It’s no secret that Australian transport companies take great pride in their trucks.
Whether you’re bringing your fleet to a show or just heading down the highway, presentation is key.
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That’s why custom metal polisher Steven White, who buffs rigs to perfection, is booked up over two months in advance.
“I have nearly 9,000 customers,” he says.
“The majority of them want to get their truck polished for presentation purposes – they turn up and the customer has more confidence in the company because the truck looks like a million bucks.
“Others are getting ready for truck shows – like in January I polished 20 trucks for the Koroit truck show.”
Steven got into all things bling when he was just 16 years old.
“I didn’t have parents in the transport industry or anything like that,” he says.
“I suppose when you’re 16, you want to be ambitious.
“I did bull bars for four years and then went into chrome plating and metal polishing.”
After a hiatus making and polishing handrails for hotels and shopping centres, Steven got back into the truck biz in 2012.
He now runs his own company, Steve’s Custom Metal Polishing, in Terang, Victoria.
He takes great pride in his work, and is happy whenever he hears that a rig he’s polished has won a truck show.
He’s also pretty competitive, which keeps him motivated.
“A lot of people get into this business and do it for a while, and then they give up,” he says.
“It’s quite physical work, dirty and dusty work.
“A lot of it is done with machinery but you finish it off by hand.
“I guess I’m egotistical – I know I can do a better job than other people can!”
Steven works as many as 16 hours a day, with only his family helping him run the business.
“Both my sons, my daughter and my wife help out,” he says.
“I had my kids working with me when they were 14 – get them when they’re young!
“My wife will polish the tanks that are cloudy and mucky and she’ll turn them into a perfect mirror.”
Steven said there were a “lot of headaches” when teaching his wife how to polish, because there’s more to the work than you’d think.
“You have to get rid of the cloudiness or oxidation,” he explains.
“The polishing is initially done with heavy machinery – a standalone five horsepower machine with cotton and hemp mops and block compounds, which are a polishing compound.
“You then have to get rid of the swirls, because the mops can leave swirls on the aluminium and it looks bad.”
Even trucks that are fresh from the factory sometimes have to be polished.
“The bull bar companies are under the pump because there are so many trucks being made,” he says.
“Some of them are pumping out two or three bull bars a week and the polishers can’t keep up.
“So the transport companies are getting the trucks but there are swirl marks all over the bull bar, and they call me saying ‘I can’t drive it like this, can you fix it up for me?’”
Interestingly, polishing has certain limits in Australia, because of the glare of the sun.
“I sometimes do tankers and tipper buckets, but I can’t do a lot of them anymore,” he says.
“Only tankers are allowed to be polished in Victoria now, after tipper buckets caused some grass fires in paddocks.”
Over time, Steven has refined his craft and changed the way he does certain things.
“Because I’ve been doing this since I was 16, I’ve learned different practices and tried different methods,” he says.
Of course, metal polishing technology has also improved over time.
“Years ago, we used to use just cotton mops but now it’s a mix of cotton and hemp.
“You’ve got a steel ring in the centre and a coupling plate that goes on and locks it into place.
“Those are new products from South Australia and they bring up a better finish and save us time.”
Steven does everything from brass to stainless steel to copper, and different metals require a different approach.
“The brass and the copper has to be lacquered with a clear acrylic coating once it’s polished,” he says.
“It goes green pretty quickly otherwise.
“You’ve got to learn how to repaint things – it’s part of the job.”
He has excellent attention to detail, and no stone is left unturned.
“People often forget about the steps, because they are hard to polish,” he says.
“But if you walk around the truck and everything else is polished but the steps, you really notice it.”
He says there are certain mistakes he sees truckies making which should be avoided at all costs.
“Truckies should try not to wash the truck at a truck wash, because it leaves stains on the aluminium,” he explains.
“I tell customers to use Morning Fresh dishwashing liquid.
“It leaves no stains on the aluminium, and it won’t contribute to oxidising it.”
Steven says that the fewer products you buy to wash your truck, the better, because many of them leave a waxy residue.
He also recommends using old flannelette sheets rather than t-shirts as a polishing rag.
“Some t-shirts have nylon stitching and nylon can really scratch aluminum,” he says.
“Flannelette sheets are basically all cotton so they work well.”
He warns against using a scourer to get rid of bugs.
“Customers will use a Scotch-Brite scourer and scratch their trucks, and then they come to me saying ‘Argh, what have I done!’
“I tell them if they use the Morning Fresh and wash their whole truck in it, the bugs will just fall off.
“They look at me like I’m crazy, but it works.”
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