Trouble seeing swirls. Scangrip.

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paul914

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Hi,


I know there are are some other posts on swirl finding, but I was hoping I could get some help walking through my situation.


i have two 2017 Honda’s, one in White with metallic flakes and one in Silver with metallic flakes. I can see swirls in the sunlight but I was having trouble seeing them under any flashlight or portable light I own. Due to this, when I polished my paint, I was unable to see my progress. Once done, in the sunlight I could see small swirl marks from not finishing down in certain areas, and in some areas I could see light scratches that I didn't fully correct.


I bought the Scangrip kit, hoping that this would show me the paint imperfections so that I could polish my paint with better results. Even with the Scangrip I still can’t see anything. I have tried several different angles and distances with the lights. I have tried it at night with a totally dark garage.


At certain angles I can faintly pick out some swirls but it’s so faint I can barely see it. In the sun they definitely stand out though.


I have been detailing as an as an enthusiast for over ten years now, so I have some moderate exerience. These cars are new to me, and this is my first time trying to polish them out after owning them for a year as daily drivers. I have never had problems like this on my previously owned cars, or friends cars.

Any suggestions? Hopefully you guys can walk me through this, I know it has to be a technique issue.


Pics are attached.
 
Also.. I would take a pic in the sun but its been cloudy all week.

Thanks!
 
Silver and white, especially Pearls are always tough for me...I have a daily driverRX350 in Pearl White, it hides things very well. AS you are noticing with your cars. Honestly if they are daily drivers, try not to worry about every single swirl or scratch, they'll get some beating being on the roads daily. Hard to keep up.

Have you tried detailing in the sun, with sun friendly products to better see while you work?
 
Thank you for the reply. I am not too concerned with getting it 100% corrected. I do like getting a good result when I polish though. The problem is, that I can't get it to the finish I want because I can't see what I am doing. I have not detailed in the sun yet with these cars (although I have polished cars in the sun before).

That being said..

I was hoping, that since I invested so much money in the Scangrip's that maybe I could get some help detecting the imperfections with them. My whole purpose in buying them was so that I would have the proper lighting to expose the defects. I spent a pretty penny on them. If I can't get them to perform the way I want I will probably just return the Scangrip kit. But I think it is more likely a user/personal experience issue than it is an issue with the product itself.
 
There is no replacement for that huge light in the sky. It reveals all... LED lights help, but what you're experiencing is an issue with how light is refracting. Swirls and scratches in the paint will refract light in different ways.
When dealing with metallic paints, such as yours the lights reflect off the paint and depth and clarity. Try this... scangrip has lower levels, try using a low level LED from a distance (perhaps on a stand) and then adjust your angle so the light isn't reflecting off the car directly into your eyes.

Aside from the colors, you have two Hondas. Notorious for soft paint. You may have done a wonderful job polishing, factor in the man-made light refraction, and then you wipe the panel, pull it into the sun and see swirls.

I have a Silver Metalic Mustang, and an enamel red Mustang. Even with my Scangrip lights, the only true way to see defects is in the sun. As mentioned there are sun safe (to a point...) friendly polishes and compounds. Griots BOSS lineup is one of them. But at some point you're going to be spending more time chasing swirls and scratches than actually enjoying life. Last year I polished and coated my Honda Fit. To the layman, it looks awesome, to me, I feel I could take a day and redo it... Then I say "na...." there are more important things for me to do... Like use the Fit to take my two greyhounds to a park instead... :)
 
Good post. I own both a silver and white car. Another thing that helps is turning the lights off in the garage and then using the scangrip to inspect. Holding the light further from the surface helps a lot rather than holding it close which will wash out the painted surface.
 
The Guz said:
Good post. I own both a silver and white car. Another thing that helps is turning the lights off in the garage and then using the scangrip to inspect. Holding the light further from the surface helps a lot rather than holding it close which will wash out the painted surface.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.

I have been holding them at about a 2-3' distance. I took a picture of me holding the Sunmatch 2 light so you could see the distance I am at.

In my troubleshooting I have tried several angles. When I tried the other night I had all lights off in the garage, it was totally dark. Also, these are the generation 2, so I have done both cold and warm settings and I have done it with several different brightnesses as well.

I am not saying I can't see anything at all, because in certain spots and at certain angles I vaguely can. Its just so difficult that it would be unreasonable to polish the car and really see what I am doing, and they definitely don't stand out like they do at noon on a sunny day.

I won't loose too much sleep over it, because really if they don't work the way I want I will just return them and save myself a pretty penny. Sounds like from some other posts so far, maybe they won't mimic the sun as much as I thought they would.

That being said, they are very nice tools. If there is a way I can get them to work the way I want (or train myself to be able to see what I want with them) I would love to keep them.
 
I have the same light kit as you, and use them. Trying to expect an expensive LED light, which the Scangrip is by far the best and purest lights I've ever used, to mimic the sun, is a very high expectation.
The only other thing you could try is go to a big box hardware store, and get one of those stand-alone Halogen work lights (not LED). They throw a tremendous amount of incontinence light and a lot of heat too!
As said above, you're working on Honda's with soft paint. Just lightly taking a MF towel will induce swirls and scratches. It's my love/hate relation ship with Honda. Quality is excellent, cost of ownership is low, paint is easy to correct, paint is easy to mar.

Now, one thing that hasn't been mentioned (because we've been chasing after the lighting issue is...) perhaps it's not the lighting. What products are you using? What machine, what pads, how often are you changing out your pads, what products are you comping when doing your test spots?
 
Agree wit Paul on the halogen lights. Always good to have a variety of different light sources anyways.
 
LSNAutoDetailing said:
I have the same light kit as you, and use them. Trying to expect an expensive LED light, which the Scangrip is by far the best and purest lights I've ever used, to mimic the sun, is a very high expectation.
The only other thing you could try is go to a big box hardware store, and get one of those stand-alone Halogen work lights (not LED). They throw a tremendous amount of incontinence light and a lot of heat too!
As said above, you're working on Honda's with soft paint. Just lightly taking a MF towel will induce swirls and scratches. It's my love/hate relation ship with Honda. Quality is excellent, cost of ownership is low, paint is easy to correct, paint is easy to mar.

Now, one thing that hasn't been mentioned (because we've been chasing after the lighting issue is...) perhaps it's not the lighting. What products are you using? What machine, what pads, how often are you changing out your pads, what products are you comping when doing your test spots?
Click to expand...

Pictures say a thousand word right? I attached some pics of my equipment. Is this light in the pic what your referring to?

That is what I used before my recent purchase of the Scangrip. I have used that light countless times on several cars, but on these new ones it wasn't cutting it.

Also I put some pics of my polishing equipment. I get better results with the urofiber and HD speed on the White car. The mini-griots I use just to get into the smaller areas.

I have been using these polishers for about 10-years about, so I do have some decent experience with them as a enthusiast.
 
It’s possible to see them on white. Just takes a little adjustment.

I just polished out the garage queen that hasn’t been polished in years. Here are the defects using the scangrip. I had the overhead lights turned off.

51345b78b287008e34905c056f4a55ba.jpeg



Also check out this video on lighting angles and see if that helps.

https://youtu.be/g6b8LMrITXk
 
The Guz said:
It’s possible to see them on white. Just takes a little adjustment.

I just polished out the garage queen that hasn’t been polished in years. Here are the defects using the scangrip. I had the overhead lights turned off.

51345b78b287008e34905c056f4a55ba.jpeg


Also check out this video on lighting angles and see if that helps.

YouTube
Click to expand...


Thanks for the follow up, pics, and the link. I have tried it with the lights out and totally dark in the garage. I will mess around with it some more tonight and see what I can do.

I will watch the video too. It has to be a technique issue on my part.

Thanks for the pics too.
 
LSNAutoDetailing said:
Trying to expect an expensive LED light, which the Scangrip is by far the best and purest lights I've ever used, to mimic the sun, is a very high expectation.
Click to expand...

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for these expensive detailing lights to mimic the sun.. Afterall with names like the 3M Sungun and a price point of the Scangrip it shouldn’t be too much to ask.

@OP. White paint is 1 thing..

665c64f01fd150399edd1ece5e447529.jpg


5371ec51433ff53ad266d590733d8353.jpg


But if you were to try to photograph Pearl White paint it’d be even harder.
 
I had a brown Q7 where none of my Scangrips would pick up everything, even adjusting the Scangrip tripod to 3 meters high, changing distances of tripod from the paint, changing angles, changing lumens settings,warm, cool, nothing helped. In the end the normal fluorescent ceiling light alone was the best swirl finding light source on that particular metallic brown. My point is you can’t do it all with just certain brands or sets of lights, you need to improvise with different light sources. Different colours reflect light differently.
 
The Guz said:
It’s possible to see them on white. Just takes a little adjustment.

Also check out this video on lighting angles and see if that helps.

YouTube
Click to expand...

I just wanted to follow up on this incase someone else runs into the same issue.

I looked at the video link and found it was my lighting angle.

I posted some pics on this post to show, I took my lights and held them at an angle. Then I looked at an angle. I was able to find the swirls this way. I didn't post any pics of the swirls because my iPhone won't pic them up, and my photograph skills aren't super good, but they are there, trust me.

When looking straight on, I think the light scatters due to the paint flecks. To help me get my lighting angle right I looked again in the sun. I noticed that looking straight on in the sun even the sun scattered the light. When lookin outside though its easier to see at an angle because of the way the light is fixed in the sky. Moving the light around at an angle and not straight on, and then looking at an angle, more of the way it would be outside, I found them. Hope that makes sense.

The point is, I learned that for me, on this type of paint the lighting has to be at an angle and I have to look at an angle. After a while I got the eye for it and it is easier to find the swirls every time.

Hope anyone who has this issue in the future can use this post to help them.
 
Good advice from Mike and LSN. I'm doing the wife's Barcelona Red Camry today/tomorrow. Pulled it in the garage tonight after compounding the horizontal surfaces .(tried several increasingly aggressive combos and finally hit the sweet spot with Yellow LC flat and M101 ). The sun doesn't lie.... but I realized the new coil shaped LED bulbs installed show swirls really well. Funny, because they seem to be an orange tint and not that bright.
 
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