My take on SEMA 2009 - Swirls vs No Swirls

[Mike Phillips]

My take...

I don't know how many pictures I took in total but quite a few, in most cases I would take a moment to inspect for swirls while near each car.

I also purposefully didn't take pictures of cars with swirls as the focus of the photos was to showcase the great cars at SEMA not any of their downfalls.

Overall I was impressed with the quality of finishes at SEMA this year in that while not all cars were perfect, to my eyes a greater majority of cars were in very good condition versus horribly swirled-out condition.

Did I find swirled-out paint jobs? Sure. But I chose not to capture the swirls with pictures but instead focus on the big picture showcasing the cool factor of each car.


I'd like to think that detailing discussion forums have an ever increasing effect as they serve to educate the serious online enthusiasts in this industry and then online enthusiasts share what they learn with their non-online friends.

Just my take after photographing and inspecting hundreds and hundreds of cars...

[Finemess]

Mike, could you tell if they have a detail crew for SEMA, or do they all do their own?

[LincolnZephyr2006]

Interesting Mike. One would think that these car's paint jobs would be pristine and completely swirl free. Guess I was wrong!

[Mike Phillips]

On the topic of swirls,

On the way to the hotel a bus passed us while we were taking a Taxi to the Venetian and I was able to capture a few photos of the horrendous swirls in the finish while it drove by...













Keep in mind it was moving pretty quickly as it drove by us so the last picture is a little blurry but you get the idea....


Where's Superior Shine, he's done a few Extreme Makeovers on buses...

[Dwayne]

I was there in the cab with Mike. He didn't even need to pull out his Brinkmann Swirl Finder Light for this one!

[Mike Phillips]

Mike, could you tell if they have a detail crew for SEMA, or do they all do their own?

In the past there's been the official SEMA detail crew which is part of some type of Union, from what I could tell they weren't detailers... nuff said. I'm not sure if the rules have changed or something else but this year I know for a fact Meguiar's had a Team of Pro Detailers in charge of taking care of Ford's display.

Nick Chapman and Derek Bemiss were also invited to polish out the Pimp My Ride Mustang that was built from beginning to end on stage during the show.

I also so a team of detailers wearing Mother's shirts taking care of quite a few cars, ins some of the photos I took you can see the Mother's team wiping down cars using Mother's products and microfiber polishing cloths.

On Monday, set-up day, everywhere you looked there were people wiping down cars and chrome using just about every brand of spray detailer you can think of, I didn't focus on capturing shots of people wiping down cars but I did snap probably at least a half of dozen or more shots like this. I'm going to create a single thread with all the photos we took and someone with more time on their hands than I can count how many pictures were taken of detailers wiping down cars.

Interesting Mike. One would think that these car's paint jobs would be pristine and completely swirl free. Guess I was wrong!

Not at all...

Like I originally posted, in my honest opinion, comparing the quality of finish on the cars at SEMA this year as opposed to previous SEMA shows and actually any show I've attended or worked at including the large auctions like the Barrett-Jackson Auctions and Blackhawk Actions etc, the overall quality is much higher, I would even go as far as to say significantly higher.

That's not to say there weren't cars at the SEMA show that had horrible swirls because there were cars like this, but overall, the quality was higher than previous shows.

The detailer in me wanted to walk around with the Brinkman Swirl Finder Light in one hand and my trusty, dusty Cannon Rebel in the other hand and do nothing but take swirl shots and showcase them on the forum but instead of focusing on the negative I thought it would be more fun to focus on the positive and showcase the beautiful cars on display and all the hard work that goes into each car and the show itself.


A couple of years ago I was able to sneak up onto the auction block at Barrett-Jackson Auction in Arizona without the proper credentials, (I just kept showing up and everyone got used to me), and all I did was take swirl-shots and post them on the MOL forum.

The reason I did this at that time was because I found that about 90% of all the cars going over the blocks were completely swirled-out messes yet if you're sitting at home watching the auction on your TV all the cars look like they have dripping wet, swirl-free show car finishes and that just wasn't' the truth, so I exposed the reality of it with pictures. The threads are still there, just do a search in MOL and use the term Barrett or Barrett-Jackson.


Discussion forums and classes on proper technique when polishing paint is making an impact via education and my guess is we've reached the tipping point.