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how to never "polish it again! but keep it shiny

Antoine.S

Member
Hi, rubbing freinds! ; )

Learned saturday form a polished beech 18 owner, (big surface, no time to waste)
tryed on my fully polished RV, and adopted!
if you wash your shiny bird after almost every flight with some glass cleaner yes the "phhhitt... phhitt.." of your wife ; )
(the ones with alchool formula are better cause faster to evaporates)

simply put 2-3 soup spoon of your nushine grade S polish in the bottle,
then shake it hard...
you will got a sort of milk like liquid.

do as you do when you just clean your bird...
it leave now a very very ultra thin clear traces like when cleaning with a little dirty water, so it will take a second pass to wipe it off with a clean microfiber but.........


look your microfiber after doing one wing... yes it is slightly black.. and you know what it means my friends! polishing action!!!

X5 less effort (normal hand polishing with coton and axial method (see below)6-8h of labour, now with this "light polish every cleaning" method 2h and it shine like new!)
X5 less polish used for the same result (we always use to much polish with finger dots application in fact... now it can be "spray" as a ultra thin, uniform, quantity of it ! (economic!))

result 90% of a complete polishing look if you previously achieve a good grade S status.

so why continue polishing like mad/crasy every 3months with black hands, harms, face, rotating machine of every type, electrical cords in your foots, or over your shoulder falling non stop on wings etc...
if you can instead do it lightly every flight or every week without even noticing it? personally i've chose! ;)

last tip (mine): axial polishing/cleaning! stop swirling by polishing all the aircraft with rotation mouvment! Go with back and forth movement on the same axe for all the aircraft, the result is micro scars (you will always have them swirling or axial) on all the same axe so invisible or not eye catching like a big swirl in the middle of your wing.

Sorry for bad spelling etc i'm writhing it fast form my original french language just to give you the tip that is changing the way i see my polishing duty to a simple cleaning duty.

ENJOY! (but please use latex or vinyl gloves every time you are in contact with polishs, they are hard chemicals able to react with metals don't let them react with your skin blood etc (long term, repetitive use, concern))
 
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I'll have to try your method on my 6A Antoine. Haven't had any time for polishing in over six months and it shows. And, by the way, I wish I could write French as well as you write English. Bon soir. John
 
Glass cleaner

.. some glass cleaner yes the "phhhitt... phhitt.." of your wife ; )
(the ones with alchool formula are better cause faster to evaporates)

Salut Antoine, which brand of glass cleaner do you use? I'm always afraid of some unknown chemical in household cleaners that will negatively react with alu. Merci!
 
I like the idea but am concerned about the chemicals also. What about some known safe fast evaporating chemical mixed in a spray bottle? Maybe someone here would know what that is?
 
Make your own aluminum cleaner with half denatured alcohol half water and a few drops of dishwater soap. I too will try adding grade S. It's been two years for HulaGirl without anything more than a hand job. She has been feeling neglected, but I hate the power tools.
 
Make your own aluminum cleaner with half denatured alcohol half water and a few drops of dishwater soap. I too will try adding grade S. It's been two years for HulaGirl without anything more than a hand job. She has been feeling neglected, but I hate the power tools.

That sounds too good to be true!

Is the denatured alcohol safe on nearby paint?

Thanks.
John
 
Rainette!

hi freinds!

i use "rainette" glass cleaner since 3 years without any reproach to make on it

it is said on the bottle "ecological" & "with alcool"

here a link -> https://goo.gl/images/KasUZm

http://www.rainett.fr/gamme/nettoyants/rainett-pistolet-vitres-a-l-alcool.html

they said the components are:

AQUA
ALCOHOL
BUTOXYPROPANOL
MEK
SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE
COLORANT

About the nuvite mixed in it,
i think it is a god method to maintain a good polish aspect until you've reach a good level of polishing aspect.

i've try it the next day of having the plane sitting under a little rain during a part of the afternoon :mad: and the fly back to home that have dry it.

when cleaning it the normal way and as usual in these kind of exposure to rain, i was seeing little dots of uneven dull effect due to rain spots when whipping off my normal glass cleaner on wings, and here is why decide to give a try to the Beech 18 owner method..
few moments later i was pleased to see.. or rather NOT to see these littles dull dots any more :rolleyes:

jpowell13, believe it or not my english is fairly due to the fact of having a RV reading this forum & calling english company's about maintenance lycoming, blackston, nuvite etc.. and the fact that i love America and the english language : )
 
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Picture

Here it is after the cleaning with the method i've tried,
i think it look's quite like brand new polishing action was donne.
cleaning was a bit harder than usual with it, but worth the price i think ;)
(even if as you know polishing work will always look better in picture than in real)





last real hand polishing (axial) was 3 mouth ago,

bad isolation in this hangar so:

-during winter the plane is covered with painting plastic trapaulin with a liner made of tree antifrozing white flee lining (like paper/coton tissue) used normaly to avoid trees to froze, used here to avoid scratches from the plastic trapaulin and moisture to sit between plastic and aluminum.
everthing cut to size the airplane, a cover easy to made for a ridiculous price, tools need : tape, cisors, good thickness painting trapaulin, tree antifozing liner and voila! oh and a big surface to size and cut it on the floor.
(not a long therm cover mine is 2years old and the liner is cracked near every protruding angles of the plane (wing tips corner etc), ugly when on, but do the job to protect it from moisture

-after the colds night when spring is coming i switch to an old TAP parachute (domed) with the top fixed on the roof and the rest all over the aircraft like a tent to cover it from dust
 
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Here it is after the cleaning with the method i've tried,
i think it look's quite like brand new polishing action was donne.
cleaning was a bit harder than usual with it, but worth the price i think ;)
(even if as you know polishing work will always look better in picture than in real)





last real hand polishing (axial) was 3 mouth ago,

bad isolation in this hangar so:

-during winter the plane is covered with painting plastic trapaulin with a liner made of tree antifrozing white flee lining (like paper/coton tissue) used normaly to avoid trees to froze, used here to avoid scratches from the plastic trapaulin and moisture to sit between plastic and aluminum.
everthing cut to size the airplane, a cover easy to made for a ridiculous price, tools need : tape, cisors, good thickness painting trapaulin, tree antifozing liner and voila! oh and a big surface to size and cut it on the floor.
(not a long therm cover mine is 2years old and the liner is cracked near every protruding angles of the plane (wing tips corner etc), ugly when on, but do the job to protect it from moisture

-after the colds night when spring is coming i switch to an old TAP parachute (domed) with the top fixed on the roof and the rest all over the aircraft like a tent to cover it from dust

It looks great! So does that US flag in the background!!

John
USAF, retired
 
Cowl

Thanks for those details Antoine. Now you have to tell us about that cowl! Is it aluminum or just amazing paint?
 
This is the true stuff :)

Ahh this crawl is always a source of questions !
Yes it is real aluminium but still a standard fiber crawl X)
3 month of internet research to find a product that will give the real look that will dull like the rest of the plane.

Search "flite metal" on internet, you tube videos on how to apply etc.. it was desinved to cover big rc model aircraft and hold on over 600kph... assuming it is enouth for our birds lol
It can be compared to aluminium tape but thicker and amazingliy stronger aderance.
It was hard to put on cause conformable on only one axe... or accept only a verry few concave/covex deformation.
Most of my covering on the crawl is 3 yers old and have seen rain in flight sometimes, and sill there in better look that on day one, and even better aderance (tested on replacmenet of a little "pannel" due to a scratch)


Thank you for the positive comments a out the look of it, i work hard to give it the right look with precisely scaled details, historical research on typo for usaaf tail serial numbers, real wwii usaaf federal standard paint references. And over all trying to keep balance betwen evoquation of the p-51 or wwii warbird without going to far.
 
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Oh, good... For a minute there I was wondering if this new polishing method was so good that it would bring a chrome shine to fibreglass! :)
 
Polished Airplanes...

I love polished airplanes, but I recently sold my Globe Swift partly due to trying to keep it looking nice and bright. I'm much more pleased with the Imron paint on my RV-4.

Anyone looking for a Cyclo Polisher? :D
 
Ok, my plane is not an RV, forgive me, it's a polished Cessna 140. I gave up on everyone's shortcuts. I polish with Nuvite, clean it with mineral spirits. I've tried the Glass Plus and Perfect Polish that the Airstream crowd uses, but eventually decided that just polishing every three months works best for me. Nuvite even makes a product that is rumored to be watered down S, but I've never tried it.

Sometimes the plane doesn't look like it needs a polish until I get started, then the results motivate me to finish. Once your plane is polished, use a little F7 if you see any scratches, but mostly you'll only need S. It may take a weekend, but you'll get great results.

And for someone who said, look at your cloth when using one of the shortcut methods and you'll see it's black, so it's polishing... to me this just means you didn't get all of the polish off before. Polishing involves work. Don't look for too many shortcuts. Just enjoy the time where nobody will stop by your hangar and bother you!

26591126832_740773bd92_b.jpg
 
Jack... Nice 140. I notice it has fabric wings, which cuts down your polishing time significantly... :) I may still paint my wings yellow and keep the fuselage polished, as an homage to the old air force schemes used on Ryans. That would cut down the polishing time, and what's left would be a fuselage that's easier to reach than the bottoms of the wings...
 
Fly'n low-> what a nice aiplane and a wonderfull polishing job! congratulations!! like you since my method is a new try for me i will maybe keep polishing every three mounth or so..

just a little thing about the "black cloth=polishing action" my plane was completely (or near it) clean of polish residue cause like you i clean it with mineral spirit after several times after the polishing job.
since the cleaning period was achieve my cleaning cloth were just wet and bugs dirty but not black.
That's mostly why i presume that this method got a polishing action.

maybe give it a try?

it will be maybe harder to get fast result on your sublime cessna
(i was looking for one like this one with metal wings before buying my RV!)
cause the got "the real deal"->your aluminum sould be "T6" grade? our rv's are "T3"...

the T6 is harder to polish by nature cause the metal is "harder" but keep the deep shiny look longer.

the T3 is easyer to make shine (less action for the same result so why the method i propose "only wiping pshiit pshiit" lol ) but it won't last and it'll be scratched with a "nothing" : (
 
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I'll admit I'm not an expert, but I started with a shiny plane and have kept it that way. I'm now polishing a new plane and don't envy you guys who have built at all!

I recently had a guy with a Spartan tell me to try baking powder after a polish. You put it on your cloth and wipe it on the plane, and with a clean rag, you'll be surprised at how much polish you get off even after wiping with mineral spirits. I tried it, then decided it wasn't worth the effort for me! Nuvite also recommends spraying mineral spirits and using the orbital with a clean polishing cloth to go over it. I just can't see using extra cloths for that though!

Keep posting these tips! Until you find just the right mix for you, keep trying new methods. When you find what works, stick with it. The metal gets better every single time.
 
Nuvite also recommends spraying mineral spirits and using the orbital with a clean polishing cloth to go over it. I just can't see using extra cloths for that though!
I think Nuvite's entire business model is based on selling those cloths... :)
 
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