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Short Fuse

Member
I've been working on installing an inspection panel in the fuselage of my -8, and have scratched up the surface a little bit. This could potentially be a problem because we were going to go with a polished aluminum look. My question is just how deep can a scratch be before it cannot be polished out? What is the best way of going about polishing defects out of 2024-T3 alclad? Thanks.
 
Polishing

I used a cyclo polisher and two different grades of Nuvite. I polished some empennage surfaces that a previous builder had done.

On my surfaces, I was amazed at how much of a scratch I could get out. BUT... on other surfaces it just wouldn't cut it. The scratches were too deep.

You won't know until you try. Get some Nuvite and a rotary buffer and give it a try.
 
How do you know if you are buffing deep enough that you are actually removing the clad surface? I have heard that it is pretty much impossible to buff that much, that it basically just swirls the cladding around and re-destributes it, but I'm not sure I believe that. Any thoughts? Thanks for the info.
 
Don't worry about Nuvite taking down too much metal. Boeing did some tests and determined that you can't... Think you'll likely find those test results with Google (although I don't have time to look right now)
 
Remove or redistribute?

Short Fuse said:
How do you know if you are buffing deep enough that you are actually removing the clad surface? I have heard that it is pretty much impossible to buff that much, that it basically just swirls the cladding around and re-destributes it, but I'm not sure I believe that. Any thoughts? Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...

To my way of thinking, the fact that I could not remove a deep scratch tells me that you are redistributing the clad surface and not removing metal. I could diminish the deep scrathes but not remove them, no matter how long I polished.

How about all those antique airplanes that have been polished many, many times?
 
Perfect Polish

Hi,

I'm polishing my RV-8 using the Nuvite system. Some scratches come out completely, while the really deep ones just become less visible. For really deep scratches, use a rougher grade of polish with a compounding polisher, then compound with a finer grade and finish up with the Cyclo polisher. For the most information, go to the Nuvite website or to www.perfectpolish.com.

My biggest problem has been compounding the mill grain out of the metal for a really smooth finish.
 
Everytime the sun hits my unpainted wing and blinds me I wonder WHY anyone would want a polished plane ... :confused:

(Yeah, they're pretty darn cool-looking)
 
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