A honeycomb body skinning system having an in situ inspection system to inspect a honeycomb skin for at least one defect, the system comprising: a skinning apparatus comprising: a skinning chamber adapted to receive a porous honeycomb structure and further adapted to receive flowable cement from a cement source through a manifold and to deliver the cement to a surface of the porous honeycomb structure to produce a skinned honeycomb body , a part conveying unit that moves the porous ceramic honeycomb structure in an axial direction into the skinning chamber ; a process controller that provides skinning process parameters to the skinning apparatus ; an inspection unit , comprising: a line illuminator configured to generate a line illumination on the skin of the skinned honeycomb body perpendicular to the axial direction, and a detector configured to detect the line illumination scattered from the skin and generate a signal based on the detected line illumination; a control unit configured to receive the signal and configured to compare the received signal to a previously stored defect free signal; a transmitter module configured to transmit a control signal to the process controller to control a process of the skinning system based on a comparison of the received signal to the previously stored defect free signal. a skinning apparatus comprising: a skinning chamber adapted to receive a porous honeycomb structure and further adapted to receive flowable cement from a cement source through a manifold and to deliver the cement to a surface of the porous honeycomb structure to produce a skinned honeycomb body , a part conveying unit that moves the porous ceramic honeycomb structure in an axial direction into the skinning chamber ; a skinning chamber adapted to receive a porous honeycomb structure and further adapted to receive flowable cement from a cement source through a manifold and to deliver the cement to a surface of the porous honeycomb structure to produce a skinned honeycomb body , a part conveying unit that moves the porous ceramic honeycomb structure in an axial direction into the skinning chamber ; a process controller that provides skinning process parameters to the skinning apparatus ; an inspection unit , comprising: a line illuminator configured to generate a line illumination on the skin of the skinned honeycomb body perpendicular to the axial direction, and a detector configured to detect the line illumination scattered from the skin and generate a signal based on the detected line illumination; a line illuminator configured to generate a line illumination on the skin of the skinned honeycomb body perpendicular to the axial direction, and a detector configured to detect the line illumination scattered from the skin and generate a signal based on the detected line illumination; a control unit configured to receive the signal and configured to compare the received signal to a previously stored defect free signal; a transmitter module configured to transmit a control signal to the process controller to control a process of the skinning system based on a comparison of the received signal to the previously stored defect free signal. <EOS>