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What does a scratch, etching or other below surface defect really look like? Have you ever used a magnifier of some sort to look at these defects? Well, we played with a simple device that clips onto any cell phone to show us what's happening before and after taking on a few different defects.
These first two shots were taken with a fairly typical digital camera, zooming in a bit and manually focusing on the scratches. Yep, they look pretty darn deep and nasty.
Enter this handy dandy little device. There are plenty of clip on magnifiers similar to this on the market, available through a variety of online sources, and they're often pretty darn inexpensive. This one offers 60X magnification, a white LED light and an ultraviolet light because it's labelled as a "Currency Detection Microscope" - you can guess what it was really designed for. We played with it using the built in light, which in some cases was actually too bright, and a secondary LED flashlight used to illuminate some areas. These two different lights explain the color differences seen in some of the images below.
Here it is clipped to a cell phone and used to view the paint really close up.
The resulting images show scratches in multiple directions.
And this is what the paint looks like after polishing to remove the defects.
Most of you have seen this sort of clear coat fracturing before, whether brought on by bird droppings or some other chemical etching process. It looks bad enough without being magnified.... because it usually is pretty bad! This particular area was visible, but not horrible, until we hit with the magnifier. Still, this is much worse than the scratches were so we knew it would be a challenge to remove fully.
Following a pass with M100 on a microfiber cutting pad attached to the MT300 DA polisher, this was the end result. At 60X magnification you can still see the faintest little traces of the fracture lines left behind. This was a case where we had to use an external flashlight to illuminate the area because the built in light just overpowered things and you couldn't see the fracture lines at all. It took us a while to even find this after polishing. But consider those two statements for a second: if it took us a while to find it even though we knew exactly where it was AND you can barely detect them under 60X magnification, is there anything more to stress about here? No.
Microfiber, M100, MT300. Quite the defect slaying combination!
Using an LED flashlight to observe below surface defects. In this case, a series of chemical etch marks on the quarter panel that were quite visible. A close inspection was done to determine just how deep they were, if they showed fractures in the clear or just staining, etc. In the case of these particular issues, it was mostly fracturing as shown in the above magnified images.
We did some 2500 grit hand sanding to level out the affected areas. We cut down the backing pad and sand paper to leave a small footprint - the defects were no larger than a pencil eraser so there's no need to sand large areas.
A 3" microfiber cutting pad loaded with M100 and mounted to the MT300.
Boom! Just like that, done!!
There are a variety of tools on the market not specific to auto detailing that can help you in your paint polishing processes. While owning a good paint thickness gauge is a great idea for anyone serious about paint correction, some additional little tools such as this simple and inexpensive magnifier can some in real handy. You know how thick the paint is thanks to a few readings with your PTG, but do the defects look repairable at all, regardless of the paint thickness? A little magnifier like this can help you find that answer pretty quickly, and take pictures to document it as well.
These first two shots were taken with a fairly typical digital camera, zooming in a bit and manually focusing on the scratches. Yep, they look pretty darn deep and nasty.
Enter this handy dandy little device. There are plenty of clip on magnifiers similar to this on the market, available through a variety of online sources, and they're often pretty darn inexpensive. This one offers 60X magnification, a white LED light and an ultraviolet light because it's labelled as a "Currency Detection Microscope" - you can guess what it was really designed for. We played with it using the built in light, which in some cases was actually too bright, and a secondary LED flashlight used to illuminate some areas. These two different lights explain the color differences seen in some of the images below.
Here it is clipped to a cell phone and used to view the paint really close up.
The resulting images show scratches in multiple directions.
And this is what the paint looks like after polishing to remove the defects.
Most of you have seen this sort of clear coat fracturing before, whether brought on by bird droppings or some other chemical etching process. It looks bad enough without being magnified.... because it usually is pretty bad! This particular area was visible, but not horrible, until we hit with the magnifier. Still, this is much worse than the scratches were so we knew it would be a challenge to remove fully.
Following a pass with M100 on a microfiber cutting pad attached to the MT300 DA polisher, this was the end result. At 60X magnification you can still see the faintest little traces of the fracture lines left behind. This was a case where we had to use an external flashlight to illuminate the area because the built in light just overpowered things and you couldn't see the fracture lines at all. It took us a while to even find this after polishing. But consider those two statements for a second: if it took us a while to find it even though we knew exactly where it was AND you can barely detect them under 60X magnification, is there anything more to stress about here? No.
Microfiber, M100, MT300. Quite the defect slaying combination!
Using an LED flashlight to observe below surface defects. In this case, a series of chemical etch marks on the quarter panel that were quite visible. A close inspection was done to determine just how deep they were, if they showed fractures in the clear or just staining, etc. In the case of these particular issues, it was mostly fracturing as shown in the above magnified images.
We did some 2500 grit hand sanding to level out the affected areas. We cut down the backing pad and sand paper to leave a small footprint - the defects were no larger than a pencil eraser so there's no need to sand large areas.
A 3" microfiber cutting pad loaded with M100 and mounted to the MT300.
Boom! Just like that, done!!
There are a variety of tools on the market not specific to auto detailing that can help you in your paint polishing processes. While owning a good paint thickness gauge is a great idea for anyone serious about paint correction, some additional little tools such as this simple and inexpensive magnifier can some in real handy. You know how thick the paint is thanks to a few readings with your PTG, but do the defects look repairable at all, regardless of the paint thickness? A little magnifier like this can help you find that answer pretty quickly, and take pictures to document it as well.
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