Polishing Your Airplane? Tell Us of All Your Procedures, Tricks, Tips and Photos

A few Zenith builders have chosen to polish their aircraft rather than paint (including me). Many have posted some photos along with some tips. These are very valuable to those that trying to decide whether to polish or not and to those that have just began to polish their airplane. It is difficult to find all the posts that include these procedures. Let's make this discussion thread all things polishing. If you find this thread and have already posted something relevant to polishing an aircraft else where, please copy your comments and photos and post them in this thread. If everyone brings their experiences here, it will be more valuable to those that follow later on. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Hoyt on April 12, 2018 at 10:29am

Here's what mine looked like after 2+ years without polishing.  I was suprised how well it held up.

Under the Dirt

Top Rear Skin

Tail

I used Nuvite F9, and then Nuvite C just on the areas I wanted to stand out.  Last time I polished it was when I lived in MN, and I've been living in TX for 2 years now...

- Pat

Permalink Reply by Gary Welch on April 12, 2018 at 3:50pm

I have been using the Nuvite system with the final polishing done with a cyclo polisher. 

Last weekend was the first time I had to leave my plane out in the rain. It hated the thought because it had a beautiful shine on it and I imagined the rain would water-spot the heck out of it. It ended up raining for two days. 

When I got out to the airport to look at the plane I was shocked. There wasn't a spot on it! No water marks or streaks at all. It looked exactly the same as before the rain, though it probably had a light coating of dust.

This really surprised me because I have heard a number of comments about rain causing water spotting on polished planes.

  

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