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So I'm going to do a detail on my mom's brand new silver impala today. I've only done my cars so far which have all been black, so it's been easy to see how much correction is needed. What is the best way to inspect silver? Will swirls show up if I bring out my big LED stand light? I don't expect much correction being new and hoping I can just go from clay to polish. Who knows how many lot washes it went through though. Thanks for any input.
I always use an LED light or a Full Spectrum bulb (as close to sunlight as you can as possible) in any bulb holder I can find. Sunlight is the best tell. Inspecting on a low angle also helps. They can be a little hard to see dead straight ahead. My favorite quick look park the car in the sun so it would hit the hood directly on the hood when the hood is up. Then pop the hood and sit inside the car and look. You can assume that the hood is the bench mark for the rest of the car. You mays have other RIDS on other parts of the car however for general overall paint condition you can use the hood. Pick a spot and do your test. With light cars I use full spectrum bulbs or LED and so I do not forget where the bad RIDS are I mark them with a good old crayola so I don't forget where they are.
As stated above direct sunlight is king. Get some shades and move the car around if needed to inspect different panels. If you can't get it under the sunlight and don't own a light (or are not getting far with the one you have).
A trick I have found is going to a empty lot at night under all the light poles and looking from different angles. You would be amazed at how well this actually works. I drive a Silver Audi and thought I had everything corrected one day and walked out of walmart (parked under the light) to find quite a few areas that still needed work.
It's free, and works.:dblthumb2:
Couple ways of doing this, I agree with the above 2 posts. If you are going to inspect it in the sun, wear sunglasses, they will show up just like that without the silver blinding you. Without sunglasses you won't be able to see the damage without ending up blinding yourself. Another thing is pull it into your garage and try to dim your garage as much as possible and use a brinkmann to see it and you should be able to see it quite clearly.
Where do you find those full spectrum light bulbs??
Thanks
With both of my silver cars I actually have the best luck seeing swirls and RIDS with the standard incandecent bulbs (in terms of artificial light). LED shows marring really well on my cars. The halogens work OK. Sunlight is really king, but as others have said, wear sunglasses.
Thanks for all the replies! The car was pretty clean swirl-wise. Tar was another story. Got most of the tar out with clay and then went straight to polish. Didn't feel like it needed any compounding. The wheel barrels were filthy, but cleaned right up with a soak in BF APC 1:2 and the Daytona.
man, silver is hard to work on. you really can't see anything you're doing. The wet diamond is on waiting to buff off and then she sits for a couple coats of crystal seal tomorrow.
You can google Full Spectrum UVA/UVB light bulbs. I first found about them when I was keeping pythons in my younger years. Much later in life I found from a friend after he moved to Alaska that many people used them in their houses to fight off the effects of low exposure to sun during the long winters. I have had s stash for years so I never needed to buy new one's. I still have other bulbs at hand.