Grading Scratches

[MJarreau]

How does one determine if a scratch is superficial or needs to be polished out (newbie)? Is polishing performed?

TIA,
Michael

[smbrown]

When I visited Vans in 1994 (Ken?) indicated a scratch was something that your fingernail would stop in... anything less was not a considered a scratch that needed addressing. Interested to see if this has changed since.

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

That's what the Nuvite folks told me too. Polishing won't help a scratch that'll catch a fingernail (actually it SORT of will....if you polish it several thousand times, I guess).

I sanded a few scratches on the plane when I just did the polishing, then finished it with a 1000 grit grade and then polished. There's also a few that I didn't both with sanding, that I polished, that got a little better, that I'll deal with later.

[rzbill]

Yeah Bob.
My first polishing just showed me the places I had to work on more (the spots with scratches)

You are right that you can polish scratches enough to make them a lot less obvious. I had to do it recently because I ham handed the cowl installation and scratched the **** out of the forward side of the cabin. Cussed a lot. Polished to a non noticable state fortunately.

[smbrown]

Originally Posted by rzbill

Polished to a non noticable state fortunately.

Philosophical quandary: if the scratch is non-noticeable and no one there to tell does it still exist?

The biggest downside to DIY projects for me, I know where all the flaws are located.

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

That's what I thought when I was building. I can't polish because of all of the blemishes.

Now that I'm done, to be honest with you, I cherish the dings and dents as much as any other part of the plane. There's a story to each one of them and they were part of the journey too.

If anyone ever gives me garbage about it, I usually say, "how's your plane?" And often that shuts them up.