The Great Polish OFF

Anxious to try out the polishes, I set out for Creswell.  On the way I picked up a few polishing aids, thin red rags, micro-fiber towels etc.

I picked a small area on the leading edge to test out the two polishes.  This area has a dime sized rough black spot which will be a good indicator of how well the polishes are going to work.  There are a variety of small spots like this on the wing, showing slightly heavier oxidation, and in my opinion are in areas where the blue cover was in contact with the wing.  I am not too keen on such covers, as I feel instead of protecting, they tend to trap moisture and promote corrosion.

Before polishing my spot, I washed the test area with water, and then with the Nuvite Dry Wash.

First the Gord's.  Instructions say to shake it very well, which I did.  There is apparently a penny on the inside of the bottle to help the mixing.  I thought I would try it first with a thin red shop rag, as this was recommended by the manufacturer. Polish, polish, polish.....here comes the usual black residue, indicating the polish is working.  Even though it seems to be polishing well in general, it is not having much effect on the black spot.  So next I tried a piece of synthetic 0000 steel wool.(looks like a scouring pad)  Polish, polish, polish, .....that spot, although slightly smoother, is still not going away.

Next step try the Metal Gloss.  Applied with the red rag, polish, polish, polish, ....again no real effect on the spot.

Initial conclusions.  The Gord's, although it seems to work well enough for general oxidation, is not going to be strong enough for some areas of the wing.  Furthermore, the Gord's is very thin, and it is drippy.  This makes it fairly impractical for polishing any where except the upper surfaces.

The Metal Gloss has more appeal as it is more of a paste, with good enough viscosity to be able to apply on most any of the wing surfaces.  In addition it seems to really polish to a mirror finish, as evidenced by the results I achieved on my little test area.

So...between the two, I will probably only be re-ordering the Metal Gloss.

I am however still stuck with having to explore other polishes.  These two will finish well enough, but I need something with a little more teeth for the heavier oxidized areas of the wing.  I am going to go back to either the Rolite or Nuvite Brands, and get several grades of polish to experiment with.

Somewhat slow and frustrating, but this is how we learn.

So much Polish and so little Time

Getting back to clean up.  The A-10 has a very large wing.  The specs show a 34' wing span with 156 sq ft.
of aluminum....yikes!  That is a lot of area to polish.

Cleaning and washing will be one job....but polishing will be quite another.

First of all there are a ton of aluminum polishes on the market.  Names like Rolite, Nuvite, Met-All, Fitz just to name a few.  And everyone has a opinion on the best way to polish aluminum.

Polishes by definition, different than waxes, work by removing varying degrees of metal.  Each brand of polish, contains varying amounts of abrasives.  Even within the same brand, a variety of polishes may be offered for anything from very aggressive oxidation removal, with course abrasives, to the final mirror polishing stage, with only very fine abrasives.

The A-10 has very thin aluminum skins, so I want to be able to clean and remove the light to medium oxidation, while removing the minimum of material.

Of course everyone markets their polish as the best, and none of them are exactly cheap.  So how does one choose?

Even after you have chosen a polish, then you need to decide if you are going to do the job by hand, or involve machinery.  Hand polishing is slow and tedious when you are dealing with a lot of surface area.  Machinery will definitely cut down the time.....but the downside is that you can do a lot of damage in a short period time if you are not careful.

Decisions, decisions.

I decided to order two different polishes in small quantities that I have heard good things about.  The first one is "Gord's" Aluminum Polish, the second is "Metal Gloss".  Gord's is a soap based polish that is supposed to be 15 times less abrasive than most polishes on the market.  Metal Gloss is also marketed as very safe for aluminum, chrome etc., and has a good following in the show bike community.

From what I have read, the Gord's will be good for areas that are a little more oxidized and stubborn....while the Metal Gloss will be for areas in better condition and for finishing.  I will test each on very small areas to see how well they work.

In addition to the polishes I also ordered Metal Gloss Sealer (for sealing after polishing) and Nuvite Dry Wash for cleaning small areas without water.

I initially intend to proceed by hand.....we will have to see how far I get.