what light do you have in your garage

[der passat]

I'm wondering what kind of light does the most people uses in the garage where they detailing the cars?!
I've now a large stock place (factory hall) but there are very white high gas lights and you'll see every singel swirl on the car?
They will never completely gone under that light?!
I've just detailed a bmw:

Before:

after:


Is this normal? What can i do about the little swirls?

Kind regards Bert

[Accumulator]

I have fluorescents (ceiling and wall mounted and handheld), high wattage incandescents (300W, ceiling mounted), halogens (the twin head type, 1000W and 1200W), and a high wattage incandescent trouble light (300W). I also have a window that lets in natural sunlight. For me, it takes different light sources plus varying illumination and viewing angles to really spot everything. To spot the finer stuff, I turn out all the other lights and use the incandescents, often using magnification too; for me, this approach works well enough that I don't have any unpleasant surprises under the sodium/metal halide lights in parking lots and gas stations- I can spot *every* flaw, even on silver. But to really inspect a finish is pretty tough work and takes a long, long time. I sometimes think I spend as long inspecting colors like silver as I do polishing them and that kind of inspection can be challenging.

The remaining marring in the pics is the kind that many (most?) people would either hide with a glaze or learn to live with. If you have healthy/thick clear and *are confident that you won't reintroduce such marring*, I'd eliminate it. Easier said than done, but it *can* be done. It just takes abrasive polishing to remove it, and very soft materials (MFs) when you buff off your polishes and LSPs. IMO the really hard part is not reintroducing it when you wash. If you're just gonna mar it again when you wash/dry I'd hide it and thus preserve both your clear and your sanity.

That would mean polishing with something like #80 and/or #82/#9, then applying a "pure polish" (#3/#5/#7/#81/Deep Crystal #2), then maybe NXT topped with a carnauba like #26. That would probably improve things to where you'd be satisfied.

[BJClarke001]

der passat,

If I am reading your post right, it sounds like your asking about the lights more then product usage on removing swirls, yes?

Personally, I think your lighting presents a good problem that I wish I had. There is nothing like working in a garage and thinking you did a great job until you pull it out into the sunlight and get a rude awakening. For me, I would like to see every defect possible in the garage so when treating it, I am seeing the results while working.

[Buellwinkle]

I used to have fluorescent shop lights but I went with a more finished look of recessed cans, 6 of them with 75W bulbs and painted the walls and ceiling bright white. This does a good job of lighting up the garage and hilights the defects but it's funny that you can see defects in daylight that you can't see indoors and visa versa. You have to do both to get the perfect job. Also some people use portable halogen lights to highlight defects as you can bounce the light from different directions.

As for the little fine swirls, you can use a finishing pad on a PC with #80 and work those out or just wax with NXT Tech Wax that will fill those in.