If you get a pencil and paper, and you start drawing circles and lines mimicking the motion of orbital polisher, you can always select a section of the paper with concentric circles, as well as other sections where the circles and lines are not necessarily concentric. However, whenever I see pictures of swirls, I always see concentric circles formed around the image of the light source (the sun and/or flash light reflecting off the surface illuminated). In particular, if swirls are scratches on the surface (they are, though), then, we would expect they are fixed in space, and they should not be always concentric to the source light images; in other words, when illuminated, they should be intersecting diagonally some of the rest of the swirl circles. However, if observed, these diagonal scratches will be denominated something different.
I was in a restaurant yesterday, and I noticed the same phenomenon in the table I was setting at, which had been coated with certain epoxy resin some time back, and it was full of scratches. Again, playing with the candle light, I was able to see the so called swirl mark in the manner described above (other deeper scratches also present). Now, I am not aware of any restaurant that uses rotary and/or DA polisher to clean the tables. Long story short, I concluded that what we are experiencing is an optical illusion, in particular, this seems to be related to a the well-known phenomena of electromagnetic wave diffraction (which btw also plays an important aspect in the polishing process and quality testing of mirrors). Other auto detailing defects, as we observe and experience, them, may certainly be related to this and other wave phenomena.
Now, this may well be common knowledge/sense in the detailing community, and as so, my statement is just mere platitude, but I am new to auto detailing, and I may have been thrown off by the definitions of certain paint or clear-coat defects (nothing wrong with them, just going through the learning curve and semantic familiarization). On the other hand, the technological implication may be more relevant; for example, I wonder if anyone uses lenses in order to evaluate how well-polished a surface is after detailing (something Newton invented in the 1700’s).
For sure, there is a lot of physics in this arena, and contrary to what has been mentioned in other topics, quantum mechanics (QM) is not such a far-fetch description of the daily activities of those that make a living out of detailing (they’re constantly dealing with molecular bonding –coating-, polishing or removing matter –breaking molecular bonds- at the microscopic level, friction, heat transfer, etc., etc.). This is real, blue-collar QM in action, whether we admit it or not.
I was in a restaurant yesterday, and I noticed the same phenomenon in the table I was setting at, which had been coated with certain epoxy resin some time back, and it was full of scratches. Again, playing with the candle light, I was able to see the so called swirl mark in the manner described above (other deeper scratches also present). Now, I am not aware of any restaurant that uses rotary and/or DA polisher to clean the tables. Long story short, I concluded that what we are experiencing is an optical illusion, in particular, this seems to be related to a the well-known phenomena of electromagnetic wave diffraction (which btw also plays an important aspect in the polishing process and quality testing of mirrors). Other auto detailing defects, as we observe and experience, them, may certainly be related to this and other wave phenomena.
Now, this may well be common knowledge/sense in the detailing community, and as so, my statement is just mere platitude, but I am new to auto detailing, and I may have been thrown off by the definitions of certain paint or clear-coat defects (nothing wrong with them, just going through the learning curve and semantic familiarization). On the other hand, the technological implication may be more relevant; for example, I wonder if anyone uses lenses in order to evaluate how well-polished a surface is after detailing (something Newton invented in the 1700’s).
For sure, there is a lot of physics in this arena, and contrary to what has been mentioned in other topics, quantum mechanics (QM) is not such a far-fetch description of the daily activities of those that make a living out of detailing (they’re constantly dealing with molecular bonding –coating-, polishing or removing matter –breaking molecular bonds- at the microscopic level, friction, heat transfer, etc., etc.). This is real, blue-collar QM in action, whether we admit it or not.
