Hi all,
I am in the fascinating process of polishing my RV 8 prior to final assembly. I have watched a bunch of U-tube videos and read a lot of posts from people here, which have been very helpful. I thought it might be useful to start a thread on tips for polishing.
The standard concepts that still took me a long time to learn are:
1. Use a lot less polish than you would think you would need. Too much gums up the buffer bonnet prematurely and doesn't speed up the process.
2. Run the buffer slowly. 800 RPM is a number I have seen on U-tube and seems to be about right. Too much speed seems to overheat the polish and can lead to glazing. On my Makita, 1.5 out of 8 (on the speed control) is 800 RPM.
3. This process is relatively slow and takes quite a long time per square foot to get a real mirror finish.
4. If you are planning to polish from the beginning, you can save yourself alot of time by avoiding unnecessary scatches. I left the blue film on, trimming off the areas for riveting. Turns out I wasn't careful enough in the trimming process and made a lot of fine scratches that are taking me hours to polish out.
Interesting other stuff I have figured out:
1. The rivets polish up really nicely if they are properly countersunk. Someone suggested that I use "tank dies" for the fuel tanks. They are slightly deeper dimpling dies. Turns out that these rivets are just a hair lower and don't seem to be polishing like the rest of the wing.
2. A few rivets got in with a slight angle. One side is very shiney. The other, still with the cadmium coating on it and not shiney at all. Makes each of these riveting errors much more obvious.
3. The first step in polishing is compounding with a buffer and a more aggressive grit. I have experimented with Nuvite G6, F7 and F9. The F9 gets the scratches resolved the most quickly but leaves the deepest swirl marks. F-7 is a little slower. I have found G6 to give the slowest results.
4. All the scratches and irregularities that you want to remove need to be done with coarse grit. C and S are great for swirls but don't do much at all for the scratches.
5. After the initial compounding, the next two steps are all about swirl removal. C on a buffer works pretty well. F-7 on a cyclo also works well, but probably not quite as nice a finish as C. Might be that I need to try more passes with the F7 and cyclo. You can also do the C with a cyclo and get good results.
6. It will look great after the C but spectacular after the S.
Any other words of wisdom my fellow polishers have devined?
Michael Wynn
RV 8 Polishing
San Ramon, CA
I am in the fascinating process of polishing my RV 8 prior to final assembly. I have watched a bunch of U-tube videos and read a lot of posts from people here, which have been very helpful. I thought it might be useful to start a thread on tips for polishing.
The standard concepts that still took me a long time to learn are:
1. Use a lot less polish than you would think you would need. Too much gums up the buffer bonnet prematurely and doesn't speed up the process.
2. Run the buffer slowly. 800 RPM is a number I have seen on U-tube and seems to be about right. Too much speed seems to overheat the polish and can lead to glazing. On my Makita, 1.5 out of 8 (on the speed control) is 800 RPM.
3. This process is relatively slow and takes quite a long time per square foot to get a real mirror finish.
4. If you are planning to polish from the beginning, you can save yourself alot of time by avoiding unnecessary scatches. I left the blue film on, trimming off the areas for riveting. Turns out I wasn't careful enough in the trimming process and made a lot of fine scratches that are taking me hours to polish out.
Interesting other stuff I have figured out:
1. The rivets polish up really nicely if they are properly countersunk. Someone suggested that I use "tank dies" for the fuel tanks. They are slightly deeper dimpling dies. Turns out that these rivets are just a hair lower and don't seem to be polishing like the rest of the wing.
2. A few rivets got in with a slight angle. One side is very shiney. The other, still with the cadmium coating on it and not shiney at all. Makes each of these riveting errors much more obvious.
3. The first step in polishing is compounding with a buffer and a more aggressive grit. I have experimented with Nuvite G6, F7 and F9. The F9 gets the scratches resolved the most quickly but leaves the deepest swirl marks. F-7 is a little slower. I have found G6 to give the slowest results.
4. All the scratches and irregularities that you want to remove need to be done with coarse grit. C and S are great for swirls but don't do much at all for the scratches.
5. After the initial compounding, the next two steps are all about swirl removal. C on a buffer works pretty well. F-7 on a cyclo also works well, but probably not quite as nice a finish as C. Might be that I need to try more passes with the F7 and cyclo. You can also do the C with a cyclo and get good results.
6. It will look great after the C but spectacular after the S.
Any other words of wisdom my fellow polishers have devined?
Michael Wynn
RV 8 Polishing
San Ramon, CA
