What are "holograms"?

[gregh]

I see people refer to these all the time... what are they?

[Accumulator]

Holograms are the light marring that usually only shows up in sunlight- the "rainbow effect" type of swirl marks that`ll appear/disappear depending on the light and your viewing angle (hence the name).



Holograms are almost always caused by rotary work (often *bad* rotary work), they`re a side-effect of abrasive polishing. Wool pads probably cause more holograms than foam pads, but you can get them with either. Ditto for harsh vs. mild compounds/polishes.

Holograms can typically be eliminated by further/finer polishing, which is often most easily accomplished with a non-rotary approach like the PC/Cyclo.



While generally pretty shallow and easy to correct, sometimes they can be incredibly difficult to remove (depends on the paint and how the holograms were induced, with heat being, IMO, an important factor). NeoPrufrok had (maybe still has? I haven`t heard from him lately) some nasty ones on his black Audi and he was unsuccessful in his attempts to remove them by hand/PC.

[abrcrombe]

Check out this post by g35stilez to see what they look like.



http://autopia.org/forum/showthread.php?t=76151&highlight=holograms



Hope you don`t mind me linking to it.