Cleaning/maintaining a non-painted aluminum airframe

Flocker

Flocker

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Any recommendations? I have a friend who just purchased a C-150 that is mostly bare aluminum. It needs some work. Any product/maintenance suggestions?
 
IMHO Paint it - seems like an awful lot of work.

Would a vinyl wrap protect the surface instead? Might be less than painting, but of course not last as long.
 
WDD said:
IMHO Paint it - seems like an awful lot of work.

Would a vinyl wrap protect the surface instead? Might be less than painting, but of course not last as long.
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I bet you can't wrap a Cessna 150. I'll bet it goes against a reg somewhere. I agree, I'd rather punch holes in my eyelid than maintain an unpainted airplane. I think the folks who do have an inordinate fondness for polishing.
 
some aircraft simply don't look right painted
 

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It costs me $400 every 6-8 months to my airplane (no cars, thank you) detailer, who polishes by hand. Not a mirror finish, but SOOOO worth it.
 
I used to polish a Cessna 140 when I was in college with Met-Al. And then when the rag got black put some fine ground flour on a new rag and it cleaned it right up.
 
I had a polished airplane before this one. Used Nuvite products. It was a wise old Luscombe pilot that told me, "Everyone should own a polished airplane ... once!"
 
I’ve got a Luscombe which is one of the candidates that may have some justification for polishing. To start from scratch it’s a lot of work but after the compounding is done it’s not so much. You need Nuvite S-grade and the Cyclo brand dual head polisher. The Luscombe fuselage is almost all curved which is much easier to polish for some reason, flat areas are more work. A C150 would probably be harder and less satisfying. A better alternative would be paint with polished highlights rather than painted stripes.
 
You will need to establish a good polish first by going through the grits and either paying someone for an insane amount of billable hours or you will need to take a few weeks off from work and away from your family to polish it. After you have a good “base” it is easily maintained with Blue Magic but will still probably take 10-20 man hours per session just to keep up with it as often as you like. I had a plane once with a bare fuse and tail. It has a great base polish and I only ever used blue manic once. Giant PITA and waste of time that could have been spent flying or any other number of other more useful things. I hate even just maintaining a polished propeller, but then again I like to fly my plane, not fiddle with it.

get that bird painted.
 
Funny I should see this thread. I just reason a piece written by a guy who maintains a polished Spartan Executive. He said black stuff collects next tooth rivets and makes the airplane less shiny. He got rid of all of it. Only took 800 hours. Just to do the rivets.

I'll take paint for $1000, Alex.
 
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