Work light to use

B

blownvert

New member
When buffing your car I have seen that some have a halogen light with them so they can really examine the paint and look if the swirls/scratches are gone. What is a good light to get? Can you put the light up to the paint in the day? I seem alot of them at sears. What does everyone have? A stand one or a portable one you hold. Like those ones that you can hang on something. Is it neccessary? Here are a few links, there are alot more, but you get the point.





Craftsman 1000 watt Tripod Light with Portable Stand - Model WL500DPT-S at Sears.com

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_03473833000P?keyword=work+light

Craftsman Incandescent Work Light with 20 ft. Retractable Reel - Model 73942 at Sears.com
 
Craftsman 1000 watt Tripod Light with Portable Stand - Model WL500DPT-S at Sears.com



I have those and love them. Many people complain about the stand breaking but Ive never had any troubles. I got mine around 3-4years ago so they may of changed the stand.



I find that florescent lights let me see many imperfections but they are not the best for swirls.
 
Haha your so funny asking all these questions when you could just ask your bro.



I have the dual tripod halogen you can get from Advance.
 
anthony914 said:
i got the 1000w one today for 19.99 at sears
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+1 and i just set it up





it looks great and it's really bright



now i know just how dusty my house really is :wall





i cant wait to get a car under the lights
 
Although I have a few good halogens that I use when doing the polishing, I find the most unforgiving light is a high-wattage incandescent. Only thing that lets me see micromarring on silver, so it's what I use for my final inspections (I turn out all the other lights). There area some threads where we discussed this in detail, it's not as simple as one might think ;)
 
Accumulator said:
Although I have a few good halogens that I use when doing the polishing, I find the most unforgiving light is a high-wattage incandescent. Only thing that lets me see micromarring on silver, so it's what I use for my final inspections (I turn out all the other lights). There area some threads where we discussed this in detail, it's not as simple as one might think ;)
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Any links on where to buy one?
 
Accumulator said:
Although I have a few good halogens that I use when doing the polishing, I find the most unforgiving light is a high-wattage incandescent. Only thing that lets me see micromarring on silver, so it's what I use for my final inspections (I turn out all the other lights). There area some threads where we discussed this in detail, it's not as simple as one might think ;)
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How many watts are we talking about here? 250? 500?



Do you use a reflector like a photo light?
 
Accumulator said:
Although I have a few good halogens that I use when doing the polishing, I find the most unforgiving light is a high-wattage incandescent. Only thing that lets me see micromarring on silver, so it's what I use for my final inspections (I turn out all the other lights). There area some threads where we discussed this in detail, it's not as simple as one might think ;)
Click to expand...

Ive tried searching for these threads (thread?), but to no avail. Guess I need to touchup on my internet forum search skill.



Any chance you know what key words to search?. Thanks.
 
Raz5219 said:
Any links on where to buy one?
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I got mine at Lowes, they have them in different wattages. Really cheap, crappy-looking things for maybe $25 or so.



zzzzdoc said:
How many watts are we talking about here? 250? 500?



Do you use a reflector like a photo light?
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I use ~300W, but others have said they do fine with lower, more normal wattages. The ceiling mounted bare bulb incandescents in my one garage are only 60W but *man* do they show marring great.



The light I'm using has a conical aluminum reflector. I've experimented with no reflector at all but I'm still undecided as to what would work best. I *think* a white, flat-board reflector (simulating a white ceiling behind a bare bulb) would be best but I've never gotten around to experimenting with it.



I can't over-emphasize how well incandescents have worked for me. No more surprises under lights at night, even on silver if I play around with viewing/illumination angles and distances; I could never achieve that before with any other inspection lights. I still do my work under halogens, and I don't mean to slight them...they just don't show the tiny flaws as well for me, ditto with the various "sun guns" (my painters have them and I still can't quite see some stuff under them- those aren't made for seeing marring, but for other things, at which they excel).
 
Thanks Accumulator, man you must have been reading my mind with these posts and wanting to answer a few of my questions. I had been meaning to ask you what wattage bulbs you used and if you used the incandescents as a spot light or from the celling.



I have seen some of your previous posts about incandescents, and since I have been shoping for light systems and was at Home Depot, I picked up one of those aluminum cones and a 300-Watt and 200-Watt incandescent bulb. I wasn't sure what wattage you used and had been meaning to ask you, and so I just bought both.



I have been toying with the idea of modifying a tri-pod to mount two just like the halogens. I am guessing the 300 watt gets pretty hot so having it on a tripod might be nice.



chris
 
Looking for some halogen lamps, my local Osh was selling Craftsman 1200watt dual halogen lamps on a tripod stand. I thought they looked okay but didn't take a big look. I then went to sears.com to lookup reviews but most of all the reviews were negative ones, about the quality of the stands. Lots of them said they break easily even when hardly used.



Can anyone post some alternatives or suggestions?
 
I have the halogens identical to the Sears (got at Lowes) and my gripe is the lights do not aim downn. They can be aimed horizontal or up but not down so you have to lower the whole pole.
 
I had twin halogens on a tripod, but they didnt help much. I just mounted a metal halide 150w floodlight in place of one of the halogens and wow! 10x better - runs a LOT cooler, highlights swirls amazingly, and provides a whiter light making it easy to see the true colour o the paint better.



HIGHLY recommended - but get a spotlight versin rather than a floodlights, as it will provide and even more focused beam and make swirl spotting even better :D
 
Bigpikle- Hey, that's a good idea about the metal halide spotlight!



mrgoochio- My Craftsman halogens have a very sturdy tripod, I don't see it breaking any time soon and it's ~8 years old now. What *did* mess up was the mounting/adjustment knobs for one of the lights...stripped out almost immediately and keeps bugging me as my repairs never hold up. Heh heh, I might oughta do the metal halide conversion to that! My Craftsman halogens go through bulbs pretty fast too :think:



OTOH, my *old* ('80s), generic, *very* cheap halogen, with a broken/repaired, flimsy tripod (and lots of other damage), still works great and bulbs last forever in it :nixweiss It's a complete piece of junk QC-wise and looks like it's ready for the dumpster, but it keeps doing the job better than the fancy one! It apparently has better reflectors...sure does highlight marring better than the Craftsman.
 
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