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.