An in situ inspection system and method to inspect a honeycomb body skin in a skinning system. The inspection system includes a line illuminator to generate a line illumination on the skin perpendicular to an axial direction of the honeycomb body travel, and a detector to detect the line illumination scattered from the skin and generate a signal based on the detected line illumination. A controller is configured to receive the signal generated by the detector, compare the received signal to a previously stored defect free signal in real-time, and control at least one skinning process parameter based on the comparison. The method includes in situ inspecting the skin and controlling at least one skinning process parameter based on the inspection. In the method, the in situ inspection includes illuminating a line of the skin perpendicular to the axial direction and detecting the illuminated line scattered from the skin.