What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Polishing under the aircraft

Yes I've tried the purple polish. It brightens up the belly a bit when used by hand with the green oxidizer treatment. It's not a replacement for a full nuvite compounding and polish. I was using it for the bottom of my unpainted RV8 after trying to hold a buffer above my head... :)
 
If I were to do it again, I would have taken Jed Gregerson's advice and painted the underside of the plane.

HOWEVER....

At Oshkosh this year, a gentleman saw me land on 36L, and noticed how the underside lit up purple first and then lit up yellow as I passed over the dots. He finally made his way to homebuilt camping at which time he said, "I've been looking all over Oshkosh for this plane."

So, bottom line: If you want to spend hours polishing for a few minutes of delight at Oshkosh, polish away. :D

To answer your question: I've used both. I wouldn't use the purple polish anywhere without using the green stuff first. I don't know why, exactly, but it comes out better.

The underside, especially the wings, take a real licking where polish is concerned. Overflow from the fuel tanks runs down there. Occasionally a dribble from spraying leading edges when removing bugs gets down in there. Even smush from the wheels gets kicked up in there. so you get water spots and some corrosion.

So, once a year, you're going to want to compound it with NuVite.
 
It's all Bob's fault ...

After reading Bob's threads awhile back about polishing, I too got sucked into the polishing abyss. :) I'd always loved the look of a polished plane, and Bob's experience was just the incentive I needed. Here's a few of my observations after 15 months of polish experience:

- Nothing creates the mirror-like finish on aluminum like Nuvite, but Purple Polish (with the green oxydizer) gives a "decent" appearance for 1/30 the labor. If you've not seen the shine produced by the 3 step Nuvite process, you might be happy with Purple Polish.
- I've used the Purple Polish on some rough areas, and then followed it with Cyclo'ing using S and/or C Nuvite. It looks amazingly good.
- Regarding hours necessary for the Nuvite process, I've found it takes about 1 hr per sq ft (that's for the full 3-step Nuvite treatment). For underside areas or difficult-to-reach places it's more.
- Despite warnings from several who "had gone before", I was surprised by how much work it is even using power buffers. The buffers are heavy and/or require a lot of opposite torque, and - in a warm hangar in the summer - will make you sweat a blue streak.
- I agree that the underside is much better to paint. I will also paint a fair amount of the wing top side to reduce sun reflection. I've had afternoon flights where the reflection off the shiny wing virtually fried the side of my face.
 
Don't Polish the bottom

When I was buying my polishing kit from the Nuvite booth at Oshkosh, when I told him it was an RV, the Nuvite guy himself said "paint the bottom". I took his advice and am glad I did. It's all I can do to keep the tops-side polished.
 
It's a sickness... Every time I polish I am look over at the spray gun and think I could just end this madness. I use the Nuvite process, best to keep up with it rather than having to do a full compounding and polishing. The cyclo polisher works well but gets heavy after a couple days but you can polish the polisher when you are done with the airplane!

Fortunately my RV is painted but here is my other airplane.

image.jpg1_zpsfmv1rgn4.jpg
 
I notice that Perfect Polish is now carrying a brand I've not heard of before.

Has anyone tried it?

BTW, for some reason I was surprised at the show special NuVite had on polish -- I think it was $45. For some reason I remember it being $35 or so not long ago. Am I dreaming?
 
I suppose. I wouldn't ever recommend clear coating over polish.

I should add that one thing you can do to save a few bucks if you polish under the fuse/wings is go ahead and wash those old fleece blankets (if you have a good washer and soak them in TSP for a couple of days ahead of time) and use those with the cyclo machine and the Grade S polish.
 
You could easily wrap the bottom of the wings if you wanted. It would take no more than a day or weekend once you get going. Its relatively cheap. Even the tools are cheap: felt covered squeege, good pair of scissors, and a nice fat thumb which most people already have a couple. My plane is still unpainted, but i have been slowly wrapping for the past year now.

Just a warning, once you start covering parts of something, you are going to want to do the whole thing. ;) It's just too easy not to. I started off just wanting to get rid of the glare in my face from the wings. Didnt take long before i did the entire wing and tail feathers now completely covered.

One day down the road, when/if i want to paint, I take it off to reveal clean shiny just polished Al.
 
Last edited:
I had several test pieces on the airplane for a full year before i did bigger jobs. One piece, i had on for 2 years. It was a piece i took out of the trash can, didnt clean the Al surface, heated it up to take the wrinkles out of it and smacked it on the leading edge of the HS.

2 years later, i took it off to wrap the entire HS. The Al beneath was perfect. Exactly as i left it, slightly polished with Grade C or S Nuvite, probably. It had flown in 0 F temps up to 100F+ temps easily during that time. You can easily tell the Al was in much better shape than the exposed parts around it.

You may be right in year 10 or prob more closer to year 20 or 30, but i am sure it will get replaced before then anyway. ;)
 
My guess is the wrap alone would cost roughly about $200 to $300 or so. I believe my vinyl material cost was around $400 to $500 for the -10 wings to cover completely. As with anything, you must use the quality vinyl for best results. You will probably break even with Nuvite cost in a couple of years?

http://www.metrorestyling.com/3M-1080-G251-Gloss-Sterling-Silver-Vinyl-Wrap-p/gloss1080g251.htm

I chose to use the above from MetroRestyling. The Sterling Silver or Grey kind of blends nicely with the bare Al silver. Most people have no idea what was done in reality, unless you are a builder. I notice that there are some new options i havent seen before. I spoke with Tom who helped me CNC scribe the sheets for easier handling. They can basically do anything you want, it seemed.

You can order 3" x 5" sample sheets from them for the HUGE cost of $1. :D Order a few samples and slap them on. Once you play with it, you will realize how little concern there is of ever coming off or water issues or any number of other concerns people pull out of thin air.
 
That's really interesting. I saw a couple of P-51s at Oshkosh taxiing by that simply blew me away; they were so beautiful.

When I tracked them down later to inspect the polish job (mine's better :D), I noticed that the wings are painted silver, not polished.

The "bounce" they get from the beauty of the polish on the fuse makes it easy for the eye to ignore the paint.
 
I ordered some samples from Metrorestyling to see their product and how the vinyl looks. Did you install the vinyl yourself? How did you know the installation process or did you just figure it out.

Having never installed vinyl wrap I am concerned how it will look after my installation.

Thanks
 
I find the idea of a polish-with-vinyl-wrap-accents really interesting. My only concern for doing the vinyl wrap myself would be the heavily curved and contoured surfaces ... I.e. Avoiding wrinkles. Any comments or advice about that?
Aside: I see that Metrorestyling has a link to an outfit (near them in the Detroit 'burbs) that offers a two-day school in vinyl wrap application. That might be worthwhile .... Depending.
 
Absolutely, i did it myself. Would you ask someone to saran wrap your leftovers tonight?! Just kidding!

That was the main reason for doing it. It was something i could do on my own, even solo, on my own schedule, piece by piece, part by part over a 2 year span now. Airplane was flyable 99% of the time. I do things fairly slowly but methodically. You can do a part-time, stop and go, wrap project. You cannot do a part-time, stop and go, paint project. With paint, you are on the paint's schedule, if you want it to look good. Heaven forbid, one of many things goes wrong.

I did not do any fiberglass parts. All the parts I did were the simplest, symmetric, and flat parts: entire wing, HS, elevator, and rudder. I only mentioned this because someone asked about doing the bottom of the wing to prevent the need to do back-breaking work to polish. This was the VERY reason i started experimenting. I was tired of polishing. Especially, parts that are difficult to do and get the highest wear like leading edges, etc.

The pro guys are out there who are good at doing curvy parts, designs, and even pattern matching. None of those i know how to do, yet. I just stuck to something fairly simple to help preserve and protect the nice Al. In fact, i may just paint some of the fiberglass parts and curvy parts, instead. Still thinking about it.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top