Fun with a Gloss Meter ;)

Loach said:
It's funny because you would think the gloss meter as a tool would be the most suited towards an industry that revolves around maximizing surface enhancement. But as you allude to, gloss is only one aspect of the whole picture of what our eyes are trying to perceive, and this type of meter is only going to capture measurements for this one aspect.
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And this is the idea I presented here,


Gloss Meter


I'm still thinking a gloss meter would be great as another tool in a person's tool arsenal like a paint thickness gauge to demonstrate to the masses that you know your stuff when it comes to car detailing in general and paint correction specifically.


That said, I do believe the human eye is more capable of visually detecting all the dimensions of beauty that a machine can never do.


:)
 
How about the gloss meter only being useful to measure how well you finished off your polishing? Before any LSP is applied.

The tool measures looking directly down at the surface at a perpendicular angle. To me looking straight down at a hood after a LSP is applied is probably the worst way to judge how a LSP has changed the appearance of the car. Every LSP you apply is a new medium that the light has to pass through and will have its unique index of refraction (bending of light passing from one medium to a different one) and unique angle of total reflection (the angle that you need to be looking at a surface for you not to be able to see into the paint anymore and the surface turns into complete mirror and you can't even tell what the paint color is anymore). It is these 2 factors as well as gloss that will make each LSP look unique on the same car. You have to look at the whole car. Those factors play a big part on how things like the contours of the car look and how well you can see the depth in color. Different LSP's will also highlight certain colors more than others too.
 
The problem with a gloss meter is it's only reading the paint in 1 demension when your eye sees it in 3
 
Ronin47 said:
Imaginary number???? So a PTG spits out imaginary numbers too??? You hilarious.
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Its not imaginary but it's meaningless when an acceptable
Number is a wide range of numbers that vary from car to car.

You can tell a customer they scored a 100 on a gloss meter but what does that mean? They don't know if 100 is the best number or the absolute worst. There is no refrence
 
fightnews said:
Its not imaginary but it's meaningless when an acceptable
Number is a wide range of numbers that vary from car to car.

You can tell a customer they scored a 100 on a gloss meter but what does that mean? They don't know if 100 is the best number or the absolute worst. There is no refrence
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Thats where you wrong, the reference is where you started from on the paint and what improvement you made, eg. From 65GU to 97GU. No longer is it subjective, now it is quantified.
 
One persons opinion (not mine necessarily cuz I don't know enough to form an opinion)
Gloss Meters 101

While typically associated with high end detailers who are trying to extract the highest level of clarity and gloss from automotive paint, the gloss meter is used to measure shine or luster on a smooth surface. The person(s) using these meters are typically looking for a certain range or standard that indicates a high level, or “good” reading, or they are looking for comparative readings to indicate percentages of increase in gloss ranges.

Gloss meters are good for providing at least some level of qualitative results, as opposed to the all-too-common method of standing back and saying: “yeah…it looks good!”. The detailing industry is overly subjective when determining how good a car looks, or how much improvement has taken place. What looks “great” to one person may only look “good” to another…and without having the ability to actually measure this, then our statements or reviews simply lack validity.

So at this point in the article, you’re probably drawing the conclusion that I am recommending that everybody goes out and buys an expensive gloss meter, right? After all…we need some kind of device to post results in a qualitative manner.
Actually, I’m here to break the bad news that gloss meters fall short in determining just how good a surface looks, and the readings can be deceptive because it doesn’t measure how our eyes see and perceive a finish. Sure, it’s better than nothing, but you simply cannot evaluate paint, polishing methods, polishing tools, coatings, etc. with just a gloss meter as it doesn’t provide enough information.

Below is a perfect example as to why a gloss meter can provide us with a false sense of security, and fall short of giving us a true indication on how good a painted surface really looks. Both of these pieces started out with almost identical gloss readings! But having said that, I don’t know anybody (who has good vision) that would say that they look equally as good. The piece on the left has so much texture and orange peel (waviness) in the finish that the reflections are distorted and hazy. The finish on the right has been leveled and polished to remove both texture and orange peel, providing a very clear reflection. If you were to rely on a simple gloss meter, it would seriously fall short of telling you the whole story.

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Here’s another example of two surfaces with very similar gloss readings, but one clearly has a better finish that everybody would prefer. In this one, we used a process that allows us to remove the fine texture in the clear coat, but we don’t get so invasive as to remove orange peel. What we are doing here is creating a higher level of clarity, or image quality in the reflections. This is what we perceive as gloss. The meter shows the same gloss, but our eyes and brain processes them as completely different from one another…with the texture-free surface appearing as a “glossier finish”.

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More to the article but this is the part that pertains (it seems) to gloss meters specifically. All said, if I could find a relatively inexpensive gloss meter, I'd get one just for grins. Many times I'm going over something with a second step using something like Scholl S40 and can rarely actually tell if it's worth the time effort.

Also, does a 'Gloss Unit' have a specific definition or is it just a made-up scale to illustrate 'more is better'? I dunno.
 
Gloss is mesured from 0 to 200. So at 0 the surface is perfectly mat and gives no reflection at all. At 200, the surface is perfectly reflective and 100% of the light is reflected.

For cars, I think a good ballpark goal is 100 GU.

Now comparing eyeball vs tool. There are aspects you guys are not considering here. Ambient light has a major impact on how a car look. Let's say the car is in an underground garage, you will be hard pressed to know how glossy it is. If you do the inspection with the client, the tool can give you a number and you can be much more precise in what you say to the client. Let's say his paint is already at 90, don't tell him you will be able to make the car shine a lot more. If his paint is at 65, you can then safelly tell him you can make a major improvement in the way the paint shines.

To each his own, I agree with you that the Gloss Meter number is not the end all be all, but I think it is a very useful tool for many reasons. But like in all things, use what you like and use it often (hope Mikes doesn't make a copyright strike against this comment LOL).
 
Calendyr said:
Hey guys, I received my Gloss Meter by courrier directly from China monday and today I had some time to play with it.

I would post images but this forum is amazingly hostile to image posting. Everytime I try to upload something it tells me it's too big and when I try to use image URLs from other websites it gives me an error. So, sorry, no images.

So today was a beautiful day and I only had one appointment which ended at 2 pm. I was home by 3pm so I decided to give the gloss meter a few things to test.

I have been wanting to apply a ceramic coating to my car for 3 years and never have the time. Only free time I have is when weather is bad, and I can't apply a coating in bad weather... so tough luck for me ;) Today was different. I knew I only had about 6 hours of sunlight left if I started immediatelly so I decided to simply cut each step a little bit and be able to do the job in 5 hours instead of the usual 7.

I took a reading before doing anything to have a baseline with a dirty car : 92.1 GU. My car is silver and the paint is almost in perfect condition. So a high gloss before touching it was what I was expecting.

Started with a pressure wash of the car
Followed by Iron Decon with Ferrous Dweller
Pressure rinsed it all off
Then did a rinseless wash with ONR

Also did mechanical decon with Optimum's clay towel. Meh. It kept sticking to the panels, not a big fan of these small towels so far. I think NanoSkin sponges are a better product. Also after doing the car the towel is all gummed up and I could not find a way to get it clean. Will have to talk to Yvan about it ;(

After drying the car, I took the first gloss reading: 96.4 GU (that is an average but the numbers varied very little between readings)

I decided to do a very quick compound step just to see how it would affect the reading. The paint did not need compounding. So I took Meguiars D300 with my Rupes ES21, slapped on a Lake Country ThinPro orange pad and did 2 slow passes on the hood. Repeated the process on the trunk. After IPA wipedown I took a reading of 101.5 GU. Pretty impressive for a compound, I would be very curious to see how M105 would compare.

I then proceeded to polish the trunk with M205. As far as I know M205 is the polish that gives the best finish, so I wanted an other baseline. I used a Buff&Shine green light polishing pad on the Rupes ES21 and did 3 medium speed passes. I could have worked it longer and probably would have gotten a higher reading but I was pressed for time ;)
So the reading after IPA wipedown was 107.4 GU.

I then proceeded to apply CarPro Essence on both the panel that was polished with M205 and the one that was only compounded. I wanted to see if polishing before applying Essence would make any difference. I used an other Buff&Shine green light polishing pad on the Rupes ES21 and did 3 fast speed passes.
I got identical readings on both panels: 103 GU. This surprised me cause I always felt Essence gave the best gloss of all the polishes because of the fillers. So 2 things here: 1) Maybe the fillers are blocking the metal flakes in the paint reducing the gloss a little. 2) Essence being a SiO2 product needs time to cure to obtain maximum gloss. I took the readings immediatelly after application so it is very possible it would have improved after some time had passed. But it's still surprising to me that M205 had a better finish ;)

I then proceeded to coat the entire car with McKee's 37 paint coating. This is the original formula, not the improved one. After application, gloss was reduced to 100.5 GU. That surprised me. I know it takes about a week for a coating to get it's maximum gloss, once the cure process is done... but I was not expecting it to reduce the gloss.

Finally, I applied CarPro Reload on top of the coating to protect it while it cures. Did my typical method of spraying a microfiber towel 4 times to do the first panel, then twice more for each panel after. I then buff off with a microfiber towel with very short nap.
Final reading after Reload: 97.1 GU an other surprise. I am thinking Reload needs to cure as well to get max gloss.

I think I will take a reading tomorrow to see if numbers have improved.

All and all, I think this is a very nice tool to have. When I work on cars that really need it (like I usually do), there should be a huge gap between the initial number of the final one. I know paint in bad condition can easilly get in the 50-60 GU range. So if I can get that to almost double, I think it would make for great pictures ;)
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You got the one with only the 60 degree angle correct?? I assume since your car is silver it's metallic silver?? I talked to a guy and he recommended use the 20 degree setting on the 20,60,85 unit for measuring metallic paint, he may just have been trying to sell me a more expensive unit.
 
Yes the unit I have is a 60 degree reading. From what I understand that is best for car paint. Lower angles such as the 20 degrees was mentioned for very mate surfaces. I did not do that much reseach on this. Google it, I am sure there is an articles somewhere that explains the usefulness of the various angles.

The model I purchased was 199,99 CAN$ on Amazon.ca. Same unit was 145 CAN$ on E-bay. I went with the Amazon vendor because I have had some pretty bad experiences ordering electronic devices off chinesse vendors off E-bay. Also since this is a business expense I like to have a proper invoice fpr income tax deductions.

All and all it's pretty affordable when I compare it to some of the things I have purchased in the past.
 
For vehicle paint 60 degrees is all thats needed, for tiles,walls,flooring etc. you require the other angles I’ve been told. So if u a detailer theres no real need for the other angles.
 
Calendyr said:
All and all it's pretty affordable when I compare it to some of the things I have purchased in the past.
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Boy, ain't that the truth :)

My list of of "Seemed like a good idea at the time..." continues to grow.
 
Calendyr, I think it's money well spent and a great marketing tool.
 
To me, there is a big difference in "gloss" and "depth". You can have two identical cars side by side and paint depth will beat gloss in my eyes.
 
Kdancy said:
To me, there is a big difference in "gloss" and "depth". You can have two identical cars side by side and paint depth will beat gloss in my eyes.
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Then you should get a depth meter.
 
Dumb question. Do these meters measure surface gloss reflection only ? but not the deepness and dimension ?
 
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