Question for the polishing group

[bret]

A section of my wings will be polished and the rest paint, what grade Nuvite do I use? and or is Mothers mag polish any good, looking for long term results and protection. thanks

[David Paule]

I've got a bare aluminum Cessna 180. Used to be polished....

Anyway, what I've found is that the polish is not a protector. But if I simply waxed the freshly polished surface with a good paste wax the shine would last much longer. Of course it would look slightly dulled initially, but the long-term benefits were worth it.

Dave

[N9331v]

I would use nuvite C sparingly then switch to the S. After the S Apply a liberal amount of baking flower to a rag and wipe down, this remove any and all residual oils for a long lasting shine.
I have polished many private and commercial aircraft this way and it provides outstanding results. For maintaining and finger prints just wipe down with mineral spirits.

[Snowflake]

I agree with N9331v. It works for Tweety, even if I don't do it nearly often enough.

[frazitl]

First, go to http://perfectpolish.com/ and spend a couple hours learning what you can from Tom's excellent site. Second, depending on the quality of your skins, you may need to start with something coarser to work down the grain in the aluminum. My drill is to start with Nuvite F7 with a wool bonnet on the HF variable speed polisher - fairly low speed, say 1000 to 1500 rpm, followed by C or S with the wool bonnet, and finishing with S on the cyclo using Tom's cotton cloths, or pure soft cotton from a fabric store. I think you can get pretty good results with S on a random orbital too. One Navion expert I know prefers the RA to the Cyclo, though she has both.

I'm still not happy with my final finish as seen in bright sun. Looks wonderful in the hangar. I've tried unidirectional polishing by hand with automotive clearcoat polish (microfiber rags) with good results, but its a real pain to do.

Good Luck

[bret]

Ok cool, Ill give it a try