Seeing paint defects with metallic paint

PearTree

PearTree

New member
Hey all,
As the title says I have a lot of difficulty seeing paint defects in metallic paint. I detailed a silver metallic car and for the life of me I couldn’t see any defects even though they were there without direct sunlight. I have a high cri Astro handheld light as well as the griots work light and neither showed the defects. Any tips you guys can offer?
 
Pear Tree -
Are you saying you could - See - the defects - Without direct Sunlight, but cannot see them using those 2 hand held worklight types??

I use a lot of lights in the garage Ceiling, and 2 of the big ScanGrip lights on their heavy tripod, Then I use the small, yellow CAT light, that used to be sold at Costco..

Before the proliferation of Led lights, I had a few Halogen lights on tripods that actually worked great, but because they were halogen, they put out a lot of heat..
I switch all of these lights on a different times, to best see the paintwork..

I know for a long time, there are people that turn off all the lights in the garage and only use the light/s on the panel and they say they can pick up more defects that way..
Perhaps you need to experiment if possible to determine which way will work for your needs..
Dan F
 
Try using the light shining along the length of the car. Also the really bright light tends to wash out the defects on light color cars.
 
Stokdgs said:
Pear Tree -
Are you saying you could - See - the defects - Without direct Sunlight, but cannot see them using those 2 hand held worklight types??

I use a lot of lights in the garage Ceiling, and 2 of the big ScanGrip lights on their heavy tripod, Then I use the small, yellow CAT light, that used to be sold at Costco..

Before the proliferation of Led lights, I had a few Halogen lights on tripods that actually worked great, but because they were halogen, they put out a lot of heat..
I switch all of these lights on a different times, to best see the paintwork..

I know for a long time, there are people that turn off all the lights in the garage and only use the light/s on the panel and they say they can pick up more defects that way..
Perhaps you need to experiment if possible to determine which way will work for your needs..
Dan F
Click to expand...

Sorry I should have worded that better. I could only see defects in direct sunlight, all the other lights seemed to wash out the defects. I didn’t think to try a halogen light, I’ve used it before with success. This color of gray with metallic is the only one I have trouble with for some reason. I will keep experimenting.
 
For reference here is the car in question after a two step correction and coating.
9d5aedd1e274877efd1adf157c149600.jpg
479428143958bc91c59a972f7b96e5fe.jpg
 
Mike lambert said:
Try using the light shining along the length of the car. Also the really bright light tends to wash out the defects on light color cars.
Click to expand...
First white car I ever did, thought things were going great until I happened to catch a glance like you mention above...back to the drawing board. Moment of sadness but lesson learned.
 
Point-source illumination in an otherwise dark environment. Try to simulate the "parking lot lights at night" effect. IME that shows flaws on metallics even better than natural sunlight. I find flaws on my silver/light metallic vehicles in the shop that I absolutely cannot see under natural sunlight (note that nobody else would/could ever see those flaws).

Note you might have to play around with different viewing/illumination angles/distances. A lot. And I don`t mean just 15 minutes ;)

Just an old-fashioned (bare) 60W incandescent bulb can show stuff on metallics IME (and on white), although I do fine with halogens most of the time and need the SunGun to show really light holograms. The ceiling mounted lightbulbs in my one garage taught me that after I thought I`d done a correction OK under halogens :o Yeah, I probably could`ve seen them under the latter had I gone about it right (this was back when halogens were the Newest Best Thing).

FWIW, honestly, I spend at least as much time inspecting as I do correcting when that`s the job at hand.

BUT...

PearTree- Noting that..OK, this *is* Autopia....do you really care that much? If so, "Welcome to the club!", try the tips in this thread, you can get it all squared away with a bit more work. But, if *not*, I wouldn`t stress yourself over stuff that doesn`t really matter unless you want it to.
 
Thanks accumulator. I was able to get the car to what the customer wanted looks wise it was more just a question on how others find the defects on the difficult metallic colors. I’m definitely an autopian at heart when it comes to finding and correcting defects and carcare in general though.


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PearTree said:
Hey all,
As the title says I have a lot of difficulty seeing paint defects in metallic paint. I detailed a silver metallic car and for the life of me I couldn’t see any defects even though they were there without direct sunlight. I have a high cri Astro handheld light as well as the griots work light and neither showed the defects. Any tips you guys can offer?
Click to expand...

I know exactly what you`re talking about, my car is Midnight Pine Pearl and there is so much pearl in the color that I find myself no longer chasing the speckles because they never go away.
 
Unless this is a high dollar paying detail. I wouldn`t worry about defects that can only be seen under parking lot lights at night. You eventually reach a point with dark metallics where a perfect polish job will eventually damage the paint. I have spots on my car where I can see the factory orange peel leveled.
 
For Pros doing cars for others, I sure agree with not chasing perfection all the time! Unless something`s gonna stay OK for a long, long time I think it`s a bad idea.

PearTree- Ah, OK...didn`t know if it was yours, didn`t realize it was for a client. As long as they know what to expect I`d sure want to err on the side of caution anyhow. With the way today`s products can cut off clear it`s easy to be seduced into always aiming for perfection.

wannafbody- Ah yeah, I remember about the "smoothed spots" where your polishing diminished the orangepeel!
 
Stokdgs said:
Pear Tree -
Before the proliferation of Led lights, I had a few Halogen lights on tripods that actually worked great, but because they were halogen, they put out a lot of heat..
I switch all of these lights on a different times, to best see the paintwork..

I know for a long time, there are people that turn off all the lights in the garage and only use the light/s on the panel and they say they can pick up more defects that way..
Perhaps you need to experiment if possible to determine which way will work for your needs..
Dan F
Click to expand...

I use a similar approach. After mounting several LED light bars on the ceiling of my garage, I`ve found that turning them off and simply using a set of old halogen work lights I bought at a hardware store works the best for polishing. I also have a single, portable LED work light too, but found the halogens still work better. The overhead LED`s are great for LSP application and doing other work in the garage, but for polishing...not so much.

Since my garage isn`t heated, the halogen lights actually allow me to work when the weather is cooler outside in the spring or fall. They heat up the garage quite nicely!

Mike lambert said:
Try using the light shining along the length of the car. Also the really bright light tends to wash out the defects on light color cars.
Click to expand...

Agree. When I polished out my daughter`s silver/gray metalic Honda last year, I found the best approach was to place the light stand down by the rear bumper and aim the lights along the side of the car at a pretty steep angel. Despite being a pale metallic color the combination of the dimmer halogen lights and the angle of illumination made the defects much easier to see.
 
Scangrip, Scangrip, Scangrip. Seriously. The Sunmatch and Sunmatch 2 show so much. Having the Scangrip lights have made me a better detailer. Seriously. They show even the finest haze, so when you go through your normal polishing routine with a different light, and double check it with the Scangrip you`ll see you left some haze. Now, I work only with the Scangrip lights and they show defects much better than normal lights. On metallic paints, I also like to use the softer (less bright) light mode. If you use too much light on a metallic, it will block out the defects in a sense. Other than that, my only advice is to get crazy with the light and your head. Move your head and the light around. Far from the paint, close to the paint, at all angles, using different lights, etc. Just gatta try to see anything and polish it out.
 
Scangrip lights are quite nice, however Lutec lights sold at the Home Depot cannot be beaten for the price. I have their Lowes equivalents which are no longer sold, Utilitech. Pretty decent heat sink, grounded power cord for long corrections, no need to worry about charging batteries, and best of all the price. The 2500 lumen light can be had for less than $50 and the 3500 lumen for just over $50. Pick up a cheap Husky light combo for use as the base and you have a lighting system that is a bargain for less than $200. The Scangrip Sunmatch is a must have, I`d pick one up if it was in my budget, but I am using the led flash light that is part of Milwaukee`s M12 line, it works pretty well. Maxxeon also makes pretty budget friendly lights as well, quality too. Nothing against Scangrip, I think for a hobbyist detailer or someone starting out, the Maxxeon and Lutec lights are very budget friendly and still get 100% of the job done.
 
I’m going to check out those Lutecs next time I’m in HD. I’m not sure if the one featured on its site is comparable to the one you have.
 
Bill D said:
I’m going to check out those Lutecs next time I’m in HD. I’m not sure if the one featured on its site is comparable to the one you have.
Click to expand...

The Lutecs are not in store, they are special order only. Check your local Lowes to see if they have any Utilitech`s on display, they are the same light just a different "brand" and color (Yellow and black), then order from HD. In my research, my local Lowes (multiple) are no longer stocking the Utilitechs, but still have them on the websites. I checked this because I had a thought the other day, "What if my light breaks, how will I replace it?" HD website was the answer.
 
These are the specs on the new Scangrip Sunmatch 3 and they also have one called Sunmatch Mini which is like the first gen of Sunmatch. But smaller size than the regualar Sunmatch sizes. Also they dropped the prices on the earlier version before these came out a couple of months ago here in Scandinavia.

Technical Specifications:

LIGHT SOURCE:Ultra high CRI+ COB LED
ILLUMINANCE: 700/1400 lux@0.5m (step 1/2) / Spot: 1000
LUMINOUS FLUX: 250/500 lm (step 1/2) / Spot: 100
OPERATING TIME: 4h/2h (Step 1/2) / Spot: 3h (Built-in system switches to low mode after 3 minutes use at high mode)
CHARGING TIME: 4h
CABLE: 1m USB
OPERATING VOLTAGE: 100-240V AC 50/60Hz
BATTERY: 3.7V/2600 mAh Li-ion
INGRESS PROTECTION: IP65
IMPACT PROTECTION: IK07
NET WEIGHT: 270 g
CRI> 96 CRI+ / Spot: 95
CCT: 2500-6500 (5 steps) / Spot: 4500K
TEMPERATURE: -10 ̊C to +40 ̊C
IMPACT RESISTANCE: 1 m
DIMENSIONS: 190 x 60 x 32 mm
 
People I consider credible have warned me that some ScanGrips don`t show marring all that well for them. With my, uhm..problematic..vision I`m gonna be very careful about buying into something (presumably) better than my old reliables.

Not that I plan to do much more correction in this lifetime :D
 
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