay attention or right.
It's not like they're glue
pulling necessarily every day.
It's just not second nature to them.
We move forward from there, right?
So for the first thing we do
is sort of like go over and explain,
here's what's doing,
here's where you're going wrong.
Right.
And we started to write that ship.
Then we get into some heavy pulls.
In fact,
I pulled out Keith from Black Plague.
We pulled out some of his
tension straps and his new
port of power hooks.
And man,
I jumped on this door and created that.
I call it like an egg shaped door.
crown or an egg egg shaped
high so if you get a sharp
dent like through a body
line that's next to a
concave it's that egg
shaped crown buckle that
goes up into there that
just does not want to move
like it is just locked up
it's crazy it's just not
going to happen um and like
borderline folded the door
in on itself certainly throw away door
But we want to show the power of it.
So we set up the straps,
set up the port of power, start pulling.
And even before we start pulling,
all the guys are like, man,
that crown's not going to move.
There's no way this metal moves.
You're sort of dead in the water.
And we start pulling and
that crown starts going in
and then we're holding some
tension out and they're
starting to work that down.
And you can see the look of.
Man,
I can't believe we got to spend this
two days doing this.
And this guy showed us stuff a year ago,
and I'm not sure it works.
Two, just like the title of the episode.
I didn't know it could do that.
I didn't realize this was this strong.
I can't believe these straps
are pulling on that metal and unfolding.
And now this metal that I
know for sure isn't going to move.
is already lessening on its own.
And as we're coming in with a knockdown,
it's just laying down and
wants to smooth out.
Applied a little bit of
outward pressure combined
with the lateral tension.
And in, I don't know,
fifteen or twenty minutes
with talking and discussing,
we took this door that all of them,
fifteen or twenty minutes prior,
were like,
there's no way it's not going to move.
You can't do it.
We took that door to
they were all saying, man,
we could repair this.
I think we could fix this.
If we had to, if it made sense,
we could fix it.
I guess it comes back to
like that you don't know
what you don't know, right?
And had these techs taken
the initiative to go and
study and look more online and pursue,
they would have figured it out.
But
They didn't,
they just went back to their
old ways and kept doing
things the way they used to do.
Their owner, the boss,
saw enough in them and saw
enough in us to have us
come in and do that training,
to invest in them and fast forward that,
right?
Fast forward that learning
curve back to where it should be.
So we did that huge pull.
And then I wanted to show
them some more real world stuff, right?
More real life.
And we went to the bottom of
the door and I jumped on it and put a,
call it a much softer dent
just through a body line,
took the K power,
with some tab straps,
glued that bad boy on.
Now here is where I gave them that,
I call it like the Instagram pop, right?
Where you put the straps on
and you start pulling and
pops the dent up or at
least pops the big part of the low up.
showing them a combination
of those two moves.
Like you just watched all
the light bulbs turn on in their heads.
And they were like, Oh my gosh, I get it.
I understand what's going on.
So from there,
I think we broke for lunch
and we came back and
And now it was time for them
to put it in the real world.
Right.
So we went in and I smashed
the fender on this was a
RAV for smash the fender on
the RAV for we're talking like twenty,
twenty two inch crush.
And we made him work it like
it was a quarter panel.
Right.
I didn't let him pull the
liner down and shove or, you know,
where we would PDR techs
would go in with push tools.
Right.
We made him do it all with glue.
By just taking what they
applied in the morning.
coming in the afternoon, working through,
following the process.
These guys worked, call it as a team,
and had this thing up to a
repairable level.
We go air quotes,
repairable in a body shop.
Certainly for a PDR tech,
up to a level where we're
coming in with push tools
to finish it off.
Like,
In no time with little instruction,
they worked through it.
Then I got to show them a
little bit more production speed,
how I would come in and
clean all of that up,
make a huge difference,
which takes us into day two.
We start to refine them.
Right.
So body techs.
Right.
They're all you all are out
there and you're working
with your hands and you're
feeling panels.
None of them.
in the class we're regularly
regularly using a pdr light
again you don't know what
you don't know so we spent
another half a day instead
of working on that big
smash body shops type stuff
I brought them in and we
started working on refined
damage and taking small
damage and finishing it to
a high level now not pdr
you don't learn pdr in a day or a week
But PDR style damage,
PDR style finishes is what
we spent the whole half day on.
So funny story inside of here.
While I've got the guys
working on the hood and
explaining the light,
they're all broken up
individuals working on their repairs.
I turn around and I hear this boom.
And I look over and the car
is shaking back and forth.
And we're all like, what the,
what was that?
Steven, the owner was there.
And he's like, I mean,
I want to see what these guys can do.
He's like,
here's their final test for the day.
And dude,
he took his foot and planted it
square in the quarter panel
on his poor RAV four.
Not a customer car, not a rental car.
It was like an abandoned car
they had that they own.
just so nobody gets upset.
But man, he blasted this thing.
We're talking quarter panel
replacement all day at a body shop.
He even blew the paint open.
He didn't look beforehand
and the panel had been refinished,
but man, he just blew the paint open.
So we, we,
And we're looking at this and I'm like,
I'm glad you did that to your car,
not me.
But anyways, so we go back and I guess now,
right,
we're changing our syllabus around
a little bit.
And these guys are going to
go after fixing the quarter
panel on this car to get it
to a body shop repairable level.
Or had the paint stayed together.
Like when I say that,
if you're a PDR tech and you're listening,
don't fall off.
When I'm saying like a repairable level,
that's where we would
switch from glue to push tools.
Or if you don't have any access,
you would continue to just
refine and pull and refine
and pull with your glue pulling tools.
But right, like we're working this.
When we let the body shop tap out,
we're at a very...
shallow level where they
would come in with glaze, right?
We would come in with push
tools or continue to pull
more to paintless.
So don't, don't skip out.
So anyways, we get the guys dialed in.
It is amazing to me still, right?
So when we do that one day training,
I always finish with, uh,
we call it door ding or
hail dent to blockable.
So small dent to very close to PDR, right?
And it's really pretty easy to do.
Uh,
or at least it's pretty easy to demo.
And the steps are very easy to follow.
And then some with some practice,
you can get there.
But that that one day is
always like show and tell, right,
I'm showing them what to do,
I'm showing you what to do.
And then you I expect you to go practice.
this training this advanced
glue pull training uh we're
spending that half a day
with the technicians and
they are hands-on and they
are actually pulling the
damage knocking down those
precision high spots uh
working instead of just
with like the black swan
working to regular pdr
style tools or pdr
knockdowns tap downs moving
their own light around uh and these guys
are finishing like as a old
school PDR tech,
because I guess I'm an old guy now, uh,
but as an old school PDR
tech to see what these guys can do,
call it like after lesson one, right?
With where you're over the shoulder,
where they're taking
legitimate inch and a half
or two inch dents to a near PDR level,
like on morning one is unbelievable.
Uh,
coming from like,
that took me a month or
better to figure out back
in my push tool days.
And maybe even longer than a
month to get at this quality.
Like it just,
shout out to the way technology has moved,
evolved.
The lighting is better.
The knockdowns are better.
The glue pulling is like,
it's not even the same thing that it was,
twenty-two years ago when I started.
Like it's a whole different world.
So then to wrap up these guys,
sorry to get back on track.
Sorry to wrap up with these guys.
We go back to that quarter
panel that the owner just
annihilated after lunch.
So then I put them together as a team.
And I want them to work
through getting it all out.
And I just step back to be the coach,
right?
I tell them,
pretend this is tomorrow and
this rolled into your bay
and you've got your group pool kit.
Let's see what you can do.
And if all three of you got
to work together,
And, man, they go to town.
They do a great job.
We've got, on this particular one,
we're pulling some lateral tension,
outward tension.
We're pulling three and four
tabs at a time, working crowns,
getting metal flow in all kinds of areas.
Really watching these guys that, you know,
thirty-six hours beforehand,
maybe like thirty hours beforehand,
they walked in and they were like,
I don't know,
these tabs don't really stick that good.
I get frustrated.
I've done a couple of this with that.
Now watching them work together.
Hey, hey, you go grab, grab this here,
hit here.
All right.
Hold some tension while I do this.
It's watching all those
light bulbs go off in just
a couple of hours, two, three hours.
Remember the exact time they
get that to again, a, a,
glazable level right very
high level body repair if
the paint stayed together
very pushable for a pdr
tech and what really
strikes me and I've only
got to see this a few times
in my one day trainings
over the years but I think
it's something as we start
to add more of these
multi-day advanced
trainings I think we're
going to see it more we sort of like
go back and look at the game footage,
right?
Go back and look at the tapes.
When we start talking
through it and discuss what
it would look like if they
didn't have a glue pole, you know,
how would they have
attacked it versus how they did attack it,
timeframes here and there,
they all agreed that, again,
I say day one,
but like call it lesson one or lesson two,
like in this little glue pole session,
they all sit back and they were like,
or sat back and they were like, you know,
this like thinking through it,
this really is about how
long it would take us to get it to, to,
to a glazable level, the old way.
Well, as a, as a trainer, right.
That's pretty cool to watch
your students learn that quick too,
as a proponent for glue
pole repair and better, uh,
less invasive repairs.
It's exciting to see that
because education has come so far,
because tooling has come so far,
because of things like
lateral tension and innovation,
and this one fresh lesson
of glue pull for these guys,
they're already able to
work as efficiently
as they were the old way
that they've done their whole career.
That's amazing.
To have a new tool set,
like if you're a technician and in,
in sixteen hours,
I can teach you a way to
make better repairs, better for the car.
better for your body right
because you're not slamming
a huge slide hammer with
pens bam bam you're not
they all want to like get
behind the panel and shove
and beat it with a hammer
you're not stretching out
swinging a hammer trying to
hold a dolly in and swing
this way and make all this
noise and bang and it clang
and it beating your body up
you're not filling this huge area of
full of filler and then
sanding all that dust and
all the vibrations through
your hands and making a huge mess, right?
In sixteen hours,
I can take a lot of that
abuse of your body away.
we can take a lot less dust out of the air,
right?
And make your job healthier.
And honestly, it's more fun.
And they were all in agreeance.
I've never been a body man,
but they were all in
agreeance that it's much
more fun to work metal than
it is to sand some sort of
filler or glaze, right?
So we're making better,
safer, longer lasting repairs, right?
And on day one,
they're just as efficient
as they were before or whatever.
On hour sixteen,
they're just as they're as
efficient as they were before.
So I promise you.
In time, the new way is not just better,
it's going to be faster repairs like
This stuff gets,
if you can't hear my voice
getting fired up, me getting fired up,
man,
I love how this stuff gets things going.
So, right.
That was a wrap for the first class,
right?
First two day class.
That's the first guys, the young bucks,
boom, they're out.
So I talked to Steven at the
end of the day and he's like, Hey,
send it in the old guys tomorrow.
I'm like, Oh, here we go.
Freaking crotchety old guys.
Well, I was wrong.
Wasn't the crotchety old guys too.
I think I'm an old guy now, right?
Actually,
like I was the youngest guy by a year in,
in the second class.
Uh,
but we were all like real close to the
same age.
So I guess,
I guess maybe I'm going to have
to hand my young buck card
in pretty soon.
Uh,
in case the gray hair hasn't given it
away.
Anyways, he goes, listen,
I'm sending my old guys.
He's like, but these are not the,
these aren't the crotchety old guys.
These are like the,
the like serious old school, a tax,
like the biggest producers.
Uh,
these are the guys that are coming in
the next day.
So, right.
We go into day or we go into session two,
day three.
And, uh,
They come in and I recognize
a couple of guys, the one guy,
his son was the youngest
guy in the other class.
But anyways,
recognize a couple of the guys
they were in, you know,
like in the training that
we did nine months ago or ten months ago,
whatever it was.
And I got one new guy.
And so I say, Hey, we're gonna, you know,
we're sitting down,
we're having bagels and coffee.
And we start going through the like, Hey,
what's working?
What's not working?
All of them.
Three of them go.
They listen, man.
I'm a production guy.
We're flat right here.
I'm really good at the old way I do this.
I don't think I'm going to
be using this stuff.
But I got to be here.
Like that was the attitude.
Man, I almost like part of me is like, oh,
geez, like,
how are we going to deliver here?
And then there's another
part of me that's like,
where's the crotchety old
guy that I can impress
really quickly and get him on my side?
And I'm like, well,
at least these guys are
high level and producers
and they want to go right.
Like, so I'm going to lean into it.
I'm always up for a
challenge to like turn heads.
So start talking to these guys.
And they're not so much
having like the technical,
I can't get it to stick problems.
They're having the like, it's not my card.
It's in another part of the shop.
I've used it a few times.
The one guy who had not gone
through my training,
but went through another
company's training was like, well,
it was like a few hours, but he's like,
it was more of a sales
pitch than anything.
And like, Hey, look what we can do.
But they didn't show us
anything real naysayer
right in the beginning.
Not nice.
Like none of these guys are
negative naysayers.
They're just kind of like,
maybe let's call them non-believers.
Like they haven't been
converted fully yet.
They haven't drank the,
the Kool-Aid or the
Powerade or body armor or
whatever this is.
So I'm like, all right.
So we talked about some of
the things that could make
it easier for them to work at the shop.
Some different approaches to
organizing the cart, how to lay tools out,
maybe even some tools they
could get themselves.
So they're not relying on the shop cart,
but they want to work with
their own their own gear.
Right.
Understandable.
These guys are like these
are the guys who are like.
well, the shop has that,
but I don't want to rely on the shop.
So I just bought my own, right?
Like, you know,
they've got the huge snap
on toolbox in the back full
of any and everything they'll ever need.
So,
We jump in.
We go through that.
We jump into that caved-in door.
I'm like, man,
I've got to go big with
these guys right away and
jump on the door even
harder than I did on Monday.
The buckle that it created
above the body line,
it wasn't just an egg-shaped crown.
This thing was like an egg
shaped crown that like
somebody got behind and hit
with a fricking spike and
made it so sharp and the
paint just curled away.
I mean like,
I'm looking at this and in my
head I'm going,
there's no freaking way that
I'm going to pull this and
this high spots.
You're going to move like, man,
these guys are busting my balls.
And I just send myself up to
get my balls busted bad.
Like I'm, I'm sweating it a little bit,
but yeah,
I sort of preface them like, listen, man,
fat guy got a little carried away here.
Let's see how this is going to move.
And they're all in agreeance.
They're like,
there's no way that it's not
even going to move.
It's not there.
They're more of a belief
that the thing's not going
to move than the first class.
And those guys were like, man,
they moving.
So follow that same tried
and true process.
glue those straps on, follow all the steps,
make sure my temperature's right.
Get that port of power going.
And Keith, if you listen to,
thank you for making those
hooks for the port of power.
Thank you for making those straps.
You saved my butt on this one anyway.
So we start working and
working and working.
And, and so if you can picture the, the,
the,
strap and the hooks,
you have to be on like one
side of the strap.
So we start this and I say, Hey,
I need you to be able to
knock down this high spot.
So we're going to,
we're going to go on the low side.
And then once that moves up
and we get the crown down a little bit,
we're going to let the pressure off,
flip it around,
like calling it play by play,
how I think it's going to go.
It went exactly how I
thought it was going to go, but good,
not bad.
But I mean, the moves went the same way.
So we start pulling instant.
These, these old guys who are like,
I don't think I'm going to do this.
I don't think it's, I don't think,
I don't think we start moving that door.
Their jaws hit the floor and they're like,
dude, did you see that?
How does that move?
I can't, ma'am.
It's awesome.
So we start bringing it up, hitting power.
Uh, the, the biggest naysayer guy,
the guy who had not been
through a full gene Fetty training,
he starts, I'm like, here, dude,
you should knock down here.
Start knocking on this high spot.
And that wicked crown, uh,
wicked hard since we were in Boston.
It was a wicked hard crown.
He starts hitting that thing and dude,
it is just walking out like butter, uh,
showing exactly how all
these new glue pull techniques,
which is actually way old
school body techniques,
way old school metal techniques,
but new school glue pull techniques.
We start working that thing
out and this metal is just
moving like butter.
Uh, and that instantly, uh,
you could feel like the
energy in the room change.
And these guys are like, what?
No way, this is incredible.
Start moving that up, pull harder,
flip it around the other way,
add some outward tension.
And they're all like, man,
we could fix this door like in no time.
This door was a goner.
There's no way.
they're looking at it and
they're like hey if we
could do this or if we
could be like they walked
through they could see it
exactly what happened it's
like the again back to the
title of the episode I
didn't know I could do that
I didn't know this was this
strong well of course
because you don't know well
you don't know that's why
you invest in more training
that's why you invest in
advanced training that's
why you learn to get better
at your skill be it body
tech pdr tech detailer I
don't care what you're doing
invest in good training with
good trainers good
companies and level up your
skills like move up the
ladder of skills so we move
through that and now it's
like part of my old guys
here we move through that
and that's more like not
actual repair that's just
showing off what we can do
like taking,
taking gluple repair to the extremes,
do that same lateral tension,
pull and pop for them with
the K power and,
Come after lunch and I'd
sort of show them what the
first class did.
Like,
and it's always good to get the old
bucks versus the young bucks mentality.
Like a little bit of
competition is healthy.
So I show them the fender.
They already saw the quarter panel.
And really, Stephen, the owner,
was raving about the
quarter panel when he came
in the next day and saw how
well they fixed it.
But anyways,
we come back after lunch and I
give them an even bigger, deeper,
harder fender shot than I
gave the first guys.
Now, mind you, this,
I would say all of the
techs in the classes were A techs.
The second group is like veteran ATechs.
They've learned how to work
a little smarter and a
little bit faster than the
young buck who just wants to go, go, go.
Right.
And if you're not sure,
or haven't heard the story
about the old bull and young bull,
young bulls and old bulls
are two different kinds of people.
These guys are the old bulls.
So they come in and man,
they take me from sweating
it in the morning, right?
Like,
can I keep these guys happy and engaged?
come back in the afternoon.
We worked through that
fender that was worse than
the previous classes fender.
These guys blow it out in no time, right?
They understand how to work faster.
They're working cleaner.
They're making moves.
They're making better decisions.
I had to add two or three
extra lessons into day one to keep these,
these old guys, air quotes,
also old guy here, air quotes, uh,
That we're disinterested.
We're not, do not want to change.
They don't want to hear about it.
Like we come back after
lunch and they're like,
we have this and this,
what can we do here?
Oh my God.
I didn't know you could do that with it.
Right.
Introduced him to a little
bit of cold glue, showed him production,
showed him how to move even faster.
These guys were stoked.
I mean, like the light, but they couldn't,
I don't think they could
wait to come back to class.
the next morning.
Right.
So that afternoon to wrap up, I'm like,
all right guys,
we're going to give you a
little headstart since
you're working so well,
but I'm going to challenge you more.
Like we saw what Steven did
to the passenger quarter on the RAV.
I got to give you something harder, right?
Like as a fellow old guy,
we can't let these young
bucks show us up and you're
the production.
You're the more production
guys in the shop.
You don't want those young
bucks passing you up, right?
So we go over to the driver's side,
which is the gas door side.
And Doug, one of the writers,
is there now.
And we start talking.
And we're looking for like,
what can we do?
That's hard.
I don't want to do another fender.
Cause they just like school,
the fender doors just
aren't that exciting really.
And I don't want to,
aren't out of the glass.
Cause I don't want to kick
it hard enough to make it exciting.
And I'm like,
blow the window out of this car.
Like that could be bad.
So we go to the quarter and
Doug's a pretty big dude, size,
twelve shoes, probably six feet tall.
And, uh, we're like, all right.
We're challenging,
like the guys are sort of challenging.
So what if we hit the,
what if we go through the
bottom of the wheel?
Well, then right.
We get into that wheelhouse a little bit,
or what if we go here and
if we can hit it hard enough, man,
we get that door jam to open up.
That's what we decided on.
So we're like, all right, Doug,
here you go.
hit it right here.
And we're going to see if we
can't get that door gap to open up.
So Doug goes full send and
smashes the quarter panel
opened up this door gap,
probably close to a half an inch.
I mean, dude, he rolled wide open.
We were all kind of like, Ooh,
Okay, no softballs here,
no gimme's here at all.
So then they got to spend
some time talking
estimating and how they'd write it,
which is like a great extra
bonus for the class.
Side note, I don't have a pen on my table.
Learned this lesson in PDR a
long time ago.
Same lesson holds true in auto body.
You cannot out-earn your pen.
If you can write proper estimates,
you will make more money
faster with a pen than you
can with any other tool in the box.
You can have all the glue
pull stuff in the world, every PDR tool,
every push tool in the world,
the best lights.
You can have the best car aligners,
the best Spinisi benches.
None of that matters.
The pen cannot write them all.
Anyways.
So we come back in the next day,
get these guys on their small damage.
They're doing great.
Uh, side note, old guys,
go get your eyes checked.
The young bucks did beat
them a little bit on the light damage.
I think just because they
could see better.
The readers were coming out.
Uh, if you're going to do high level work,
right?
High level glue pull in collision.
Certainly if you're a PDR tech,
go get your eyes checked.
If you're,
old guy like me.
You might need readers now, right?
I've been using them for
about a year and a half.
It's just a must do.
The young bucks beat them there.
But but they took and
latched on to the same
print the principles the
same way the young guys did.
They were just as fired up.
But they did get beat by the young bucks.
But I think just because
they couldn't see into the afternoon.
These guys, they were like, in fact,
they came in in the morning
and the one guy's like, hey, man,
I stopped.
I got straps.
I got this.
I was thinking about this last night.
What if we go about it this way?
Man, I was thinking about that last night.
I was drinking my coffee this morning.
This is how we're going to go about it.
These guys,
like the twenty four hour swing from.
man, I don't, I'm sort of set in my ways.
This stuff's fast.
I just like how it goes to like,
they spent their off time
in the evening and some of
their coffee time in the
morning thinking about how
they're going to attack this with glue.
Love it.
Huge win for the instructor,
huge one for glue ball repair.
It was amazing.
So they come in,
And they're going back and
forth and back and forth on
how to attack this.
And do we do lateral tension?
Do we just do it outward tension?
Do we lose lateral and
outward at the same time?
What's the answer?
They went straight outward
and then we had to use side note,
like they went straight out
and then had to use,
we use tension later in the repair.
Shout out to Black Plague PDR tools,
blackplaguepdr.com, deadrattabs.com.
Dude, that yellow edge strap.
We talked about it in the MTE hall.
I think we may have
mentioned it in the
interview from MTE if that
audio got saved.
Anyways, the new edge straps.
We glued this thing in a jam, door jam.
And I did not have...
We did not have a full inch
of glue touching.
Like if you can picture it,
it's two straps or one strap,
like folded over, but two edges.
And like,
we sort of like call it duck
build them out and glued to the edge.
I did not think that it
would be strong enough.
Man, was I wrong.
In fact,
I sent Keith a picture and I'm like, dude,
I don't know how this thing's holding.
But anyways,
go to BlackBlakePDR.com and
check out those edge straps.
And I think they're cheap.
Like super,
super impressed with how that
thing freaking pulled, dude.
Wow.
Anyways, in hindsight,
had they done lateral...
and outward at the same time.
I think they could have made
a cleaner repair.
But even still,
same results as the day before.
These guys were all like...
In fact,
I think they said faster than they
would have done it
traditionally and way less
invasive because they were
talking about conventional
repair with like tack and
pull plates in that jam to pull forward.
And then you're burning the
inside of that jam.
Now that sits in between the
gas door and the jam.
So may or may not be able to
get corrosion protection in there.
Like you're destroying this car.
They were like, I think it was faster.
Honest to goodness.
I think it was the faster
way to fix the car.
Again, they spent sixteen hours with me.
I call it one drawn out
class and I already have
the best producers in a shop.
Working as efficient,
at least as efficiently,
if not more efficiently
than their old school tried
and true proven ways.
Because of some extra advanced training.
right?
Some more time, some deeper dives, right?
And these guys that, the one guy's been,
he's like, sixty one,
he's been doing it his whole life, like,
thirty plus years,
knocking on forty years.
If he started when he was fifteen,
like a lot of the old school guys,
like forty five years.
If we can make differences
in somebody who's been
doing their job to a super
high level for that long in two days,
Like,
if that's not evidence to invest in
yourself and invest in great training,
I just don't know what is.
Like, man, this group had me fired up.
And the roller coaster of
emotions was a little
exciting as a trainer, right?
I always love a challenge.
And man,
it was great to watch the more seasoned
technicians come in and
really watch those light bulbs go off.
So excited to see where they go with it.
I think we'll be back up
next quarter to do another
training for them to get a
few more of their guys in.
But anyways, like I tell you the story one,
because it was fun to,
you need to be investing in
yourself and more training.
And I don't care when we kind of care,
I kind of care if it's with
us or not with us with AI,
but really it's,
I care more that you are
investing in yourself and
you're getting better, right?
So you can take online courses with us.
We are available for in-person deep dives.
If you are on the PDR side of things,
I've got my fancy banners here, right?
If you are on, if you're in PDR, right?
Mine and John's level up
advanced PDR training is I
think when I was on the website,
it's twenty one days away.
The end of March at the end of this month.
Yes,
it's March second when I'm recording
March third when you're listening.
March twenty fourth to
twenty eighth right here in Pittsburgh.
Now, if you just listen to this episode,
you just heard what I can
do with two days with body guys.
Right.
And change their world.
Imagine.
What?
Five days with me and Jean Venice.
Like that dude is, I'm,
I'm friends with him,
but I can't tell you that
his birth certificate isn't
like from another planet.
Like I think him and Bryce
came from some other
planets and started doing
this PDR stuff just to make
us mere mortals,
our little human brains
think that it's possible.
Anyways, somebody like Jean,
ten time PDR competition winner.
Like that's ten first place.
Go to his YouTube channel
and check him out if you
haven't seen him.
Go look at how many times he's won.
The dude's out of control.
Imagine what you could learn
as a PDR tech if you spent
five days locked in a building.
Well, not the whole time.
We'll let you go out to
dinner and sleep in your hotel.
Five work days locked in the
building with me and John
working hands-on with you
to improve your skills like
if I can change body guys
in two days I can change
your world in five and
you're getting jean on top
of that like that's crazy
or like zan if you live in
the united states uh anyway
so to find out more about
that training auto
appearance institute.com forward slash
level up limited to ten
seats seats are selling
once they're sold out
they're gone like we're not
opening it back up excuse me
Speaking of Black Plague,
so check his tool out there.
We also,
now this is not one of my courses.
This is a separate course.
So it doesn't necessarily
land in the forty seven
dollar a month subscription.
Haven't negotiated that with Keith yet,
but we have brought back.
To the world.
Keith's PDR phone skills is
PDR sales skills,
PDR phone skills sales course.
If you are in the PDR
business and you talk to a
customer period in person or on the phone,
and definitely if you talk
to them on the phone,
we have made his course
available again on
autoappearanceinstitute.com.
Just go to the learn tab and
it will be in the course catalog.
Keith's phone skills is back
and available for just one
hundred and twenty seven bucks.
this course has been
required training for
everybody in my business
since this thing came out
it is an absolute gold mine
of knowledge in fact when
we did the podcast with
keith a few weeks ago or a
month ago whatever that was
uh we had been talking and
he was like hey man let's
bring it back to the world
like it's been asleep too
long so here it is you can now get
Keith's PDR phone skills course,
available instant download,
instant access as soon as you buy it,
right here on
ottawaappearanceinstitute.com.
Go to the learn tab.
Speaking of Keith, all right, hold on.
There's your ASMR for the show.
For you audio people.
That tap is me smacking on this
big toolbox that I have on my lap.
I have got the new brand new,
not even unpacked it yet
for you video people.
SB four,
that is the new shrinky box from Keith.
at Black Plague.
Keep an eye out.
We're gonna be doing some videos for Keith,
putting this thing to use this week.
I will probably touch base
on it on the next show.
So more reason to listen to the next show.
But anyways,
we're gonna do a product video for Keith,
how to set it up, exactly how to use it,
how to put it to work.
And that will be in time very soon,
hopefully, available on Black Plague PDR.
for the how-to with the tool,
but the box is available
now on blackplaguepdr.com.
The easiest way I'd have
found to find it is just go
to the search box, type in S as in Sam,
B as in boy, four, the number four,
and it will pop right up.
In talking to Keith,
he's made some pretty cool
advancements with it.
It is trigger activated.
It also comes in a box.
None of these other ones come in a box.
You've got to assemble your own kit.
It comes with everything you need.
Wire wheels for taking the
paint off the back of the panel.
It even comes with a copper
bar to sneak up behind and
inside of braces if you've
got other places to shrink.
If you haven't used...
a shrinky box before and
you're doing any real, real PDR repairs,
anything advanced,
you need a shrinky box.
I'm excited to use this and
put it up against the power
PDR box that I've been using.
Like I was an early customer there.
I've been using them for a long time.
I'm excited for this.
Also,
if you want hands-on training with a
shrinky box,
the power pdr box or both I
know where you could go get
that can you guess do you
know what I'm going to say
autoappearanceinstitute.com
forward slash level up we
will be dealing with
stretched nasty shots and
exactly how to use these
and fix them right little
added bonus for you
Speaking of the Institute, the website,
advanced extra training and
everything like that.
We announced this at.
Where did it go?
There we go.
We announced this at MTE.
We have opened up our library.
And as our personal library
continues to grow,
excludes Keith's PDR phone
skills course and other
subject matter experts
courses until they decide to put it in.
Sorry,
I had to give you a little
disclaimer there.
Anyways,
we have opened up our entire
library for just forty
seven bucks a month.
You can go in and start
taking all of our classes.
Right.
That's available.
on the website
autoappearanceinstitute.com
check it out today but
forty seven bucks a month
like that's insane if
you're thinking about doing
something like less than
fifty bucks if you can't
make your money back on that
I don't want your money.
I feel bad.
I really, it really would feel bad.
Speaking of which,
all things Auto Appearance
Institute are on
autoappearanceinstitute.com.
You can follow us on socials
across the board.
Anywhere we post is at Auto
Appearance Institute.
That'll get you there.
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn.
Suck at LinkedIn.
Need to get better at LinkedIn.
Do any of you guys have a
tip for getting better at LinkedIn?
Anybody?
DM me.
DM us.
If you're interested in any
of our trainings, be it online,
advanced with John, in person,
one-on-one.
If you're looking for any kind of training,
we're here to help.
Our email is admin at
autoappearanceinstitute.com.
Or again,
DM us in through any of the
social channels.
Coming up, we...
I don't know if you can see,
the desk looks a little different, right?
I got a camera.
I don't know how much you can see here,
but we got some wiring back there.
We've got switchers set up here,
the lighting.
We are getting ready to start doing
more live streams, right?
We did a couple of webinars
to start the year.
We did a glue pool webinar.
We did a beginner's PDR webinar,
loved the live interaction.
We're gonna start doing live demos,
live repairs from the shop.
That's why we built this
cart to be able to roll
around and roll it up to
things and do some demos,
some live streams.
What do you guys want to see
inside of live streams?
What is going to be
something that brings you
back and makes you watch
over and over and over and over again?
That's what we want to do.
I think for now we're going
to be starting on YouTube and Facebook.
I think through this StreamYard app thing.
Still figuring out the nuances.
But it's coming up.
I want to know what you guys
want to see on live streams,
tool reviews.
We'll do tool reviews,
show you how tools work.
We'll show you how tools work.
I'm open to stream.
Again,
we're here to talk and teach you guys.
So let us know what you want to see.
Again, guys, it's filling up.
AutoAppearanceInstitute.com
forward slash level up that
advanced training with
myself and John at the end of the month,
March twenty fourth to twenty eighth.
All of the details are on
that level up page.
If you need training,
I told you where to go there.
Told you all things auto
appearance Institute on the website.
And of course, follow us on socials guys.
Thank you so much for listening.
That is episode number
twenty five in the books,
a quarter of the way to a
hundred man that it seems
like we just started.
I can't believe it's twenty
five episodes already.
Super stoked for that.
I will see you guys.
Or you will hear me or I'll see you.
I guess I really can't.
All right, that's enough.
We're going to stop.
So anyways, guys, that's the show.
Trying to get these graphics dialed in.
Anyways, that's the show.
I will see you on the next episode.
Thanks.
