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.