The word holograms means a specific scratch pattern inflicted into paint using a rotary buffer

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

The word holograms means a specific scratch pattern inflicted into paint using a rotary buffer


The discussion about holograms comes up all the time in the car detailing world. The word holograms means,

a specific scratch pattern inflicted into paint using a rotary buffer



The pattern of swirls you see are actually scratches and the pattern you see in the paint mimic the direction a rotary buffer was moved over the surface.

Sometimes people will refer to micro-marring caused by the abrasive technology and/or the pad used on an orbital polisher as holograms. But these scratches are not holograms but micro-marring. It is true that on darker colored paint you can see a pattern in the paint that mimics the way an orbital polisher was moved over the surface but even so, this pattern and these scratches are not the same as the scratches instilled by the single rotational direction of a pad spinning against the paint when using a rotary buffer.

One reason it's important to distinguish between the two types of scratch patterns is so that everyone in our industry is on the same page when discussion paint defects. While a Ford Truck and a Chevy Truck are both trucks, they at the same time they are very different merely because they are built by very different companies.


Hologram Scratches
These are holograms instilled into the paint by a rotary buffer and a wool pad.


1969 Corvette
This Corvette has a long history as a race car but the current owner tamed it down and now just cruises it to car shows.

Problem was... the dreaded holograms...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: The word holograms means a specific scratch patern inflicted into paint using a rotary buffer

More hologram articles and pictures



Here are some hologram scratches from a rotary buffer in a 2006 Mustang

Here's a few shots taken in the sun. Note how the swirls in the paint closest to the windshield have an almost floating or 3D effect, this is where the term hologram comes from in the context of talking about swirls instilled by a rotary buffer.

Here's a section of the above photo cropped out and in full size...
Often times you'll hear or read about "Holograms" or "Buffer Trails". These are both interchangeable terms for Rotary Buffer Swirls. If you look at the below swirls they almost seem to have a 3D or floating in the paint affect, this is the appearance characteristic from which we get the word hologram.

Mustangs are beautiful cars but not when the paint shimmers with swirls... the paint is supposed to shimmer with a swirl-free shine....

Here's the same car but now we're using the flash from our camera to light up and reveal the horrendous swirls...

I don't think I've ever seen a car so swirled out by the mis-use of a rotary buffer...

The zillions of swirls in the clear layer makes the paint look hazy and blocks your view of the black paint under the clear top coat. This reduces the darkness of the paint making the true black look gray.

The above pictures were taken from the below article, more pictures including the AFTER shots can be found by clicking the link.

2006 Mustang GT Convertible - Meguiar’s DA Microfiber Polishing System

 

[GSKR]

Geez that's horrible.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Geez that's horrible.

It was cut with a heavy cut compound with a wool pad and a rotary buffer. This is after I chemically stripped it to remove all the polishing oils.

Nothing wrong with cutting with wool pads and compounds as long as the follow-up step is a foam pad to remove the holograms.

 

[DBAILEY]

The word hologram also gets misused to describe LSP smearing. The lines can and do look like holograms depending how you last wiped it.

Boy, I bet that silver paint on that trunk looks amazing after you were done.

I'm looking for a photo of a used red Hummer on sale displayed up on a ramp over looking the busy street in front of the dealership. It has the worst hologramming I have ever seen in person. I was just driving down the street and it totally caught my eye and had to stop. You could totally trace the path the pad took over each panel.

Somebody bought it though as it was gone about 3 weeks later.

 

[idriveblackcars]

I've seen Rupes machines make holograms with microfiber cutting pads when the machines speed settings were too high. It's not just from rotary buffers it's caused by heat. Get a DA to heat up the paint and poor polishing techniques and it will cause holograms as well and buffer trails

 

[FUNX650]

The word holograms means a
specific scratch pattern inflicted
into paint using a rotary buffer

The discussion about holograms comes up
all the time in the car detailing world.

The word holograms means,
a specific scratch pattern inflicted
into paint using a rotary buffer

The pattern of swirls you see are actually
scratches and the pattern you see in the
paint mimic the direction a rotary buffer
was moved over the surface.



Sometimes people will refer to
micro-marring caused by the abrasive
technology and/or the pad used on an
orbital polisher as holograms. But these
scratches are not holograms but micro-
marring.

It is true that on darker colored paint you
can see a pattern in the paint that mimics
the way an orbital polisher was moved
over the surface, but even so, this pattern
and these scratches are not the same as
the scratches instilled by the single rota-
tional direction of a pad spinning against
the paint when using a rotary buffer.



One reason it's important to distinguish
between the two types of scratch patterns
is so that everyone in our industry is on
the same page when discussion paint defects.

^^^ :iagree: ...Wholeheartedly!!


Bob

 

[Aaryn NZ]

Ugh! :nomore:

I see my share of holograms down here, actually - I have cursed my entire family into being able to tell the difference between holograms & swirls amongst other defects. Ooops. :xyxthumbs: I cringe at the sight of any but sometimes you can at least tell the person doing the damage has some sort of methodology to their work, its the ones that go in every which direction, like they have a start point & they see how fast they can move the polisher from that point to as far as their arm can reach & back again that I shake my head at the most. :buffing:

The ugly ones in the pictures are horrible! Imagine how bad they would look on a darker colour if you can see them that well on such a shade of pearl white. . . . I'm guessing its more purple in person but way to go capturing them with your camera Mike. Correct me if I am wrong but this car was done in one of the Competition Ready Classes yes? I think I read in another post that it suffered some damage, & had been repaired. Are these pictures taken before the class worked on it? Or after it was repaired?

As a pro detailer this type of work is job security but not in every case. Sometimes walking away is the best option. Earlier in the year I was approached by a man who had purchased a semi SIV car, & after a little time had passed, he noticed the holograms in his black paint. He then took it back to the dealership to have this rectified & in turn, they carried out the same work (minus re applying the ceramic coating he had paid for the first time) & a wash or two later, & a bright sunny day - low & behold, Holograms!

When he then brang the car to me to see if I could fix it, he told me the story behind the situation & I set about inspecting the car. I thought about how nice it was going to look after I had done my work, until I started measuring the paint. Thin! Thin thin thin! The dealership had tried so hard to polish their holograms out that they simply didn't leave me with enough clear coat to comfortably work with. I explained what the issue was & how I wouldn't be working on the car & why.

He returned to the dealership & explained my reasoning to which the dealer principal said "buffing wouldn't take that much paint off". He came back into our shop a few weeks later & said the dealership was going to repaint the horizontal surfaces.(because thats where the holograms were mostly seen?) I since found out from an employee from the dealership that they hadn't repainted any of it, that they had wet sanded it & re polished instead. All I can imagine is how long the little remaining clear coat is going to last in our climate . . . not long I'm guessing.

As much as holograms are ugly, they are also inflicting unnecessary damage that at times, cannot be repaired.

Great thread Mike. rops:

Aaryn NZ. :dblthumb2:

 

[Paul A.]

I have always understood what I was seeing in the paint as holograms because they look 3 dimensional...thus the term hologram. It's the perfect descriptor!

I also sort of like to see them because they are typically very easy to remove. I have even caused them myself when I was using my rotary for heavier corrections back when. they never really bothered me because I knew how to remove them and jewelling paint, especially darker colors, is the real payoff time when correcting. How anyone calling themselves a detailer can leave them without finishing off the job is beyond me!

Good instructional piece, Mike. Thanks.

 

[Eldorado2k]

I have always understood what I was seeing in the paint as holograms because they look 3 dimensional...thus the term hologram. It's the perfect descriptor!

Way back in the days when I was a rookie meat clerk at Safeway, I used to think baby back ribs came from baby pigs. Lol.

 

[Paul A.]

^ wait a minute, they don't?

 

[Eldorado2k]

^ wait a minute, they don't?

I know right? Then why the heck did they name them that?! And I'm the idiot? Geez...

Yet I'm supposed to know veal is baby cow...

 

[WRAPT C5Z06]

I've seen Rupes machines make holograms with microfiber cutting pads when the machines speed settings were too high. It's not just from rotary buffers it's caused by heat. Get a DA to heat up the paint and poor polishing techniques and it will cause holograms as well and buffer trails

It's still micro marring which may "look" like holograms.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[idriveblackcars]

It's still micro marring which may "look" like holograms.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I dunno man maybe, but they looked no different than holograms on the hood of this car. Wish I had a photo. Clear coat doesn't know what machine is being used it just knows heat and pad movement.

Trust me, fire up a Rupes 21 mkII with a washer mod and a thin microfiber cutting pad and you can install holograms if you wanted.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I've seen Rupes machines make holograms with microfiber cutting pads when the machines speed settings were too high.

It's not just from rotary buffers it's caused by heat.

Get a DA to heat up the paint and poor polishing techniques and it will cause holograms as well and buffer trails

First - I appreciate you input.

Second - I have to respectfully disagree. One of the purposes of this article was to define the differences in the TYPES of scratches commonly found in car paint. One very specific type of SCRATCH pattern is the scratch pattern instilled by a rotary buffer and it's unique single rotating action.

The tool you're speaking about is a free spinning orbital polisher. Yes it can leave micro-marring in car paint but the type of scratch pattern it's leaving is different than the scratch pattern inflicted by the single rotating action of a rotary buffer.


I would highly recommend that the next time you see the scratch pattern you're describing that you take good picture and then please, write your own article with the pictures and a description of what you're seeing. Anyone can write an article, it's not that hard especially if you have a passion for teaching or helping others.


Moving forward I'm going to continue adding pictures of holograms from a rotary buffer to this thread. It will be a picture resource that documents this specific type of scratch pattern from rotary buffers. I will also write an article for pictures caused by micro-marring from orbital polishers.

Then in the future when someone starts a thread and calls micro-marring holograms I can simply share the link to the two articles to educate on what the different types of scratch patterns are and how they are inflicted into car paint.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

It's still micro marring which may "look" like holograms.

I agree.


When the pad or the abrasive a person is using with an orbital polisher is leaving micro-marring you WILL see a pattern in the paint that mimic or copies the way the polisher was moved over the paint.

So "yes' there is a trail but the scratch pattern does not equal the definition of holograms.


So the trick now is to come up with a universally accepted term for the trails or patterns left in the paint by micro=marring from oribital polishers.


As a "write", I'm probably a lot more keen to using words correctly than most people, that's just me but it is important.


What I have so far is,


Orbital Buffer Trails
Orbital Buffer Micro-marring
Shadow-effect
Orbital Polisher Shadow effect
Micro-marring
Tick marks
DA Haze

Just need a word or term (group of words) that nails it.


In my how-to book, The Complete Guide to a Show Car Shine, I define holograms on page 32 and on page 36 I list micro-marring from orbital polishers as simply,


Micro-marring
Tick marks
DA Haze


Need something that also creates the picture in your minds eye of a pattern or trails.

 

[idriveblackcars]

But if it "looks" just like holograms and requires the same polishing process to be corrected like holograms, well isn't that holograms?

I guess that was my point. Just bringing up this experience for pure discussion purposes only so my apologies

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

But if it "looks" just like holograms and requires the same polishing process to be corrected like holograms, well isn't that holograms?

I simply look at things like this from a writer's point of view and also as a teacher. It's important that the words we use actually stand for something specific otherwise it causes confusion.

For most in the car detailing world they will continue to use words interchangeably forever. For example calling a wax a glaze or calling a synthetic sealant a glaze or calling a polish a glaze.

A glaze is a very specific type of product but since there's no Word Police in the car detailing world companies use the word glaze willy-nilly and plaster it all over every type of product.

Again not a big deal to the masses but I for one need words to have standardized meanings in order to have intellectual conversations with people be it on TV, in a classroom, in a video, in how-to book or on a forum.

I guess that was my point. Just bringing up this experience for pure discussion purposes only so my apologies

No apologies needed, the point you bring up is a good one and it actually demonstrates the confusion over different types of paint defects and the words used to describe them. Your posts in this thread have made this thread better.


:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

***Update***


Just to note, I swapped out the hologram pictures using a light colored car with hologram pictures using a black Corvette as it makes it easier to see exactly what holograms look like.

Of course.... we removed the holograms....

 

[Dr Oldz]

Perhaps I may be able to help here a bit to further describe Holograms.


Rotary Instilled Holograms= These are tiny directional scratches caused by rotary polishers.

Mike has posted great pictures here but what pictures do not provide is the dancing effect that these holograms give as you walk around or change the light angles(think of the northern lights type of effect.) The reason rotary holograms dance is due to the nature of the one directional scratch pattern left behind that only a rotary polisher can perform. Your eye catches and doesn't catch the light refraction from the scratch at certain angles as you walk around giving you the appearance of dancing or being just above the paint. The reason you are able to see where the buffer has been is simply due to the last section of the pad to touch the paint generally leaves the lines we all call holograms.



DA Instilled Micro-Marring= These are tiny Multi-directional scratches caused by DA type polishers.

Micro-marring is also called DA haze or Tick marks on the forums. These are tiny scratches often from a compounding process with a DA. The main difference between micro-marring is that it is a multi-directional scratch pattern. If you look at it and walk around, it won't dance like rotary holograms. This is due to the consistent scratch pattern left behind from a DA. This scratch pattern is generally constant thru all observable angles thus not giving the dancing effect. It appears more of a dullness with visible trails running thru it sometimes due to the center line of the pad/polish combo leaving the most micro scratches behind


Hope this helps.